June 9-10 - Rancho Cordova (Sacramento), CA California Capital Airshow 2007 Mather Field's new airshow (last year was the first one) is really really great, one small notch below the airshows done at Edwards, Nellis, Oceana, and Miramar. More fighter jets than you can shake a stick at: F-15E demo (with pyrotechnics!), F-22 demo, F/A-18 demo, the USAF Thunderbirds in their six F-16s, and fly-bys of two T-38s from Beale. Beale also sent over a KC-135 to do some passes, and a U-2!!! I see a U-2 fly once or twice a year. And a B-2 did some fly-bys as well; I hadn't seen one fly in about 20 months, so I was really excited to see the huge flying wing go by. The show also featured some great aerobatics, a C-17 demo, wing-walking, skydiving/parachuting, a Blackhawk rescue demo, Otto the Clown Helicopter (make fun of it if you will, but that demo includes some amazing flying)... The static display was also huge, with Fed Ex, UPS, and DHL bringing 5 big cargo jets between them, Travis AFB sending over a C-5 and C-17 military cargo haulers and a KC-10 refueler, Beale having a KC-135 and a T-38 and a U-2 on static in addition to the ones that flew, the Marines sending an F-5 aggressor (awesome camouflage!) and a couple Cobra attack helicopters, the Army sending several helicopters as well (Huey, Kiowa, Chinook, Blackhawk), the Coast Guard contributing a Hercules, the USAF sending in a cool F-16 and a T-37, the Navy offering a T-45, and many private owners bringing Yaks, Stearmans, Trojans, Texans, and some rare trainers like a BT-13 and a Ryan. An amazing airshow. I can't believe I missed last year's!

May 30 - Yuma, AZ MCAS Yuma Photoshoot For the first time, I was offered the opportunity to go photograph military aircraft "in the wild", i.e. during missions and operations (as opposed to at an airshow, which in this analogy I guess would be equivalent to going to the zoo). The Marines there were hosting and organizing a fairly large military exercise. The base had its regular complement of dozens of Harriers, ten or twelve F-5s, and a few Hueys. Nine CH-46s, ten Ospreys, and several MH-53s were there to participate in the exercise as well. Four F/A-18s, an F-16, and even an Antonov-124 also passed by! It was a great day despite the desert heat (I literally drank 5 or 6 liters of water over the course of the day), and I wish to express my sincere thanks to the Public Affairs folks at Yuma who were so informative, and tolerant, and also good at figuring out what makes for good photo ops. Thanks also to Roger Kemp and Richard Van Der Meulen for setting up this base visit. I'll never forget it!

May 26-27 - Jones Beach State Park (Long Island), NY New York Airshow 2007 Ah, Memorial Day, a perfect opportunity to go visit the parents in New York. And oh, look, what a coincidence, this is also when New York has its airshow, at the lovely Jones Beach State Park. The airshow is not so great for photography, as the sky is pretty hazy over the Atlantic, and the airplanes fly pretty much right in front of the sun. Despite this, I had an extremely enjoyable day with my dad at Jones Beach, enjoying the power, agility, and skill behind the diverse aerial demos. The six different aerobatic pilots might have been a little too much of that, but the A-10 demo, F-86 Heritage Flight, SuperHornet demo, B-1 passes, L-39 aerobatics, and of course the amazing USAF Thunderbirds, added plenty of jet noise to the show. "Warbirds over Long Island", the Yankee Air Museum, and the American AirPower Museum, flew many of their warbirds at the show, including the very last Lancaster bomber still flying, one of the last B-17 bombers, and the B-25 bomber used by (someone famous. FDR? Gen. Hap Arnold? Dwight D. Eisenhower? One of them, I forget who) as a personal transport, one of the only bombers ever made with windows and seats, and one of the very first B-25s ever made (before they reduced the dihedral angle of the outboard wing sections, i.e. no gull wing yet on this one). On top of that, the US Army and US Navy parachute teams did their demos, the Skytypers did some amazingly graceful and coordinated flying in their Texans, and a local Air National Guard search-and-rescue unit simulated a rescue and a mid-air refueling using a Blackhawk helicopter and a KC-130. A diverse airshow in a setting that's hard to beat.

