Today's photo was an exercise in lighting. The camera was set to a shutter speed of 1/320 and f16 at ISO 200 to expose the lantern mantle properly. An Olympus FL-36R flash in manual mode set at 1/64 power lit the chimney from the front, an a pair of Lumopro LP-160 flashes with grids to restrict the beam lit the base from either side. These two flashes were slaved off the FL-36R and were also set to 1/64 power. The photo was taken under normal living room lighting with an Olympus OM-D-E5 and a 12-50mm lens set at 22mm.
Having grown up and served during the cold war prior to the present unpleasantness, artifacts of that era hold something of a fascination to me. Since Her Accuracy also seems to have quite the interest as well, over the years we've managed several trips, some of which (like the Trinity test site) are not particularly easy to get to. One of the common frustrations I have is that very few places let you inside an exhibit - I'd love to explore a B-36, for example, but the places that have one restored to near operational status are understandably hesitant to let the unwashed masses rummage through their irreplaceable exhibits.
This weekend we visited the Titan Missile Museum just south of Tucson which is the exception to that rule. Complex 571-7 in Green Valley, Arizona was operational from 1963 till the Titan II was decommissioned in 1987. One of 54 site around Tuscon, Little Rock and Wichita, someone had the amazing foresight so suggest saving a silo complex for posterity. Bless them, whoever they are!
I've played with photography off and on over the years, and I'm starting to mess around with it a bit again. So in an attempt to keep myself engaged I'm going to try to post a picture each week that I've taken in the previous week. No particular theme or subject, just whatever strikes me. We'll see how long that lasts....
This week I present our two Border Collies, Fly (front) and Whiskey. They like to hang our around our chairs in the evening.
Several years ago Suburban Auto Group released a series of "Trunk Monkey" commercials. Somehow this struck a chord with the crew chief and gunner community in Army Aviation, who promptly joined the ranks of Flying Trunk Monkeys. What can I say, I like that chimps attitude.
Being a Blackhawk crew chief covers a lot of territory besides flying. We spend a lot of time doing inspections and maintaining the helicopters, not to mention training. Training varies from mind-numbingly-boring-required-by-someone-or-other-and-having-nothing-to-do-with-anything to "Oh, yeah... They pay me me to do this!" Gunnery training generally falls into the later category.
Earlier this month we took three helicopters and 28000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition to the West Tac area of the Barry Goldwater range in Gila Bend. This has got to be the premier aerial range in the world. The Air Force fast movers play here, and when Prince Harry was doing his Apache weapons training, this was the place. I believe he was wearing clothes on that trip, but I digress...
I put together a little clip of about 800 rounds worth of the fun for your viewing pleasure, including a brief view of what a passenger at night sees.
We got the call to help with some fires northeast of Phoenix this month.
Water soluble orange paint added for visibility. We also paint two or three feet white on the top of one of the rotor blades. That really helps other aircraft pick us out from above.
The buckets we use are normally set up to hold about 500 gallons. I didn't get any working shots, but here's a little video clip of us doing some training last year.
