Flight Photographers (2025) Movie Script
Greg Davis: I got into
aviation photography, primarily
because my family had a military background,
always around aviation.
My grandfather would always take me out
to Bergstrom Air Force Base,
and we'd watch F-4s launch out of the base.
Talk about a wonderful time, as a kid.
Matt Ellis: My introduction to airplanes was my dad.
One of my first memories of
aircraft is being a very small child
and being put in the seat of an F-4.
And I remember looking
around, seeing bunches of gauges
and switches and canopy rails.
And, at that point, I was hooked!
As soon as I kind of became aware of airplanes
and knew what a camera was, I wanted
to take pictures of airplanes.
So it's been a lifelong, uh, obsession, really.
I was going to U.T. Arlington, here in this local area,
Arlington, Texas, and I just got bored one day.
So, I went out to Navy-Dallas,
went over there just to watch planes,
as a lot of people do, and I met a group
of people out there that were really cool,
that hung out there, looked like
they knew what they were doing.
Didn't have a camera, didn't
have anything, but I saw they did
and was watching what they were doing
and said, you know, this-this
looks like to be, would be fun.
Better than just watching the planes,
is-is maybe taking pictures.
Jordan Dutton: Growing up because of his hobby.
It-it kind of got me to, I was around aviation a lot,
and then when I was about a sophomore,
maybe a junior in high school,
we went out to the DFW Airport
and then he let me use his camera.
And from that day on, I just got hooked.
'cause it was something that I saw my dad do,
it's like, and that's something that I wanted to do.
It was just something that now, me
and him have been doing together for 10 years.
And it's-it's been some of the happiest times
and, you know, to share that with him
and to have all that fun, I just,
it's been great ever since. I've enjoyed it.
My dad took me to my first air show,
I think it was in 1989, at Volkel Air Base.
And that was the 10 year anniversary
of the F-16 in the Dutch Air Force.
And so it was, it was massive, you know, it was so packed
with people, you know, boys and girls,
and, and I was really fascinated by that.
I'm an aerospace engineer, so I love the background
behind the aviation, behind airplanes,
the technology that goes into aviation.
So, to be able to document that,
in a picture, is fulfilling for me.
Eric Coeckelberghs: I got into
aviation like at a pretty young age.
I think I was seven or eight, as far as I can remember.
When I saw the Starfighters,
the legendary jets, F-104 fly over my house.
And ever since I captured that image, I knew like,
"Hey, I love airplanes!"
And the best thing you can do
as the photographer in
aviation is to go up in the sky,
and catch airplanes in air-to-air photography.
But that was very, very hard
to actually get a chance to do that.
And so, by the time I was a little bit older, I tried
to create that chances myself.
And yeah, it worked, uh, step by step, by step.
My first air-to-air was in 1987
when I had a chance to fly with the Alpi Eagles.
That is an Italian team, flying four Marchettis.
And so they took me flying,
during the actual training.
I never heard of G-forces,
didn't know what a "looping" was,
but when I looked up and I saw the cows
there in the farm field,
I knew, all right, this is cool!
And I made some - some pretty good pictures.
And ever since 1987 I've been doing it.
Keith Snyder: My dad was
a fighter pilot in the Air Force,
and he had a camera at that time.
And so I've always been around airplanes
and just kind of developed
the desire to see airplanes
and then, got the camera bug
and, um, kind of caught the disease at that point.
Greg Davis: I got into photography
pretty heavily in high school,
loved taking pictures,
did a lot of military stuff, uh, via
a friend
that was in the Air National Guard.
And was introduced, uh, fairly early to, uh, one
of the Air Force's top aerial
photographers at the time.
His name was Michael James Haggerty.
And he was a photographer for Airman Magazine,
and became a mentor of mine very quickly.
And he showed me what the pros did
and how they did it, not only to make great photos,
but also to do it safely.
He always stressed safety, uh,
which has turned into my mantra as well as I-
I mentor people now.
I joined the Air Force in 1996.
I walked into the recruiter
and said, I want to be an Air Force photographer.
And the recruiter actually laughed at me,
and he said, "Nah, we're kicking people out."
I actually had my portfolio in my truck
and I walked out to my truck and I walked back in
and I said, I don't think you understand.
I wanna be an Air Force photographer.
And I had, uh, about 10 photos that were mounted.
And they were pretty exciting, dynamic stuff.
And I slammed them down on the desk in front
of him in a very cocky, you know,
22-year-old way or whatever it was.
Um, and I said, this is what I do, now.
And the first one was two F-15s going straight up.
So the recruiter looked at my
portfolio, and looked up at me
and said, let me make a few
phone calls.
