USAF Pacific Lifeline 2008

Here's another post for the "catch up" folder I guess.  This one was made several years ago & long before the thought of a personal blog ever crossed my mind.

The subject matter is self-explanatory.  My role was one of local support for the military civil engineering team that came in advance of the exercise and set up the camp.  This was a real world training exercise to prepare team members for the day they will be called upon to provide humanitarian support and relief following some crisis, either natural or man made.

Sorry it's so late, but Enjoy!  (Best quality at 720p if your connection can handle it.)

As a post script I'll say also that I haven't quite figured out the YouTube video thing yet or specifically how to get a good cover thumbnail for a vid.  So if anyone reading this has a heads up tip for me on that I'm all ears. 

Teaser

F-16 Falcon practice run  (1/1500s f/5.6 at 300mm iso200)

This is a teaser for part of what will be happening here this weekend.  As I left the airport this afternoon for a dental appointment one of the F-16's screamed overhead on a practice run for this weekend's entertainment.  Watching him rip holes in the sky one couldn't help thinking how many "G's" the guy was pulling at times.  Here he is making a high-g horizontal turn after dropping out of a loop. 

This is a 100% crop of the disrupted airflow over his wings.  After seeing this I decided to endure the pain of hauling a 400mm lens around tomorrow just in case they get the green light to push mach 1 and an opportunity to snatch a Prandtl–Glauert singularity shot comes along.  One can always hope...  Actually, the condensation cloud seen here is related to the same phenomenon.

For more information on times, events, prices, and all the rest, go to the Hawaii Airshow Invitational website.

See you there this weekend!

Roadside Repairs

So, you're far away from home and you blow an engine on landing. What do you do? If you're a C-17 Globemaster III it's no problem... you just load up another bird with a spare engine, lifting racks, auxiliary units, tech crew and tools and you go out into the field with a new blower in shrink wrap and swap the bad unit out.  No biggie.

That's what's happening at KOA this week. And it's just another day on the job for the guys (& gals) who get most of their work done before many of us wake up each morning.