May 19-20 - Chino, CA 2007 "Planes of Fame" airshow This was my fourth year coming to Chino's airshow, and every year they manage to out-do themselves in the variety of extremely rare warbirds they put in the air. This year's airshow featured the F/A-18C and F-15E demos, as well as three P-38 lightnings (of the 4 still flying), two Zeros (of the 3 still flying), a razorback P-47 (last one still flying), a P-47D, three B-25s, a B-17, an F3F, a couple of Wildcats, a couple of Hellcats, a Bearcat, a Firecat, a Corsair, a Douglas Dauntless, a Grumman Avenger, an F-86, a MiG-17, a P-80, a Sea Fury, a Spitfire, a Hurricane, a Skyraider, a T-28, a Huey, two L-19s, about six P-51s... as well as some wingwalking on a Stearman, high-power aerobatics on a Zlin, and probably some more stuff I'm forgetting. Chino is home to pretty much the largest collection in the world of airworthy vintage warbirds, and I consider myself extremely lucky to get to see them all be flown, even if it's just once per year.

April 18-21, 2007 - Enseada de Botafogo, RJ Red Bull Air Race, Rio de Janeiro (click here for full review) Clique aqui para ler em português sobre a etapa brasileira da Red Bull Air Race, no Rio!!! No, I did not actually go to this airshow, and no, I did not take these pictures. (However, these pictures were made available by Red Bull to news websites and periodicals so as to promote this air race, and they were widely used on all kinds of blogs and sites and newspapers in Brazil, so I am confident that I am not infringing copyright: If anything, I am helping Red Bull with the purpose they had in mind when they paid for these pictures to be taken). So why am I writing about this airshow on my website? Because I have not been as excited about an airshow - about any event, really - for years. Many times since I was a little kid, I have dreamed (literally, at night in my sleep) about an airshow taking place with the buildings and mountains and beaches of Rio as a backdrop - I still often do. Like anyone else from Rio, I am convinced that my hometown is just about the most beautiful city in the world, thus making this the most photogenic airshow in history. The adrenaline jolt I feel when I see these pictures is comparable to how I felt the first time I went to an airshow, the first time I saw an F-117, the first time I saw an F-22, the first time I saw a B-2, or the first time I drove into Edwards AFB. You have no idea how awesome it is for me to see, literally, my dream come true: the hills and buildings and beaches of my beautiful hometown as the backdrop for aerial demonstrations... and it just breaks my heart that I can't be there. I am almost losing sleep due to my excitement about them actually holding an airshow over the waters of Rio, plus my frustration that I don't get to see it with my own eyes (or shoot it with my own camera). But oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait till next year. Until then, here are some pictures of the Rio de Janeiro 2007 Red Bull Air Race, taken by the Red Bull as publicity shots, or taken by my friends who sent them to me to post online for them. Given their backdrop, I feel condifent in saying they are among the most beautiful airshow pictures ever taken.

March 31 & April 1 - Point Mugu, CA Naval Base Ventura County airshow 2007 (click here for full review) The NBVC Pt Mugu airshow is one of the best military airshows in Southern California. The marine layer constantly threatens to reduce visibility below acceptable levels, and different factors have caused the airshow to be cancelled altogether a couple times in recent years... but when they do fly, it's terrific. Lots of military aircraft tearing the air apart, and the exceptionally high humidity (the ocean is just beyond the end of the runway) means that the water vapor in the air condenses at the slightest drop in pressure: over wings and canopies and LERXs, inside wingtip / rotor-tip / prop-tip vortices, and around air intakes and wings and fuselages of trans-sonic aircraft. This airshow is a dream come true for photographers and for aerodynamicists! The 2007 airshow featured not only the USAF Thunderbirds, but also one of the first tac demos flown by the USAF F-22 airshow demo team, consisting of six passes that really show off the jet's unique manouvering capabilities, such as being able to hover by pointing its nose straight up in the air. In addition, this airshow was the last airshow in California to feature the F-117 Stealth; It is being retired next year, and will only be flown at a handful of airshows this year. The airshow also featured the Rich Perkins' "Firecat" L-39 and a wall of fire, plus three aerobats, the A-10 and F-15E demo (and a heritage flight with the F-22 and a P-51), C-130 fly-bys, and an unexpected landing of a C-17.

