Watching planes

Beech T 34 C-1 built 1984.

I was up and out walking so early yesterday that I nearly snapped the default in the evening. Then I started tidying up a bit. I took a couple of loads of rubbish to the transfer station and then the truck acted up and went into extra 'limp' mode within a mile of home  . . . that put me in a good mood. . . . on to today.

       Didn't walk early today and continued tidying up a bit and noticed that there were quite a few aircraft flying about . . . when I saw what they were I remembered the local animal rescue/shelter was having their annual fund raiser at the local airport. I had the big lens (200-500mm) on the camera ( didn't want to lug that around and look super pretentious) and I made the mistake of putting on the old non-VR/IS 70-300mm (it's light) without first checking what I'd used before in May four years ago (it was the 16-80mm on the D7200). Needless to say today's images are inferior to those images. I think the 55-200mm VR on the D7200 with higher ISO and shutter speeds and wider aperture might have been a better choice. Ho-hum let the experts jump in - Moose Peterson I am not.

       Any way, I was happy snapping away for my own pleasure and if one or two of the images please me - I'm happy. First shot at 11:35 and snapped my 456th at 13:26 (I was in burst mode for a few of those). Thank digital laziness . . . imagine doing that  in the days of film.

       In 2018 I took a flight in a Lodestar - there were few takers. This year there was a smaller Beechcraft C45-H Expediter (1952), a Boeing BN5N1 Stearman biplane (1943), a Beech T34C-1 (1984), the sky divers used a DeHaviland DHC-6-200. Between the busy fun flights a medi-vac twin-engine fixed wing landed, took on medical crew and patient and took off.

       I finished reading Olivia Butler's Kindred  this morning (that's why I didn't go walking). I picked up a copy of Atlas of the Invisible at the library  highly recommended, but it will date very quickly as new data are always being collected and collated. So, if social history combined with geography interests you . . . . The authors' previous collaboration, Where the Animals Go, seems to have been well received.