I went to Wings Over Houston a few weeks ago, took a tons of photos. I thought most the shot came out good but man was I wrong! The results keep reminding me that I need a much much better zoom lens(thinking "L" lens). Note to self, the small 2.5inch LCD on the DSLR is good to preview the composition but I must zoom in to check focus and motion blur, I forgot that most of the time, ahhhh!
Anyway, we're going to San Francisco tomorrow and Las Vegas next week to meet and tour with my mom, yes, my mom is visiting, very very excited! Hopefully I can get more presentable shot in SF and LV.
This is the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the first fighter jet I fell in love with and my favorite jet of all time. There's just something about the lines of this plane, it's just so dynamic and slick.
The tail of the same F-16. These blade will expand out during afterburner mode. The sound of afterburner is just music to my ears. The F-16 has a few nicknames, the most popular two are "Viper" & "Electric Jet". This is the US Navy & Marines F-16. I believe this particular jet belong to the Adversary Squadron in the Top Gun school in Nevada, hence the dessert paint scheme.
The Thunderbird - Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron, comprised of 6 F-16C Fighting Falcon jet. They put up an awesome show for all the spectators that day.
The pilots of this squadron is the elite, the best of the best in the US Air Force. Very cool and good looking people too.
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Continued from Sugar Land Airport Open House.
Hellfire missile, AGM-114. This is the training version so I'm guessing it only have the targeting system for practice. The real thing has a fire-and-forget semi active laser guidance system, a very good anti-tank weapon. See me in the reflection of the guidance eye?
The T-38 Talon's burners from and angle. These are turbojet engines with afterburners built by General Electric. One of these engines could produce up to 2900lb of thrust with afterburners, pretty impressive.
I have no idea what engine this is and which plane does it belong to. I thought it looks cool, took the shot and forgot to document it, ha!
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Can you believe a city as small as Sugar Land has an airport? Though it's mostly chartered and training flights, still it's a very busy airport - I have observed a few business jet and helicopter taking off and land during the 2 hours I was there.
Anyway, Sugar Land Airport has an open house last Saturday as a community event. And of course I need to go since there's jets and planes. Beside I can practice my photography skills with aircraft before I go to the Wings Over Houston Airshow the following weekend.
The magnificent Apache, AH-64! My favorite attack helicopter. One of the most lethal air attack weapon of the US Army.
The Apache has a lot of defense mechanism. The engines has exhaust diffusers to reduce heat signature so heat seeking missile has a hard time to lock on. Then there's that shiny thing under the main rotor, a infra-red jamming device, used to confuse heat seeking missile.
Hydra Rocket Launcher. A major ordinance of the Apache. When it's loaded, it carried 19 rockets on each side of the Apache.
Engine exhausts of the T-38 Talon. The Talon is a jet trainer for the USAF and NASA. These twin-engines are capable of pushing the Talon into supersonic speed.
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