Isn?t this cool?! I didn?t take it ? the photo was done by a remarkable aviation photographer, Thomas Bunce, who lives in the Mojave area. Tom is an aerospace engineer who worked with us on the Shuttle program many years ago, moved to Dryden, and now finds himself creating art like this. This was shot on the spur of the moment, and if I knew it was going to turn out this gorgeous, I would have cleaned the desert dust off the canopy! I had lost track of Tom for many years, and we reconnected through magazine contacts. Tom shares a lot of his pictures on his Facebook page (Riveting Photos by Thomas J Bunce) and his web site www.rivetingphotos.com.
I spent all day Saturday at the Mojave Experimental Fly-in ? a very neat, grass-roots event with no real agenda other than folks looking at airplanes that are a little more on the edge than the average homebuilt today. This year, they had representatives from the NAA (the record sanctioning body) there all week, and a number of interesting airplanes set a number of new world records ? this is true experimenting!
I was asked to speak at their awards dinner in the evening, and was delighted to share a few thoughts with the crowd. Afterwards, it was about 9 pm, and I needed to fly up to Big Bear to spend the night. Tom followed us out to the ramp because he wanted to shoot pictures of Tsam ? when we got there, the wind was coming down out of the Tehachapi?s at 25 knots, gusting to 37. You?ll note on the picture that the tie-downs are still on ? that was to keep the airplane from blowing away!
The remarkable thing about this shot is that it was pitch black on the ramp ? no moon, no lights. Tom set up his camera on a tripod, then took almost 20 individual pictures by walking around and setting off his flash to illuminate different parts of the plane ? a wheel pant here, the spinner there, and so forth. He then stitched those shots together in his computer to make this overall picture (along with a star background). A very interesting process to watch.
As interesting was then getting into the airplane and taking off in that wind?but that?s another story (that turned out fine)?.
Paul