And so, he did.
And I had a guarantee in my contract, when I signed up
that "if" I made it through basic training,
and "if" I made it through tech school,
that I could be an Air Force photographer.
So it's been a wild ride.
This was all, uh, grab a camera and try it.
No formal training at all.
I started out with Cannon AE-1 Program film cameras,
which were pretty decent equipment,
back in the early '80s and '90s.
And, uh, it was a good platform to learn with.
They were manual cameras, um, manual focus.
And then, uh, entered the digital world about 2012
when I, uh, bought my first
Canon 7D.
And that's basically what I'm using
now, are 7Ds and Canon lenses.
It's all self-taught. Everything I've done has been
through trial and error, quite a bit
of error when you start,
especially, you know, working
with the different types of films.
Slide film was a bit of a-a learning curve for me.
Started out, uh, shooting
prints and then going to slides.
Everything was a little bit different
because of the, you know,
the ISO settings and everything else.
But it's through trial and error
I became better and better.
And of course, once the digital age hit,
that changes everything as far as the ability
to take many more pictures
and find a couple that are good out of that.
With slide, you couldn't afford to do that.
Dan Dutton: Originally, back in the
day, everybody shot with slide film.
Some people would bring out 20
rolls of 36 exposure Kodachrome.
I would have like five rolls
'cause I was a struggling college student.
So, when I took my shots, it
was usually of a static nature.
And the sunlight had to be really good,
usually early morning shots,
that sort of stuff on the ramp.
Didn't catch a whole lot other than
maybe a landing shot of stuff.
So as things progressed, digital comes into play.
Then I got to be more of a, uh,
creative photographer in that respect,
because I could deal with the settings post,
you know, production type stuff.
And so it took a lot more chances, got better lenses,
so I was able to shoot more
of the plane, the aesthetics
of the aircraft, the lighting, that sort of stuff.
So a lot of the courses I've
taken in terms of photography,
have been along those lines with like, Photoshop,
things like that, to be able
to draw that contrast out.
So, used to be a backlit,
throw it in the trash can, now backlit,
no, I'll take something with that,
make something pretty out of that,
nice and aesthetically pleasing.
So that's kind of the difference
between then and now.
Eric Coeckelberghs: The old
style of doing stuff was a lot of fun,
but everything was manual.
The good thing is, you learn
how to take pictures really well!
And you have a maximum 36 exposures.
So when I was still using that
camera, for every 36 exposures,
I had at least 25 really good photos!
And strangely enough, even today, with the gun mode,
I still do, like: I aim, I still do
like, "chick, chick, chick, chick."
While other guys take 50 pictures,
I take like five or six!
Switching from, uh, film or slides to digital,
uh, I've-I've noticed that I shoot a lot more!
So when I was shooting film,
of course, it was expensive,
especially for, you know,
like a 14 or 15-year-old, right?
So, going to digital, it was so much easier, you know,
to just shoot everything that you see.
And then when you come home
and uh, you didn't like something, you know,
you just delete it, you know, and move on.
No, uh, no harm, no foul.
To me, that's the fun part of
photographing with aviation is,
especially on the military side,
is, it's just like hunting.
When you go sitting in the stand,
you don't know what you're gonna see.
It could be nothing at all, to everything
flying in the day.
And, you know, I'm just looking,
sometimes I'm just looking
for something just to see F-16,
F-35, especially around here,
just to have something in the air.
You know, obviously from the photography side,
I would really look, you know, you know,
for those banking shots, those nice
low approach shots, things like that.
But I really don't go hunting
for anything in particular
unless I know something is
happening, obviously, which is very rare.
It's, it's very rare that we're
in the know of what's going on.
But that, to me, that's part of the fun of it,
is you don't know what you're
gonna get when you go out there,
which is the reason why we all do it, right?
It's the reason we go out there. 'Cause you don't know
what you're gonna see that day.
And, I guess the best answer is
I don't really look for anything,
but you know, obviously
as any photographer would you love looking
for those beautiful, nice takeoff shots
and nice low approach bank shots
over you at the top, things like that.
And, and yeah, just kind of
enjoying from that end of it.
As aviation photographers,
aviation doesn't always come to you,
especially nowadays, you
know, you have to go out and seek
that special aircraft that you're after.
When I started, I was definitely a "plane spotter."
If you got word, you know,
that a specific aircraft was
visiting somewhere, then,
you know, you jumped in the car.
You know, I started young, so for me it
was, uh, bicycles and trains and buses.
You know, try to get to an air base,
try to catch whatever was comin' in.