March 31 - Riverside, CA Riverside airshow 2007 Riverside is a terrific little airshow. I only say "little" because it takes place in a small airport - the flying is loud, diverse, and intense. Most spectacularly, this airshow featured a full C-17 demo - that huge airplane can take off and land in very little room, but it kicks up a lot of dust when it does! Also featured were manouvers in several military jets: F-16s, an F/A-18C, an F-117, an A-10, a KC-135, and four L-29s. The show also included a few small aerobatic airplanes, lots of warbirds (Wildcat, Corsair, P-51, Beech 18, three T-34s in formation, four T-6s in formation, John Cullver's SNJ, and one of the last three Mitsubishi Zeros still flying), a police chase (including helicopter, police car, and K9 unit), wingwalking, five Vans RVs in formation, skydiving/parachuting... And then lots of cool departures at the end, including a C-46, an Antonov-2, a Winjeel... lots of really rare stuff (and yeah, I had to look up what a Winjeel is). This airshow may be small in physical size but the line-up is really hard to beat! Add that to the perfect lighting and the fact you can get REALLY close to the runway, and you can see why this airshow is a photographer's dream! (Well, except for when the C-17 took off and kicked up a huge cloud of dust on top of our equipment...)

March 10 - El Centro, CA NAF El Centro airshow 2007 (click here for full review) El centro is always a good airshow with a variety of acts. The Blue Angels, who practice there over the winter, always draw big crowds, which in turn draw many of the best aerobatic performers. This show also featured the USAF F-16 demo, a Heritage Flight with a P-38, a really cool two-MiG act, the Red Bull helicopter doing loops and rolls, two individual T-6 flights, high-powered areobatics, an L-29 formation team that did rolls and formation fly-bys, Dan Buchana's hang-glider act, and of course the Blues. A great airshow.

February 24 - Yuma, AZ MCAS Yuma Airshow 2007 (click here for full review) Yuma is a pretty small airshow, not attracting huge crowds, but that's because it's in the middle of nowhere. Right between San Diego and Phoenix, the area is home primarily to migratory retired folks who like to spend the winter someplace warm. But the show is great, featuring the AWESOME Harrier demo, and this year they had the F/A-18 demo and A-10 demos as well (previous years also featured the F-15 and F-16 demos), and several passes by a four-ship F-5 formation featuring aggressors in really cool cammo schemes. The show also featured Yak (Nanchang CJ-6) formations and aerobatics, about 6 high-powered aerobatics acts (flown in a Zlin, a Sukhoi-29, and three individual Pittses), T-6 aerobatics, and a Huey helicopter rescue - all of which are part of the line-up every year. Which is not a bad thing. They're great acts. In the middle of the winter, and three months since the last airshow, Yuma is a great, great way to relieve those airshow withdrawl symptoms!

November 10-12 - Las Vegas, NV Nellis Aviation Nation 2006 Nellis is the biggest airshow put on by the US Air Force. It features nearly every military aircraft in service - and is the only airshow where they will fly UAVs (such as the Predator, with Hellfire missiles under the wings and everything) in front of the public. The airshow features many foreign aircraft, many warbirds, helicopters doing loops and rolls, MiGs, the best aerobats in the United States, and the USAF Thunderbirds. It is one of only two or three places where you can catch an F-22 demo every year, and this year it was the first time the Air Force demo'ed its new V-22 Osprey to the crowd. Along with Miramar, Nellis is one of the three or four biggest military airshows in the US.

October 28-29 - Mojave, CA Edwards Airshow & Open House 2006 Edwards is my favorite airshow. I literally DREAM about this airshow all year long. To anyone who, like me, enjoys learning about the development of aviation tachnology over the decades (and towards the future), going to Edwards is like going to Disneyland. Just getting to stand under that historic airspace where so many records were broken, where so many airplane design concepts today taken for granted were first tried... Getting to park on the very dry lake bed that welcomed the X-1, X-15, lifting bodies, and other experimental aircraft back to earth... Not only that, but the airshow itself is fantastic, featuring many aircraft you won't see anywhere else, as well as many really cool jet fighters that one does see at many airshows - although not usually all at once. And at the end of the airshow, almost every aircraft featured makes a pass in one giant formation of about 15 jets. No other airshow ends this way - or begins with a sonic boom. Edwards is really, really special.

