AIR SHOW

Last weekend was the big air show at our local airport, so I took my trusty camera and wandered over to the end of the runway to see what kind of pictures I could get. I lucked out on a few, although it was hard to catch some of those fast-flying jets as they zoomed overhead. The prop planes were much easier. Here's a shot of a "Flying Tiger". That's the P-40 that was used in World War II:

One of the curiosities of the show was a flying wing. I'm told that there were only four of them built and only two are left. I put two pictures together to make the shot below so you can see the plane from both the top and the bottom:

The real stars of the show were the pilots who put their planes through the hoops in dives and climbs, stalls and rolls that looked awfully dangerous to a neophyte like me. You had to admire the guts and stamina of those guys. It's difficult to capture the daring in a picture, but maybe you can get the idea from a shot like this:

Of course, the real noise-maker was the F-18 that streaked back and forth over the runways with a thunderous roar toward the end of the show. I actually got this shot of it with my Olympus point and shoot camera that I happened to be using at the time:

There were any number of military aircraft, many of which I could not identify. Here are a couple of Marine and Air Force planes that performed together:

One performer that wasn't in the show, but happened to fly by as I was taking pictures was this Great Blue Heron. There were also several snowy white egrets flying around in a marshy area at the end of the runway:

I got back out to Bodega Bay again last week and caught this fellow looking me over:

Sometimes good pictures just pop up in front of you. This is one I took the other day as we were taking our morning walk:

That's all for today!