So, a good story for me, at least, one that I really, uh,
you know, hold dear to my heart is
going out with friends in about 1990ish.
And, uh, we were after the USS John F. Kennedy.
It was moorn in the south of
England, in South Hampton.
And so, we were driving at night
trying to go across the channel,
you know, from the Netherlands.
And so a long drive after school.
And, uh, so we ended up in South Hampton.
And we were gonna camp in the wild,
you know, just to save a buck or two.
So we found this place that we thought, you know,
was a, a park, you know,
where we could basically pitch a tent,
you know, and parked the car.
It ended up being a golf course.
And so when we woke up, we
looked outside the tent, you know,
and, and here's all these people
that were already playing their game, you know,
wondering what was going on with this tent, you know,
on the, on the golf course.
And there's a lot of those
stories, that you go through,
doing this hobby, I would say.
Going out with friends and, uh, you
know, just, just having a blast, you know?
I mean, that's for me, you know, what it really is about,
you know, just having fun.
And then of course you get
to watch these guys do their
professional job in military aviation
and admiring, you know, what
they, uh, what they do for us!
Going out and taking
photographs of, of, uh, airplanes.
It, I find very cathartic. No stress.
I have no expectations, uh, when I leave the house, uh,
unless I going to an event like an air show,
a prearranged visit.
And then, you know, the expectation is, well,
you gonna hopefully, see something that,
uh, catches your eye.
If it's just a normal day,
having a day out with airplanes,
I have no expectations.
As they say, any day shooting airplanes
will beat every day at work, every time.
A lot of my favorite photographs
aren't necessarily of subjects which are
that interesting.
Some of the photographs
are of interesting subjects
that aren't terribly good quality.
Uh, but each one has a story that goes with it.
Having a good story, a good
background behind the photograph
where it was taken, the
circumstances
comes part of the way I look
at my favorite photographs.
One of my favorite photographs, uh, is of a, uh,
an Egyptian MIG-21. I took on the ground
in Egypt, at an Egyptian Air Force base.
And it was probably the
closest I ever went to going to jail,
for taking a photograph.
The Egyptian Air Force were very
adamant that there'd be no cameras.
And, uh, I had run outta film.
I was on my last roll of 36 exposure Kodachrome
and, uh, this MIG-21 came in and,
and, uh, I knew I had maybe two shots left on the camera.
The Egyptian security was walking up and down
and I sneakily took a couple of photographs,
and one of the Egyptian guards kind of saw me
and I very, uh, delicately pressed the rewind button
with my thumb and my hands were big enough
that I could actually start to
rewind the film back into the canister,
while he was trying to talk to me.
And he wasn't looking at what my hand was doing.
And then at the end of it, he's, uh, "Open your camera!"
And I was more than happy to open it,
because there was a film canister in there
that was already returned to its' slot.
Now, that was a very memorable photograph.
It's not a fantastic
photograph, interesting subject,
but the story behind it, um, is,
is much more memorable for me.
Keith Snyder: Targets of opportunity.
First and primary is any aircraft
that we don't see normally in this
area, transient aircraft or aircraft types.
And it's "pot luck," whether you
will see that in a given day or not.
With our local base here,
Fort Worth there is the expectation
of getting the locally based F-16s
and F-35s flying out of Lockheed Martin.
It's a mixed bag. You're hoping for new stuff,
but you're expecting to get some
of the local stuff at the same time.
So you kind of plan on both.
We actually have examples of a perfect,
or near perfect photo day for our
purposes, that happen here, occasionally:
Hurricane evacuations,
where a hurricane will threaten
the southeast United States
and most of those bases will
evacuate their aircraft, rather than risk
having them damaged.
Navy Fort Worth is a prime location for some
of those aircraft to "bug out" to.
So, we've had occasions where we'll go out there
and catch over a hundred airplanes
that are not based at the Navy base, come in, in a day
of multiple, multiple types from multiple bases.
That's fun! And you know that a whole lot
of stuff is coming in and a lot of variety.
So, uh, that's a rich target
of opportunity for our hobby.
Favorite photos. There have been
so many and so many different types,
but I think my favorites are
ones that I took of my cousin.
I was, uh, flying
with the Lone Star Flight Museum, outta Galveston.
He was a chief pilot at that time,
and I went up in their B-25
and hung out a porthole on the side of it
and took pictures of him, while he
was flying B-17, in formation with us.
And I think those were some
of the most satisfying pictures I've ever taken,
because it was an incredible aircraft
and somebody who was close to me
who was flying it at the time, that, that was fun!
And I still look back at those photographs
with a lot of fondness.
For a photographer, there is
nothing better than a "flex departure"
at Nellis, during a Red Flag
or even at Nellis Air Force Base, in general.
