shacknav

"Keep the nose down, fella, and just fly her on - no relaxing in the

last few seconds"

A section of 8th Air Force B17s recovering to their base in England

with #2 firing red Verey lights indicating wounded on board and the

nearest struggling with the last moments of an assymetric approach. A

typical scene in 1943 repeated all over the more than 150 USAF bases

in England.

Multiple composite - with many additions - all from airshow pics and

my own archives.

Your comments welcomed

Hi Alex

Been away for a while and maybe got a bit rusty - fair point about the space, was trying to get a feeling of depth. Will adjust and see how it looks.

How are things with you?

Regards...........Pat.

The Russian forces were ill prepared to face the German onslaught and

initially had to rely on inferior equipment. The Polikarpov I-15bis was one

such aircraft thrown into the frontline and served valiantly, indeed

suicidally, in ground attack mode. The image depicts a pair of

Polikarpovs, scattering as they are bounced by a ME109E, against a

darkening winter sky heralding the onset of the winter that went so far to

save the Soviet homeland.

Images forming the composite are from various airshow photographs -

the Polikarpov gives a very enegetic display at Duxford - and a

skyscape from my archives.

Thanks, Doug, good to hear from you - you guys did it the hard way from our point of view 'up there' - enjoy your retirement.

Regards.........Pat.

Just to mark the day - 1st April 1918 the RAF was formed from the

original formation - Royal Flying Corps - and so became an

independent operational entity. Your comments appreciated.

Nice image Alex, well cropped to give an air/air look and feel about it.

Juha, not sure how much fuel they carried but they were capable of completing 24hrs airborne, which must have pleased the crew no end!

Cheers....Pat

Thanks Juha - it's an old 'queen of the skies' and much loved in Scotland where it operated for many years.

Cheers.......Pat.

Nice clean cut image, Alex. See you are posting all the 'bits' from last year - reminds me of a really good bright day.

Cheers...........Pat

PS How is the family front?

Aircraft converted to art - wonderful image and great eye to spot it.

Regards......Pat

Thanks Juha, good to hear from you again.

Hi Dan, things got a bit out of hand on the family front and the days just went by. Sometimes I think another B17 in trail would help and then again...........! Thanks for the opportunity to play with your image.

Cheers.......Pat.

Long delayed cooperative effort between Dan Goldman (B17 airborne

shot) and myself. Multiple composite using Dan's image as the f/g

base, b/g shot of Lorient harbour (mine from many moons ago) and a

couple of Me 109E's on the turn in. B17's did sortie against Lorient

at the start of the 8th AF ops. Your comments appreciated.

Have to agree with Alex that the prop looks as it has been tweaked. However, that aside it is a super iamge of the P51 and posed just right.

Cheers.....Pat.

Catching up on things and just had time to look around PN. That is a first class technical shot - sharp, clear and nicely posed. Still have to be convinced about the aggressive cropping (or framing) but still very effective.

Regards............Pat.

An evocative image that does work in terms of symbolising flight. Perhaps a wee touch of PS to add a prop arc could have completed the dreamy quality of the pic. Not sure I would like to be on board with all the corroded rivets tho!

Regards, Pat.

Thanks, Alex. Fresh out of Spits you will have to make do with birds, elegant little flier it was too.

Regards........Pat.

A very seductive image - slowly the mutiplicity of reflections becomes apparent and then the real impact follows. An excellent piece of aeronautic imagery.

Regards.........Pat.

Thanks for your comment, Rick. Background is the Cornish coast - we had been visiting a Shack Sqdn, while going through nav training, and departing St Mawgan in our Valetta (aka Pig) got the opportunity for the photo.

Last Mk2 flight was in the US last year as a ferry from one base to another. The South Africans are preparing the last Mk3 for flight, hopefully this year - and I hope they take better care of it than the last one!!

Regards........Pat.

Four turnin' and two burnin' - they dont' make them like this anymore!

220 Shack caught coasting out from RAF St Mawgan with a long, long

day ahead. Your comments appreciated.

Bit of a problem for us oldies where the preflight consisted of 'count the engines, kick the tyres and light the fire'. Going even further back the traditional RAF preflight ritual of a p**s on the main gear would argue a pretty gargantuan bladder - ah, the good old days, when a pint was still a pint and cost fourpence!!. It's a fascinating pic tho' - must have driven the design team round the bend.

Cheers......Pat.

Now that is magic, straight out of 'Fate is the Hunter' - E K Gann. Thanks for jiggling the memory banks on this one - very atmospheric.

Regards....Pat

That would be a real challenge.........willing to give it a try if you don't mind my running riot over your images. The ones with the 0.5 cal may also make a good starting point. Drop me an e-mail to discuss it if you like.

Regards...Pat.

Not sure what you are aiming at here, Alex. There seems to be little impact either dramatically or aesthetically - maybe I'm missing something?

Regards..............Pat

Too heavy on the post-processing - would like to have seen a post of the original or minimally tweaked image. Perhaps you would get better results if you selected out the main image and restricted your processing to the subject and left the b/g natural.

Regards.......Pat.

Nicely posed and a good result from a fairly extreme lens factor. Too late to run, though.

Regards......Pat

Attractive shot, Alex, but maybe you have 'pushed' the correction just a wee bit too far. Dramatic fin though and the line up looks good.

Regards..........Pat.