I'm definitly getting rusty. And I'm definitly not as much a jethead as I used to be.

Still, two days of a decent Airshow marred by bad weather. Including the first ever European display of the Saudi Hawks!

Very nice shots - I especially like the Hind and the Typhoon shots.

it's all those nekkid women you're shooting ;-)

Bad weather and a bad flight on Fat Albert Friday ruined my Rhode Island air show. Only decent weather was Sat afternoon for the Blues and I was heading back home to NH to get my car so I could head back down to photograph Sunday's show which weather sucked more and it was forecasted to be the better of the 2 days....

Nice shots Colonel.


Wheels

He said he was rusty.. Great pictures Helmut

Some of those views bring back memories. Were you shooting with the press guys again or just a personal visit this time?

Yep, it's been six years, and the Show has never been surpassed since.

This year I bought a regular "Spotter" package since the free Press package did not include access to the better photo areas. I think in '05 we had 300 "Spotters", now it's grown to 800, many of whom do not bring a camera. It's getting a bit crowded and inflexible, truth to be told.

We slept in the same place as 2005, still great to be in walking distance for 15EUR a night.

Shame though that the 2005 organizers had way more contacts than the current gang. 2005 we had the Breitling Fighters, Red Arrows, Patrouille France, Patrulla Aquilla, we also had more Jet Displays (F-15, two F-18 solos and two F-16..)... while some of the new program (Red Bull P-38 for example, or the MiG-15) is doing a decent stand in job, it's never been the same size since the new Defense Minister "cleaned house" and kicked most people with experience out of office.

Yeah 05 was still one of the most enjoyable airshows I've been to. It was a great few days.

Very nice pics. **makes mental note of Saudi Hawks' scheme for Revell 1/32 model....**

Great pics, man. They bring back good memories for me as well. I see the weather was its usually cranky self.

I recon the 'Red Arrahs' should have 'God Bless you' painted on the nose of their jets too..
Nice images, good selection. Nice to see an Austrian Typhoon (sorry, Eurofighter..ahem) too, looks very 'uncluttered' compared to ours, which have massive gaudy markings on the tail.

This is becoming one of my pet peeves w/ Rhode Island on Friday's and on the weekends. They have people coming in with P&S camera's trying to capture jet teams, then they'll get up on the scissor lift and just waste space or worse, move around while others are trying to shoot rocking the lift. I've stopped using the media area just for these reasons.

I'm hoping this won't be the case at Oceana this year because they're saying the media area is smaller than last year.

People with P&S Cameras have no place in a *Media Area* IMHO. What I had was paid for "Spotter pack" so at least these people had paid the same as I. But if there's place for Media to work from, they should be working media photogs, and those don't use small cameras.