If you're lucky enough to photograph out there.
Typically during Red Flags, they uh,
take off to the north
and depending on the mission
that these guys are flying,
they either go straight out north and,
and follow the highway into the desert,
or they take a "flex departure,"
which, basically, makes a steep left turn
over the motor speedway, that's
located just north of the air base.
Greg Davis: My experience
with "flex departure," is asking for
and understanding that you're
gonna receive an opportunity to,
as soon as the wheels come up,
the gear's gonna come up,
and you're going to head to your
military operating area in most cases,
in an expedited manner!
So, that's often an opportunity
to kick burner, pull a lot of 'G's
going right out, and you get some
vapors coming off the wing tips
and it's usually a pretty exciting time for both the
occupant of the airplane as well as people
that may be photographing it
down there.
Jordan Dutton: Last year we went to Red Flag.
We had an F-35 pilot who, I don't know,
he didn't even have it, maybe a 1,000,
2,000 feet above the ground.
Kept it very, very low for us.
And I mean, he turned that stick
and he came right over the
top of the car, shook the ground,
shook the cars and everything,
and it just sent a chill down your spine,
when he yanked over the top of you.
And that's a rare occasion, I'm sure you know that
that doesn't happen all the time.
But if a pilot feels gracious
that day, he'll bless you
with a really good "flex departure!"
Keith Snyder: Got an airplane that's launching
and then basically aiming right at you,
in full afterburner, at a low altitude.
And, at least, the local pilots who are there,
who know the photographers are down there
by the raceway waiting for 'em, are putting on a show.
And if the lighting is right
and you got the right type of aircraft,
incredible photographs can be had out there.
And just the thrill
of having an F-35 go over your
head at 200 feet in full afterburner,
is just awesome!
I am extremely lucky that my wife,
not only does she let me indulge in airplanes,
she actually encourages it, because she
knows it grounds me
and she'll join me, especially
with the overseas trips,
she'll come to all the air shows with me
and she's all about the noise.
and I'm all about the jets and
the airplanes and the photography.
But she's there for the noise.
So she loves the fast jets
and of course, she came out
to Greece with me, for PhanCon,
of course she's there for the noise of the Phantoms
and let's face it, who isn't?
She loves it as much as I do.
So I have 100% support
on pretty much everything I do
as far as airplane's concerned.
And my wife likes to fly, so, uh, she
actually flies in Green Flag herself.
So, uh, she's a sensor operator for Civil Air Patrol.
My wife actually comments the-the same way, you know,
that my mom used to do, you know.
So, every time, you know, I get excited, you know,
when I had a film, uh, developed and, uh,
and pictures printed
and you run over to your parents, you know,
and you go like, oh mom, look at this, you know,
and she's like, well, yeah, but
that's the same one as this one.
And you go like, no, but
this squadron patch on the tail
is different than that one.
I'm like, okay, I don't see it.
So yeah, my-my wife is
essentially the same way, you know?
So, uh, yeah, they don't see the differences, you know,
that-that we do.
And they don't get excited when we
hear something on the radio "crack"
and they're ready to go.
You know, my adrenaline starts going!
The family puts up with it.
My daughter has zero interest in it.
She knows I do it, and she has no problem.
My wife, now, puts up with it.
Uh, this hobby almost cost me my marriage in the '80s.
You dive into it so much
that you end up spending way
too much time pursuing the hobby
and not enough time on your family.
I know a lot of photographers
in the hobbyist category,
who aren't married anymore,
and it's specifically because of this.
This is a time consuming hobby.
There are hundreds and hundreds of hours
you'll spend out in an airfield
over and over and over again,
trying to catch what you're looking for.
And it's very easy to get caught up in that
and your family suffers.
Um, I found out, you know, in the early
'90s that there's a balancing act to this.
And I saved my marriage, but it was close.
A lot of people haven't saved it.
And uh, I think that's the point
where some people get a little too serious in this.
If you're willing to dump
your family, basically, in order
to go out and get an airplane picture,
I think that's takin' the
hobby just a little too seriously.
There was a perfect excuse
after 9/11 to say, well,
security dictates we're not gonna let
you onto the airfield or anybody else.
Versus, being able to recognize, now's the
time where we need
to be telling our story more.
We need to have local media come in.
We need to have people that
understand what's going on
that can tell our story.
A lot of public affairs officers almost
consider local folks as adversarial.
They all want to have the big TV station, you know,
CBS News from New York come in and,
and do a positive report on whatever their unit is,
but they neglect and almost
ostracize their local base,
that are the supporters that
get photos in the newspaper,
that talk to pilots that are almost recruiters.