October 14-15 - San Diego, CA Miramar Airshow 2006 This was my first time to Miramar. Now I see why this airshow gets all the hype it does. It featured the first West-coast flying display of the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, as well as the Harrier, F-16, and Super Hornet tactical demos, the Patriots flying their four L-39 jets, and of course the Blue Angels at the end. The MAGTF demo (a simulated battle) was amazing, with ten helicopters in the air at the same time (Cobras, Hueys, Sea Knights, and H-53s), a Harrier and a Hornet doing simulated bomb drops (with pyrotechnics), tanks, dozens of Marines, mid-air refueling of two H-53s by a Herc, an H-53 delivering a Howitzer... The airshow also had Sean Tucker, hang-glider and sailplane and T-6 aerobatics, wing-walking, a MiG-17 demo, and a guy who can land his Piper Cub on top of a van as it speeds down the runway. I don't think I've ever been to an airshow with so many spectators (except maybe Jones Beach (NYC) and Oshkosh). Definitely one of the top airshows in the US. And the humidity caused vortices, sonic shock cones, and wing lift, all to be easily visible as water condensed arount the fast jets, which makes the airshow quite a bit more enjoyable to aerospace engineers such as myself (and to everyone else, too).

October 6-8 - San Francisco, CA San Francisco Fleet Week 2006 A relatively short airshow with few acts, but those acts are some of the most exciting and fun in the airshow industry (Blue Angels, Sean Tucker, Red Bull Air Races, F-22, and others), and the beautiful setting just can't be beat.

September 31 & October 1 - Salinas, CA 2006 California International Airshow The cloudy weather was not very photogenic, but the flying was intense, diverse, exciting, and continuous. Featured acts were the F-15 demo, F-16 demo, SuperHornet demo, Harrier demo, and the Patriot jet formation team flying their L-39s. There were also lots of warbirds, Sean Tucker, and Kent Pietsch, among others, including the very last USAF T-6A Texan 2 demo. And those bleachers sure offer a great view.

August 18-20 - Santa Rosa (Sonoma County), CA Pacific Coast Air Museum "Wings Over Wine Country" 2006 This is one of my favorite airshows, with a wide variety of numerous great acts, always some unique photo opportunities (like flying in a C-17, taking aerial pictures from a TriPacer, and holding the poles for Eddie Andreini), and some of the nicest folks in the airshow industry. This year's show featured five military jets (including the super-rare high-flying U-2 spyplane), fire-fighting airplanes, wing-walking, aerobatics, RC planes, plenty of jet noise, and even a comedy act. The museum's extensive collection of jet fighters was out, and visitors could sit in the cockpit of the F-16, F-14 (one of the ones actually used in filming "Top Gun"), Harrier, F-4, F-5, A-6, and many other cool military jets.

June 17 - San Carlos (Silicon Valley), CA Hiller Museum "Vertical Challenge" 2006 One of the world's largest helicopter airshows, this event shows everyone that there is almost as much variety among helicopters as among airplanes, from large military cargo/troop transports, to small and inexpensive general-aviation vehicles, from agile and deadly gunships to ambulances, from roomy VIP transports to fire-fighting aircraft. They even flew the Hiller Hornet, a helo powered by a ramjet engine at the tip of each rotor blade! You can stand right next to helicopters as they take off and land, a unique thrill (but one which gets you blasted by dirt, dust, leaves, tiny rocks, and other small objects from the ground). The museum also has a great aircraft collection worth checking out.

June 11 - Van Nuys, CA Van Nuys Rockin' AirFest 2006 I thought this was going to be a small airshow... and it turned out to be much smaller than I thought. Having seen pictures of huge airshows in Van Nuys a few years ago, I had heard they were getting smaller, but I was still interested. The static displays were many and quite varied, but the short list of fly-bys kept getting delayed, things got cancelled, by 2PM we had only had one brief fly-by and heard the next would be at 3:30, so I left. Not the most exciting airshow, but at least I got to see an F-22 in the air (and that was it, though).

