Fat Albert took off and did two passes of the airfield before departing for
New Orleans. I'm glad the haze burned off in time to get some pics.

"Pensacola Beachcomber" > wrote in
message ...
> Fat Albert took off and did two passes of the airfield before departing
for
> New Orleans. I'm glad the haze burned off in time to get some pics.

Beautiful! Does Fat Albert still do the JATO takeoffs?

Fat Albert still does the JATO takeoffs but I'm not sure when. I have been
told by people at the Naval Air Station that the supply of the JSTO bottles
is dwindling. They have promised to set aside enough bottles for the Friday
Night show at the Blue Angel Homecoming Airshows for the next four years.
After that they don't gurantee being able to do it. If the Department of
Defense has not contracted to have new JATO bottles made that tells me we
have some other way of getting heavy aircraft into the air on short runways.
It might be a secret that is being well kept. Do the newer model C-130's
even have the mounts for the JATO bottles? Makes me wonder. It seems that
someone could get a contract to make some new JATO bottles. Around here we
know that one cool Friday evening in November each year we will be treated
to a night airshow. The stellar performer is Fat Albert.

Another shot from today is attached. I wanted to get shots with the
propeller tips showing the colors with the blur of the props inside the
arcs. I shot at 1/160th of a second and hoped to get the fuselage crisp and
clear. The ISO was 100 and my camera decided to go to f13. I think there
is a better setup but only through trial and error will I find it. Most of
the aircraft here with propellers are the T-6 III Texans (Pilatus in Navy
paint scheme) and they have a solid color prop. It's not as colorful but
still nice to see that whirling disc instead of a frozen prop pulling the
aircraft along. Then there is the problem of helos.....to not have the
blades frozen and still have the aircraft in sharp definition. Makes me
think a lot of people are using video and then culling still images for
display. That's no fair, Tom






"Alan Erskine" > wrote in message
...
> "Pensacola Beachcomber" > wrote
> in
> message ...
>> Fat Albert took off and did two passes of the airfield before departing
> for
>> New Orleans. I'm glad the haze burned off in time to get some pics.
>
> Beautiful! Does Fat Albert still do the JATO takeoffs?
>
>