There's people that do that, that have a passion
for photography and for
aviation, that make great photos,
that help people, the civilians,
understand what's going on.
There's a few folks that I personally know
and, uh, that I-I see out in the D.O.D.
that do a really great job of keeping in mind the
enthusiast, the hobbyist,
the people that are out there to
gawk at jets, but also make
great photos.
One of the guys, he's a
civilian public affairs officer
for the Navy, he hosts an aviation day.
It's very well organized.
It brings people out that he
knows they have a passion for it.
They get to see all kinds of cool stuff.
They make great photos, they amplify the mission
into the local community and around the country.
Um, and it's a win-win
because he also asks, if you get some great photos,
will you share them with us?
So, he gets photos from
some of the top photographers
that he can then put into his official products
and show his command
and show the Navy in a positive light,
didn't cost him anything!
We've got to get back to a point
where people recognize
those kind of opportunities
as, in the public affairs field and leverage them,
because there's not enough
people going into aviation.
There's not enough pilots,
there's not enough mechanics,
there's not enough people that
want to fuel jets or helicopters.
There's not enough people that want to
learn aerodynamics.
We're competing against everything under the sun,
for people's attention,
especially in those critical
high school years and early college.
So, if we don't have something that's eye catching
that's interesting, a great story
that captures people's
attention, then we're gonna lose.
And that is, that's concerning to me
because it is a passion for me,
both photography and aviation.
But when you consider the
big picture of national defense
and just aviation in general, we need more pilots
to fly people around the
country to conduct the business
that occurs in the United States.
We've got to be able to be
mobile, we've gotta have people
that know what they're doing, fly great,
get their passengers there on time,
deliver weapons if it's military, et cetera.
And we've, we've gotta get back to that.
Greg Davis: Everybody likes
to have their picture taken.
And when I was an Air Force
photographer, I recognized that
very quickly, that all pilots, they've got an ego,
they want to have a great photo of them.
But you have to be careful and you have to,
as a photographer, understand
that sometimes appealing
to somebody's ego is, is a negative thing.
And I think we saw that out in the "Star Wars Canyon"
in California, where you had photographers
who discovered a great
location to go and photograph
and they started making pictures
of the pilots flying the low level routes.
And then the word quickly got out
and lots of photographers started showing up
and they also started
coordinating behind the scenes
with the pilots.
And it went so far as to coordinate
with units in advance.
So they would, they were
having people come through the,
the low level route that
traditionally would not fly
through that low level route:
Larger aircraft, adversary aircraft,
aircraft wearing cool paint schemes.
And it got dangerous, very quickly,
because you had these pilots
that were coordinating and,
and knowing that there's 50
photographers on the ridge,
they're gonna get great photos if I go through
that pass upside down,
versus flying it, pushing over
and continuing in.
And we actually lost an F-18E a few years ago
where the pilot was being very aggressive
and ended up impacting ground and...
Loss of life of the pilot was devastating,
but that's also a national asset for an F-18 aircraft
that's, you know, now smoldering
metal in the middle of the desert.
And I even told photographers
at the time, I said, you have
to be very careful about this
because you're gonna get
somebody that's gonna think
going through there faster than
the published airspeed is gonna
make a better photo when,
actually probably doing it slower
would be better for photos and for safety.
I had a-an acquaintance in a local Post Office, uh,
that I had known for several years,
he worked behind the counter.
And, I found out that he had been
in the Navy
and had been a
bombardier-navigator in an A-6 Intruder.
He knew that I had photographed
airplanes and enjoyed it
and he had no photographs
of any aircraft he had ever flown in.
So I asked him and got his
log book from him and went back
and researched and looked
through trying to match up
to see if I had photographed any aircraft
that he had in his log book.
And I found an entry: "March of 1986"
where there was a, a VA-75 A-6
that landed at Navy-Dallas, and I caught it.
It was the only VA-75 A-6 I ever saw.
And it turns out that was him, in that airplane
and it was in the afternoon,
so I shot the right side of the airplane.
So, he was on the side facing me and I went back
and found the slide and I
was able to give him a print of
that airplane, from 30 years before.
And it just, it freaked me out!
The coincidence of it just
freaked me out at the time.
But it-it was fun,
and it kind of illustrates, kind of why I do this
is just to kind of document
these airplanes and it was luck
or happenstance or whatever
that all that worked out.
It-it was quite a hoot
to see him looking at himself in that picture.
Look at my T-shirt.
It's the one airplane that got
me inspired, when I was a kid.
The F-104 Starfighter.
