Chutes Open

I only saw skydivers once at Sun-N-Fun this year, and I think it was right at the start of the airshow on Saturday. Unfortunately, it was nothing but gray skies that afternoon, so these probably aren't pictures to write home about. But just imagine that red smoke against a bright blue sky. *sigh*

In case you can't figure out what's going on here, there's a rope trailing off the jumpers leg. Every few feet on that rope is another smoke pot, and that's what's creating the lines of red smoke in the sky. Neat trick.

Even without blue sky, this is a nice shot.

And here he is, just about to touch down. I rarely fight my way to the front of the crowd, so I never get the shot of his feet actually touching the ground. Not worth the hassle, I suppose.

Up In The Airfest 2010-Part 18

After the previous solo jumper, two more guys bailed out and began to plummet to the Earth. Even after they deployed their chutes, they spun in tight spirals, almost as if out of control.

But I'm sure they knew what they were doing. It sure did look cool with the smoke streaming out behind them. Sort of like that dancing they do with the ribbons on a stick. What's the name for that? Rhythmic gymnastics, maybe?

One of the two jumpers came down on the end of the runway we were at, so I was able to get some pictures of him as he got close.

There were a lot more people in attendance this time of the day, so I wasn't able to get pictures of the jumpers all the way to the ground. Well, I did, but they're obscured by too many people, so there's nothing worth sharing.

Up In The Airfest 2010-Part 2

The second demo of the day at Airfest 2010 was a display of less elite paratroopers. These guys didn't do tricks or use fancy parachutes with airfoils and logos. They got pushed out the side of a big cargo plane over what represented enemy territory, en masse. They made two passes, dropping almost twenty guys at a time. I was able to reposition after the first pass to get better pictures, so these are all from that that pass. (You can't stand in one spot and be a good photographer, you have to go where the action is!) This shot shows the first guy has exited the plane, but his rig is still attached inside the plane. His weight will jerk that loose in a second, and he'll be on his way down.

Here's the first guy with his chute beginning to open, and the next two guys are out. I suspect they should have been jumping two by two, and that first guy got off a little early, or maybe the first guy on the left missed his cue. These things are never perfect.

I think this is all of them. I thought twenty guys jumped, but I only count 18. Perhaps I was mistaken. All of my shots show eighteen chutes is the air.

Here you can clearly see the differences between these guys chutes and the ones used by the SOCOM team. These are just big floppy jellyfish designed to drop safely, not to be flown.

I can see where a sight like this, but perhaps with a few hundred more chutes in the air, would scare an enemy on the ground. Trouble is coming, boys, better go hide in your spider hole.

As they neared the ground, they dropped the bag that help the parachute to the end of a tether. I guess this gets it out of the way when it's time to land. You can see it's a pretty big and bulky item that might make it awkward when they hit the ground.

Until I looked close at this shot of the drop plane, I assumed they went out the back, but I was wrong. You can see the small door in the side of the plane just rear of the wing. That's where they exited on this side of the plane. I'm sure there's a similar door on the opposite side, but you're going to have to trust me on that, as I don't have a picture of it. This shot is actually from the first jump. I concentrated on the parachutists on the second jump, so missed the plane as it exited the drop zone.

After the two drops, the plane made a pass over the crowd, then exited the area before landing. This shot showing the topside of the plane was made as it banked for the turn. Look close and you'll see that they've closed the door you saw open in the previous picture. Oh, I believe this plane is a C17 Globemaster. I didn't know that until I looked it up, but it's the same plane you'll see more of later. It's a big mother.

AirFest 2007-Part Two

I mentioned paratroopers in my last post, but these aren't the same guys. These folks are fancy hi-precision parachutists, which you probably can tell because of their fancy parachutes. Plus, most ordinary paratroopers don't fly flags... These were actually the very first act to go on at AirFest. Well, there were some radio-controlled airplanes flying around at the same time, but they flew off and on all day. These parachutists were actually on so early that they brought them back later in the day for all the people who missed them the first time around. So I've got more pictures of them that I haven't even seen yet. (The light was a little better later on, so I'm hoping those pics look better.) What else can I tell you about these guys? I don't know much. I think they are part of Special Operations Command, thus the USSOCOM on their chutes. I've got the pictures reversed, since the US flag guy came down first, and then the tandem pair with the Florida flag. After that they had flags for each of the 4 branches of the armed forces, one guy with a POW-MIA flag, and then I think the last guy down had a special USSOCOM flag. After a while, they all started to blur together. Oh, they trailed pink smoke for a while, but I didn't like most of the pictures that showed the smoke...

Keep Watching The Skies

What else did I do last weekend? Oh, yeah, I went to a wedding. And not just any wedding, but a wedding where the bride and the groom fell from the sky. Yes, you read that right. They climbed into an airplane and returned to earth without it. The shot above is the lovely bride, Heather, and below is Marck, the groom. Heather was an old pro at jumping, I think this was her 70th jump, or something like that. It was Marck's third, so he wasn't allowed to jump solo. Look closely, and you'll see he's jumping tandem with someone else.

After the jump, everyone gathered around the back of the plane for a short ceremony led by a skydiver dressed in a Spiderman jumpsuit. I don't know if it was planned or not, but there were other jumpers falling from the sky right before the ceremony, making for a great shot.

I described the wedding theme as gangster-pimp. Taking a look at the groom below, you can probably see why.

The bride was not looking gangster or pimp. She was, however, wearing bright red, patent-leather combat boots. I didn't get any good pictures of them, I'm afraid. I don't know her at all, and she probably wondered why I was taking so many pictures anyway. I didn't want to shoot her feet, too.

And here's everybody's favorite part of the wedding, the first kiss as man and wife. Don't miss Spiderman there on the left.

I think this was my favorite picture I took of the couple. This was as they were walking back to the hangar after the ceremony. I've never been the official photographer at a wedding (and I don't want to be), but I've shot quite a few of them in my own amatuerish way. I like to try and get shots that a professional wedding photog wouldn't take.

I may have missed the bride's red boots, but I did get the purple Pumas on my friend Arn's feet.

Superiority Through Airpower IV

No airshow would be complete without skydivers, and this one was no exception. These guys were jumping out of their perfectly good plane before I could even get into the main gate. When they spun around and formed this little heart, the crowd around me made a loud collective "awwwwww" right on cue.

You'll notice that I continuously compare this airshow to last year, because last year was my first trip, and I think it really was a better show. For 2004, they had several groups of skydivers at different points throughout the day. It sort of made for something a little interesting, and at a more human speed. Too many rapid turns of the head to watch a 600mph fly-by can be hard on the neck. These skydivers did a lot of twirls and dips and spins, but they weren't moving at a neck-jarring pace.