Here and there: Twenty Four - Flight Part two

A while back I was in the Barossa Valley for an air show with a difference, model planes not full-sized ones. It was very cool; loud jet engines, superb flying by expert pilots - especially because they're on the ground operating the jets by remote control - and I had a blast. I'm planning to get into this hobby in a couple years and because one doesn't simply start flying an eight foot long jet powered plane worth $20,000, I decided to start well ahead of time so I'd have time to build up some skills on lesser machinery before I get the plane I want, probably a World War Two Spitfire.

I've used some of these images in part one of this series so if you've seen one of these before in a post you'll have to build a bridge and get the fuck over it; I liked some of them so much I wanted to add them in again. Also, capturing these things on film (in the air) for a shit photographer like me is difficult so once again, you'll have to take a pill and get over it; I did my best with the equipment I have. They are fast, hundreds of kilometres per hour, so photographing them is difficult.

This one I've used before but it's one of my favourites because it's not blurry like most of the in-flight shots I took. This jet was my favourite one there although there were some really cool ones there so it was difficult to pick. It looks fucken awesome in the air (sounds good too) and even on the ground it looks great. The work that goes into preparing these things visually and for flight is what attracts me to the hobby, it's not just the few minutes of flying, it's about the hours of preparation and "tinkering mechanically" that attracts me.

The chap who flew the plane above had a super hot wife. Not that that really matters, it was more of an observation I made. I, of course, have a super hot girlfriend myself so it's all good. Anyway, the guy knew how to fly this plane and did a heap of aerobatic maneuvers up high and down low as well. He flew inverted only about three metres off the deck which was impressive considering doing so reverses the way the plane is controlled and he did it with the jet coming right at him meaning left is right and right is left...complicated.

I'm not sure if that takes skill or just means one needs to have no regard for the cost of the equipment; crashes are catastrophic and costly. (It's actually skill).

I'm not sure just why but I love jet fighters; the speed, the sound, the cool shapes, engineering and the skill that goes into flying them too. I recall the first air show I went to when I was a kid and how much I loved it, of course I was already hooked on jet fighters just like my nephew is now, seeing them for real though, it was so cool. I'm really looking forward to getting into this hobby but I feel it's smart to start small, minimal outlay, just to make sure I like it enough to spend the money on what I'll need...the plane, controller, tools, enclosed trailer to haul it all to events...it's a costly buy-in.