There are only very few flying nowadays. In Europe,
for a very brief moment,
there was one flying, it was a group in Norway
that restored a two-seater
to flying condition in 2018,
after I think 10 years of restoration,
they finally got it to fly.
Now, the Starfighter is a flying rocket.
The Aviation PhotoCrew team flies a Skyvan,
a flying shoebox, with a maximum of 160 knots.
That thing flies at a minimum of way more than that!
So that was the first challenge.
But the biggest challenge was,
basically, to get in contact with them
and get an agreement that they would be willing
to give us a few flybys.
Yeah, they were interested in all
and the guy who was overseeing
the project was a former F-104 pilot
and he said, "Look,
alright, I mean we gonna see,
we gonna do you guys, and
we gonna do flybys at 230 knots
in the central line.
Alright, we go!" So that's all I needed to know!
Once we started off flying with the other guys,
we were super lucky with
the weather.
It was a steel blue, wonderful, summer evening.
And I think at some point, uh, you-you expect
that a Starfighter is flying
over the coast at like 10,000 feet
and all of a sudden we could track it.
There was something coming in
very fast at 1,500 feet over the water
and then obviously you hear it on the radio.
So I can guarantee you when you see that in the end
and you know it's gonna happen
and you know it's gonna come to the Skyvan!
That was probably the best moment I had so far!
And then the first pass was already magic,
but that second pass was
directly in the center line at 200 feet.
And the most magical thing
happened is when it buzzed under us,
we could hear the famous howl
of the engine!
And everyone in the Skyvan went like,
we got it! We got it!
And we were lucky enough to get seven more passes,
before it finally landed.
That was our best moment so far!
Early on, when I was doing photography,
I had an opportunity to go to Barksdale.
That was kind of our home plate, there, and
capture TU-142M Bears,
when they came in.
There's a gentleman named
Robert Hopkins, he's a author.
Uh, and um, he called me up on the phone one day
and said, hey. At the time he ran a magazine called.
Journal of Military Aviation.
He says, I understand you live in that area.
Would you mind going down there
and taking some interior/exterior
pictures of those Bears?
I said, well, absolutely love to.
And so I got to go down there and do that.
The interesting part, because it
was a magazine publication back then,
not digital, he wanted it done in black and white.
So I actually had to scrounge up another camera
'cause I wanted some
slides to get the color part of it.
So I was able to take some exterior colors,
but I wasn't able to do it inside
just 'cause I was jumbling...
the-the Russian guys were shuffling us
in and out and sort of things like that.
And so those actually got published
in Journal of Military Aviation.
So that was one of the crowning
jewels of things I got to do,
probably the best to this point, I would say.
Greg Davis: I was assigned to Shaw
Air Force Base at the 20th Fighter Wing
at the time that 9/11 went down.
And I'd been there for a-a significant amount of time,
so that my photos had been out in the media
and across the Air Force.
And, I remember when "September
11th" went down, the Commander
of Air Combat Command made a by-name request
that he wanted me to come from Shaw, to document
what was happening with the common air patrols.
And so I was very quickly sent up to, uh, Washington, D.C.
and I flew out of Langley for a few days
and I got to fly in F-15s and F-16s
and document the time where
the absolute airspace was closed, except for
the fighters that I was in
and the tankers supporting us.
And so one of my most famous photos, to this day,
that is often used whe-
when you talk about Operation Noble Eagle is, uh,
two F-16s from North Dakota,
flying over Washington, D.C.,
where you can see all of the major monuments
and government facilities,
including the Pentagon,
right between the two jets, where you can see
where the airliner went in.
That's been very rewarding
personally and professionally.
But um, you know, I have kids, now, that are teenagers
that look at that and say, hey, that's my dad's photo,
and that's, that's pretty cool!
I would've loved to have photographed
the F-14 Tomcat,
just because I hear so many
stories, you know, from him,
from our photography buddies,
just how fun of an aircraft
that was to photograph,
especially in the Naval Air Station,
Dallas days
and the Carswell days, just
the mystique of that aircraft.
Obviously "Top Gun" made
that aircraft very, very popular.
It's just such a cool airframe and aircraft to do.
Keith Snyder: I think my favorite subject was one
that I never got a chance to take a picture of.
My father flew the F-101 Voodoo
over in England for three years,
and that was such an impressive aircraft
and I have no active memory
of it, because I was so young.
I've always missed not having had the opportunity
to actively photograph those aircraft.
They were gone before I got
into the hobby. It saddens me.
But the few Voodoos
that are actually still on display, they're cool.
I like seeing them and I like
photographing 'em even though
they're just sittin' there on a stick.