June 3-4 - Hammonton (Sacramento), CA Beale AFB Airshow 2006 Beale put on a top-notch airshow including the USAF Thunderbirds, an F-15 demo, a SuperHornet demo, a cool "dueling Yaks" act, a four-ship T-38 flight, a MiG-17 demo, and a flight of the local, super-rare, high-flying U-2 spyplane. However, I missed most of this as I was flying in the Golden Knights' airplane!

May 27-28 - Jones Beach State Park (Long Island), NY New York Airshow 2006 I had never been to an airshow at the beach. Whoever thought of combining the fun, excitement, learning, and thrills of an airshow with the pleasures of a sunny day at the beach deserves some kind of prize. The acts were numerous and diverse, including the Skytypers (six T-6s), the Blue Angels, lots of warbirds, the US Army Parachute team, the USAF F-15, F-16, and A-10 demos, a MiG-17 aerial display, and a search-and-rescue simulation flown by a Blackhawk and a C-130.

May 20-21 - Chino, CA 2006 "Planes Of Fame" airshow Chino is home to the largest collection of airworthy World War Two aircraft in the world, many of which are the last of their kind. They fly each plane a few times a year, and in this airshow they fly ALL of them!!! This, in turn, attracts most owners of airworthy warbirds in the western US to fly them at Chino, so the events snowballs into one of the two or three biggest gathering of WW2 aircraft anywhere in the world. It's like a trip back in time to an active military air base in 1944. All day, they put several aircraft up in the air at a time, flying a circuit around the airport, so you get a pass every few seconds. And at the end they put almost 30 of the airplanes in the air at once, a huge formation of the kind not seen since the 40s. Oh, yeah, and they had some jet fighter demos as well. If you're into aviation history, there is nothing like this show.

April 29-30 - Moreno Valley, CA March ARB AirFest 2006 - Thunder Over The Empire This airshow had one of the most extensive line-ups I have ever seen: Tons of fighter jet demos, bombers, stealths, cargo planes and tankers, warbirds, aerobatics, MiGs, helicopters, the Thunderbirds, parachuting, one of the very first F-15E demos, formations of L-29s and T-34s, pyrotechnics... tons of really exciting flying from 9AM to 5PM, basically everything you could possibly want to see at an airshow. But when I got there, the haze was so thick I could not see much of anything at all. The Thunderbirds could barely see each other and gave up flying. So the airshow was pretty fun (despite my having to squint a lot), but the pictures are awful because of the haze.

April 22 - El Cajon, CA Wings Over Gillespie 2006 This was a fun, small airshow. The area around the airport is populated enough that aerobatics and loud jet passes had to be extremely limited. But there were many warbirds, some pyrotechnics, and a few "first"s for me (which are getting farther between): I finally saw an Antonov-2 in the air (that thing is slow!), a MiG-21 in the air, and one of the two or three B-24s still flying, since the Collings Foundation brought over their B-17, B-24 and B-25.

April 1 - Riverside, CA 2006 Riverside Airshow First of all, at no other airshow do you get THIS close to the aircraft. Even the stealth fighters seemed to fly a stone throw's away, and I took pictures where even the tiniest aerobatic airplanes more than filled the viewfinder. The flying was exceptional, with several passes, turns, and climbs made by a C-17, an F-117 Stealth, an A-10, and an F/A-18. Sean Tucker (among others) flew aerobatics. There were formations of T-6s, T-34s, and L-29s, plus a Legacy Flight, a Heritage Flight, and some warbirds. A small, fun, diverse, and extremely photogenic airshow.

March 11 - El Centro, CA NAF El Centro Airshow 2006 El Centro is always the Blue Angels' first airshow of the year, and many other military acts, warbirds, and aerobats come too. This year, though, the poor weather interfered, and flying was a little more limited. Photography was quite challenging. at the end of the show, though, the Blues performed their "flat" routine (no loops or very high climbs) in the rain! Now THAT's dedication.

February 25 - Yuma, AZ MCAS Yuma 2006 Airshow At a time of the year when there have been no airshows for over three months and airshow fans like myself are dying to see anything cool in the air, Yuma opens their gates and puts on a great little airshow, with several USAF fighter jet aerial displays, a helicopter demo or two, tons of aerobatics, and of course, the real reason to go, a demo of the vertical-takeoff-and-landing capabilities of the Marines' AV-8B Harrier "jump jet". Ear plugs are a very good idea for when the exceptionally loud Harrier does its hovering.

