Earliest one I’ve found so far, Yeovilton 1978, complete with Dads old rollicord. Probably the last time I wore a sports jacket!

No photos of it unfortunately, but apparently I was waving at ‘the big yellow helicopter’ that flew over the beach at Aglesea in 1970. Anyhow the pilot must have spotted the madly waving 2 year old, brought it into a hover, and the winchman waved back. 😀 😀

Been hooked on aviation ever since (wonder what the ‘big yellow helicopter’ would have been, I’m guessing a Whirlwind, or were Wessex’s in use by then?)

Very nice Mark, I’m always keen on these sort of shots.

Much as I love the results of todays super telephotos on a D-SLR, there’s something timeless about this sort of photograph. A small silhouette against a huge cloudscape or mountain range epitomises the fragility of these craft and their occupants flying into harms way 60 years ago.

Think you’ve earned your cookie with those 🙂 , ever considered presenting any of them as black and white?

1. Yep, (only 13 on the saturaday when I got though)

2. BBMF present but flew seperately

The Hurricane filled in for the Mk. IX spit that had donated its engine to PA474.

3. Sure there was something similar at Southhampton, not sure of the numbers though.

no, it won’t autofocus. I’ve got a D100 and the 50-500 lens as well as the sigma 1.4x EX converter. It works nicely on a tripod for birding for example, exposure metering still works but you have to focus manually.

Not really a problem in that sort of situation, the chances of an accurate AF on the thing you want with that focal length are pretty low (500×1.4, plus 1.5 ‘digital crop’ = 1050mm equivalent). Much better to set up a shot and wait for the subject to be where you want it.

Some folk talk of taping over a contact on the converter to prevent the lens passing its maximum aperture (f6.3 at the long end) to the camera. This is supposed to fool the camera into attempting to AF in bright light. Never tried it, since I cannot imagine it being fast enough to be of any use.

As for using it on aircraft? Not tried it really, if your subject is so far away that you need a 1000mm+ lens (equivalent) I’d be giving up, it would need to be a very clean, clear day with no heat haze or atmospheric pollution to get much usable. It really would be a case for finding a better (closer) location.

For wildlife (small creatures at medium distances) the converter works quite nicely, despite the lack of AF.

A fascinating read, if it wasn’t for this forum I’d never have heard this (or any other of these ‘human interest’ stories). Really brings another dimension to an already great weekend. Thanks to all involved.

Thanks for sharing that areo51, was like being back there on Saturday!

Wondered how long your bandwidth would last when I downloaded it, know I looked at doing something similar a few years ago but bandwidth costs were horrendous for anything meaningful. Guess the situation hasn’t changed yet!