I really wish that I'd had the opportunity
to see those in actual service.
Dan Dutton: F-117, just because it's so elusive
and it's made kind of a comeback.
I've always been interested
in the 'black world' aircraft.
I love every aircraft there is out there;
Tomcats, Hornets, Eagles.
But something with F-117,
it has that mystique about it.
Reading the story, knowing things about it,
always been a fan of that.
I wasn't ever able to see a Blackbird fly,
I was kind of beyond that, when I was younger.
I've been able to see a F-117, see it fly several times,
catch it static, all those kind of good things.
Uh, hopefully in the near
future, we can see one flying
that would kind of put a really good finish
to the F-117. As far as I'm seeing it.
Matt Ellis: The SR-71 is
always gonna be the one airplane
that I could never get enough of.
I used to see it fly, probably about once
a month. No matter how many times I saw
an SR-71 fly,
it was always the most exciting
thing I think I'd ever seen.
It was a sight to behold.
It looks like it's doing a thousand
miles an hour just standing still.
So that's my all time favorite aircraft!
Sebastiaan Does: People may argue, you know, that it's
not necessarily a real airplane,
but I would say the-the Space Shuttle launch.
I've tried so many times
and every time I've went, you know, it got canceled.
So, uh, that's a, that's an extreme bummer,
but I wish, you know, that I could have seen, you know,
like a Space Shuttle launch
that would've been, that would've been amazing!
The aircraft that I would've
most liked to have flown in,
that I never got to, would be an RF-4 Phantom.
I actually flew in an F-4 Phantom E model
and that was very exciting!
It was a dream come true
because as I mentioned, I grew up at one
of the largest Air Force bases
that had F-4 Phantoms, as a kid.
So they would fly over my house.
I knew all about 'em, used to see
'em launch! Just amazing aircraft!
But, I never got to fly in an RF-4,
which was a reconnaissance version,
that actually captured my attention.
The crazy thing is, they would launch to the south
and turn to the west, which is where I lived, in Austin.
They would be climbing up to, uh, fly out to west Texas
and do low level runs.
And I had a friend, his father was a navigator in RF-4s,
so he educated me about what they would do and
it just seemed like the coolest mission.
So RF-4 Phantom is the missed opportunity,
but I did get to fly in, in F-4
and that was pretty amazing
because it's a beast of an aircraft!
Got to do aerobatics, got to go Mach 1,
got to do all kinds of cool stuff
that most people would never
get to do, and I was very lucky,
because that was actually a, uh,
QF-4 when they were being used as drones.
So, sort of the tail end for the, uh,
U.S. Military's use of F-4s.
But, uh, it was, it was pretty awesome!
I'm still hooked, and I presume
I'm going to be hooked on this
until I'm no longer physically capable of doing it.
I enjoy going out there, and seeing
the airplanes
and getting the rush of seeing a jet,
in "afterburner" blow over my
head and taking pictures of it.
I still get a rush out of seeing somebody respond
to a picture that I posted, that I took 40 years ago
and say, "Hey, I remember that airplane!"
I published a picture on Facebook
of an F-4 Phantom, from Fort Worth.
And it was sitting down at the "last chance,"
waiting to take off, and it turned
out that a guy responded to it,
who was flying it, at the time,
and he had-had no photographs
of himself in that aircraft at all.
And, all of a sudden here I am, 30 - 35 years later
and I'm able to give him this photograph. That's fun,
and that's got me hooked.
And, being able to contribute
to the history of aviation.
The pictures we take today, are tomorrow's history.
People in the military, with very few exceptions,
very rarely use a camera.
They very rarely take photographs of the aircraft
or vehicles or whatever it is, they're doing
because it's their day-to-day job.
It's not a big deal. So, people come along trying
to document the history of aviation, down the road,
they're relying, in large part,
to what we are doing now.
Now, that might seem, trying to make myself
a little self important, here, or whatever,
but, when somebody comes
along, looking for photographs
of a Tomcat that flew out of
Navy-Dallas in the early 1990s,
they're not gonna find it in the Navy.
They're not gonna find it in official logs.
They're going to find it, in my slide books.
And, the ability to keep that
history going is a lot of fun,
and it's a reason to keep after it.
I don't know how many more years I've got left in this,
but uh, as long as I can keep doing it,
I'm gonna keep going out there.
I'm predominantly
photographing military aircraft,
trying different locations, within the vicinity
of the airfield to give you that different angle,
that keeps it interesting.
So, will you ever have enough pictures of an F-16?
I don't know. For me it's all about hanging out
with your friends and talk
about different things, you know,
that they've experienced in
their hobby versus you, um,
you know, different places
that they have traveled, uh,
versus where you have been.
