So I'm sitting around Pond Central, pointedly not accomplishing anything, when I hear a haunting moan from outside.  I immediately grabbed my camera and dashed to the balcony, for this is Duckford AirFest weekend, and that moan was the sound of the six F-16C (block 52) Fighting Falcons of the USAF Thunderbirds.  Minutes went by, and I realized that this was probably not going to be a good day for them to overfly Pond Central: the wind was all wrong.  My guess turned out to be correct; the route they took to clear the airfield wound up being to the south, instead of directly overhead.  Which didn't mean that they didn't surprise me once.  See, one of the problems with jet fighters is that from the front, they're actually quite quiet.  They don't get loud until they're heading away from you and those big honkin' engines (F-110-PW-229, in this case) are staring you in the face.  So when the Diamond blew past Pond Central just east of me, I didn't expect it... and then they curved around to the south at high speed, passing by a gap in the trees in about a millionth of a second (or so it felt).  I raised my camera and pressed the shutter button... and hoped I got the shot.

Sometimes you get lucky.  Here's what the full picture looked like:

Click on the pic to see it in full 3968x2232 resolution... and see just how lucky I got.  The forecast for tomorrow isn't swell... though if it gets better, I might just head out, see what I can snap.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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