Flying!

For a long time I wanted to get invited to fly. After years, luck had it I met somebody with a plane who invited me to fly and shoot. A biplane no less!

I jumped at the idea. He has a Great Lakes, open cockpit biplane, so no dirty windows to contend with. He emailed me this week saying there was a fly-in at Homestead Jet Port (X51) and would I like to fly with him? You can guess the immediate answer. He keeps the plane at Tamiami (KTMB), only 11 miles from X51, a short flight.

1.


Not having flown in a small plane with cameras before I was unsure of what to take. Wanted to have only one camera/lens as it would be inconvenient to carry more than that and minimize weight in a biplane. I settled for the D700/24-70mm. It turned out to be a good choice for statics as I expected but not a great choice for aerials.

2.


I did not know at the time but a friend of his was meeting us there. He has a Super Cub. My most-favorite plane of all time is a J3 Piper Cub and a Super-Cub, its descendant - by extension. I had never seen one in real life before (outside of a museum that is)! This day I got to see a few of them (two J-3s in a hangar and my new friend's Super Cub) which I got to fly in!

3.


It was a beautiful Florida day, just a little windy (15kts but luckily on the runway heading).

We arrived at Homestead at noon.

4.


Spent the day there with the people that flew in, having hot-dogs and talking aviation.

Then my friend says he would like to have some aerial photos of his plane. I would ride in the Super Cub, which can open the windows (we would be at 1,000ft) and shoot unimpeded.

5.


We planned the flight. We would fly over the bay to have better backgrounds. I could not get closeups with the 24-70 as we could not fly too close together. We decided to try anyway and some other time I'll bring a longer lens.

I did not do as good as I'd liked on the aerials as I purposely used slow shutter speed to get prop-blur but did not account for the strong wind and my aircraft movement. I should been a tad faster. Most shots at 1/200 are not crisp. Some at 1/320 are better. They are shot at 1,000ft, doing 90mph. Wish I had a longer lens with me. Maybe next time.

Here are some of them:

6.


7. over Key Biscayne


8. over Stiltsville


9. over Stiltsville


I definitely had a great day!