November 12-13 - Las Vegas, NV Nellis AFB "Aviation Nation" 2005 "Aviation Nation" keeps getting better every year, with the F-22 doing more and more stuff (several passes, fast and slow, and one that ended in an abrupt pitch-up and steep climb), more and more jets being flown (the Patriots, Bill Reeseman's MiG-17, the USAF's Heritage-Flight F-4 Phantom, the F-15 and Harrier demos, and of course the Thunderbirds), a variety of warbirds (Vietnam aircraft like an OV-1, C-47, Hueys, Skyraiders...), and lots more (seven Texans racing, a formation of 16 experimental aircraft, Sean Tucker doing his amazing aerobatics...). Even though last year featured tactical demos done in just about every jet fighter out there (F-15, F-16, F-117, F/A-18, and the next-to-last F-14 Tomcat demo), this year still did not disappoint. I already can't wait till the NEXT Nellis airshow!

October 22-23 - Mojave, CA 2005 Edwards AFB airshow & open house Edwards to me is basically like Disneyland. I spend all year literally DREAMING about the next Edwards airshow, I am high all weekend while there, and I am quite sad when I have to go home at the end. To my great disappointment, they cancelled their 2004 airshow. So in 2005 I was extra hungry for some Edwards goodness, and they did not disappoint. I can't describe how exciting it was to see them fly the F-15 ACTIVE, their ER-2 (basically a U-2), and the oldest F-117 still flying (used for testing at Groom Lake and painted in a spectacular Stars And Stripes paint scheme). Also cool were the demos done in an F-22, a B-2, a B-1, a B-52, a C-17... The Golden Knights did an amazing parachute demo, Chino's F-86 and MiG-15 recreated a Korean War dogfight, Chuck Yeager flew his P-51, a glider pilot did some aerobatics and then landed right in front of the crowd, the "Tora Tora Tora" group simulated an attack using several replica Japanese warbirds (yes, the ones actually used in that great movie), and the Dutch Air Force F-16 demo pilot borrowed a local bird and showed the USAF how they do fighter demos across the pond. Static displays included the V-22 Osprey vertical-takeoff-and-landing tiltrotor, the delta-winged F-16XL, the X-45 autonomous unmanned stealth bomber... It pretty much made up for their not having an airshow in 2004.

Travis AFB 2005 airshow More info soon.

San Francisco Fleet Week 2005 More info soon.

California International Airshow (Salinas) 2005 More info soon.

Oceana 2005 More info soon.

"Wings Over Wine Country" 2005 More info soon.

Hiller "Vertical Challenge" 2005 More info soon.

Chino "Planes of Fame" 2005 More info soon.

El Centro airshow 2005 More info soon.

Yuma airshow 2005 More info soon.

Above are all the airshows I went to with an SLR. I used to take pictures with a Ricoh R6000 (2 megapixels, no optical zoom), from the Spring of 2001 to the Spring of 2002. I then got a Fuji 2800 (2 megapixels, 6x optical zoom, 40-240mm) that was my primary camera until the summer of 2003. I later got a Panasonic FZ1 (2 megapizels, 12x optical zoom, stabilized, f2.8, 35-420mm) just in time for "Wings Over Wine Country" 2003... and a Panasonic FZ10 (4 megapixels, ISO 50, same long stabilized fast lens as the FZ1) just in time for "Wings Over Wine Country" 2004. I used the FZ10 during the fall of '04, and got a Canon 10D digital SLR in time for Yuma 2005. (I got a 20D just before Yuma 2006, and a 1D just before Riverside 2007). My point is; My pictures from 2004 and earlier are really not of the same caliber as my pictures from 2005 and later. (Getting an SLR really makes a huge, HUGE difference). If you do insist on seeing the kinds of pictures I took before I had an SLR, head on over to my Pacific Coast Air Museum "Wings Over Wine Country" page, where I have some of my pictures from PCAM's airshows going all the way back to 2002. And, all right, to prove that Panasonic's cameras take pictures almost as good as a digital SLR, I'll make a page with my Nellis 2004 pictures, shot with an FZ10.