More from the Valdez Fly-In at Valdez, Alaska this May. I had to include a second photo in this post because it’s all about a before & after shot take during the Balloon Popping event. Helium balloons are sent up and when they get high enough, the pilots take turns trying to pop the balloons. I caught this successful attempt just before and just after the pop!
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Technical Details
Sony a6500, SEl200600G @ 600 mm (900 mm w/crop factor), ISO-400, f/6.3, 1/2500, hand held.
Cool take here, Gary. Not sure if this unit is one the many STOL aircraft up there. Flying in and out of all the DEW Line sites back in the 60’s I flew in everything. Had some really close calls too for various reasons. Mostly weather or mechanical issues. One flight I took from Galen or McGrath to Fairbanks on a Alaska Airlines F-27 was with Will Rogers Jr.'s son. I guess he was Jr. number 2 as he dad had crashed years earlier with Willy Post near Point Barrow. And yes, I made it to Point Barrow on one trip too.
How cool are these two images. That is some serious skill by the pilots and of course you, Gary, for capturing this sequence. Love the balloon shrapnel all over the place. One of the more interesting image sequences I’ve seen in a while Gary. Well done.
What a great series, Gary, just spot on! I have seen pilots flying with older planes around cones placed on the water surface, but not balloon popping. Cool!
Amazing!! Super cool catch by both of you! Very nice detail in the shadows – always a challenge looking up at planes. My husband noticed the gun – probably a good idea in the Alaskan bush.
Some of the smaller fly-ins we’ve attended do toilet paper shredding, where a roll is dropped from a plane above so it unfurls. Bigger target. And then there are pumpkin drops…
Diane, I actually missed that small detail. To show how the world has changed so dramatically our military engineering team that I traveled with working on the DEW Line all carried weapons. Back then we walked up the stairs to a commercial aircraft and handed our rifles & pistols to a flight attended who merely placed the items in the front clothes closets. As we exited the closet was left wide open and we just reached in and took our own weapons out. How things have changed.
@Paul_Breitkreuz – It has changed. When Ted was in high school it wasn’t unusual for kids to bring guns to school. They were going hunting after school… They were put in their lockers, unloaded, and nobody thought it would be a problem – because it wasn’t. Sociopathic violence, in that small town, was stealing stop signs.
