Ditto. You don’t need to be a pilot to see that the maneouver was dangerous and irresponsible, with absolutely no margin for error whatsoever.

Yes, there are many professionals who do image processing using Macs (that is hardware designed and built to Apple’s specifications, running a MAC Operating System (ie OSX)). But if you’re only editing photographs it is somewhat more expensive and generally unnecessary even for photography professionals.

They are generally employed for professional image rendering, though – that is desktop publishing, technical drawings & animation or artwork rendering.

The real professionals, that do real heavy duty artwork or simulation realtime rendering (like CGI for video and films or professional, motion, cockpit & control accurate simulators (ie F1 car, aircraft or ships) – are actually more likely to use Silicon Graphics hardware – they would thus have SG’s version of UNIX/linux installed. And programs – whilst off the shelf packages are available – tend to be written as a bespoke application suite.

For most photographic image manipulation you will find little difference in terms of end product quality (in fact I doubt there would be any difference at all) between operating systems and/or applications installed on a properly specified computer.

I’m not going to recommend what you should have, or not have, but PCs can run any one of a number of version of Linux. There are several different distribution packages, including hundreds of different applications, that can be downloaded and installed with a free to use licence absolutely free of charge. The “GIMP” image editing package is also free to download and use – and if you need a Microsoft compatible Office Suite, OpenOffice is also free to download and use!

Linux is a difficult OS to discribe because of the differences in packaged applications. There are even different versions of the desktop software, each with their own little quirks and differences. So unlike Windows you don’t have to use the same desktop – I’m saying it is a fundamental difference – not simply a different collection of icons and images.

Windows PCs have the majority of popular programs available, and you have to pay for many of them, but the Gimp for Windows is also “open source” and therefore free to download and use. And you can also download and install the same OpenOffice program, again, free of charge to use.

I’m not aware of any “Open Source” programs for Apple Macs – there is bound to be some, but I haven’t researched that – being a Windows XP Home/Pro, SuSE Linux and Novell NetWare (Small Business Suite) user. Indeed, I hold a couple of Novell qualifications.

(Don’t be confused with my Novell Small Business Suite reference – it is a suite of Novell’s fileserver networking tools – Netware OS, GroupWise eMail, etc…)

The bottom line is that editing photographs isn’t a terribly taxing job for any modern computer – get whatever you like best – got to a few shops and research what’s available, how they work and what you find most comfortable with.

Incidentally, most Linux OSs (yes there are several different “distributions” 😮 ) can be a bit …errrr… “challenging” for none technical types.

So, in precise, I would say – MAC or a support Unix/Linux OS for professionals; Linux for a low cost, but technically challenging (and superior in many respects), computer OS; Windows if you’re happy contributing to Uncle Bill’s charities, have used it previously and are happy with it.

With whatever you eventually chose, make sure you are either confident in your abilities to distinguish what constitutes a hardware problem or software configuration/bugs, or have access to a support guy who knows what he’s talking about with reference to your particular choice.

(Sorry it’s such a long answer – I got carried away a bit, and have probably only served to confuse you even more.)

Very nice Martin.

It’s great to see that the Seahawk is back in the air again. Is this the first time she’s been on show since the cartridge starter problems?

It wouldn’t surprise me if “The Reds” put in an emotive performance at the end of the film! Like the end of some of those ’50’s and ’60’s movies reflecting on what had happened only a few short years before.

I guess Stephen Fry has completed the screenplay, then? Or is close to it.

Lovelly.

That glider & sports plane (Extra 300?) team put on a good show. Saw it earlier this year. Loved the inverted plane stacked over the glider flypast, matching airspeed all the way down the display line.

I have pictures, but don’t want to hijack your thread. If anyone wants to see more of that, I have some pictures on my website.

Vulcan, Alberta, USA😮 !!!!

Canada!!!!!!!

:D:D Whatever, it’s a long way away!!!

😀 I wondered what CA meant, thought it might be California 😀 Good job I’m not a navigator, aye?

Well, there are a great range of scanners. Personally I use the little Maycom AR-108, which you can pick up for about £70. It doesn’t cover the military 200/300+ VHF range though. As a consequence I don’t pick up things like the Red Arrows.

However, as it does cover the 100+ VHF range I frequently get a few minutes notice of impending high speed non military arrivals, such as Hunters. They often give their callsign and time to arrival overhead. And ATC reply on the same “display” frequency for the airfield.

You also sometimes get chatter between the pilot and ATC during the display – i.e. either ATC may say they have x more minutes, or the pilot may say they are about to perform their final maneouver.

Often callsigns are something like “hunter this” or “spitfire that” or “formation x”, so it is sometimes quite easy to work out what is about to flash before your eyes a few minutes or seconds before. Sometimes they also give the aircraft type, if it isn’t obvious.

I don’t know if they sell scanners that reach into the military bands.

A quick look through Pilot Warehouses website [click]will probably answer that question.

The Military Airshows website [click] lists common frequencies in use at most airshow sites.

My advice is to steer clear of the cheap “Steepletone” types, as they use a rotary analogue tuner – like your old Bush domestic radio – and have no memories or means of continually monitoring more than one channel automatically.

That model tank, and plastic troops (the last one) on that diorama look very realist, was someone close by smoking? 😉 😀 Only kidding. Great quality shots.