And especially if, you know,
when you're talking about,
you know, guys that do the same hobby as you do
that actually have been in the service
and even sometimes, in a war zone
and be able to take pictures, you know, from
what these guys train for, day to day.
To be able to reflect that in a picture,
and take that home, and for
me to be able to look at that.
I always enjoy that.
I mentioned, before, that as a young
kid, I used to go out with my grandfather
to Bergtsrom Air Force Base
and we would watch the airplanes
from the end of the runway area,
where we could drive up, at that time,
and you could watch the F-4s taxi down a long taxiway,
do their end-of-runway checks, before taking off.
As a kid I would wave and
wave and wave at these pilots,
but the pilot was usually taxiing the aircraft,
looking at his stuff.
And the backseater was always running checklists.
I remember that and understand
fully now, having done it,
the intensity of-of what's required.
There was one time where I was waving and waving
and a backseater looked up
and just took a minute to wave. Acknowledged me.
And I mean he was 50 - 60 feet away. The
jet was loud and they were about to turn
and he just took that fraction of a second.
I think that moment, in time, is what actually said,
"Man, I wanna be that guy!"
I made a point in my career
as an aerial photographer,
flying in the backseat of jets.
There were some times, where I
knew there were photographers, there
I knew there were kids there, especially
where I would take that moment
and wave at the kids, acknowledge 'em,
wave at the photographers.
I think part of what has driven me, is knowing that
over the years I've had that impact on people.
I've had kids come up to me
and say, "Oh, I've seen your picture in Airman Magazine!"
That was really cool and now I wanna be a pilot, or
I wanna join the Air Force and be a Pararescueman,
'cause I saw your photo of guys
coming out of an HH-60G, in Kuwait
and that was just super!
That's pretty inspirational!
Dan Dutton: To do anything with
your family is always awesome!
To be able to share, uh, you
know, any kind of experiences
and beyond just what you do as a family.
I never thought I'd have a
buddy, to be able to do that with.
I've got my aviation friends
that, uh, obviously we do that
and I've introduced him
and he's got to be their friends
and peers as well, which I,
which is even cooler than that!
A lot of the, the guys I've known and had known him, now
and uh, you know, and accept him as a peer, as well.
It's always fun to have somebody to talk to
or share the experience with.
And so, uh, I think that's the best part, now, is, you know,
if a B-1 flies by, it's cool to take a shot,
but it's even better to have your son with you,
who enjoys it even more than you do, you know.
We were at Shepherd
for the Air Show a couple years ago.
And, I saw a gentleman in a wheelchair
and his son was wheeling around showing the run.
I said, "Well Jordan, you know, you're-
you're you're gonna have to do that to me someday."
He said, "Anytime, Dad!"
So, uh, that's always good to know that I may be in
that wheelchair with my camera,
but somebody's gonna be pushing me,
that I know. So, that's pretty cool!
Jordan Dutton: Anytime you
get to spend time with your dad
and doing something that he loves,
but also something-something that you love too,
It's just a really special moment.
It, for-for me, it's just, you know,
the quality time I get to spend with him.
'cause obviously now, you know, with me hav-
having a full-time job being
busy, it's, it's harder to have
that family time at home.
And so, it's something that me and him
both were able to do together
and something that, you know, we get
to experience everything together!
I mean, there's no one really else that I have, you know,
outside of the peers that he was talking about
that I can share that with. I
tell my friends, as a hobby,
I'm an aviation photographer,
you know, what's that? You know, you know, what's, you know,
it's-it's not really that big of a deal
to them or you know, it's, you know,
they don't really get it, and I understand that
and it's just a big hobby of mine
and he's the only one that really gets it.
I mean, who better just...
to have those experiences
with than-than your father.
There's a photograph that, you know, that I have
that's on my desk at my at work
that, you know,
it's a picture that me and him took.
If, if you ever go to Nellis Air
Force Base at the entrance,
there's basically a big statue
of fourth Thunderbird in formation.
And that was at our first Red Flag, together.
And that's something that I cherish,
that I keep really close to me.
'cause that was a time where
we both had gone to a place
and doing something that we both
really enjoyed and loved being at.
And, having those memories
is something that you can't...
that money or nothing can replace.
aviation photography, primarily
because my family had a military background,
always around aviation.
My grandfather would always take me out
to Bergstrom Air Force Base,
and we'd watch F-4s launch out of the base.
Talk about a wonderful time, as a kid.
Matt Ellis: My introduction to airplanes was my dad.
One of my first memories of
aircraft is being a very small child
and being put in the seat of an F-4.
And I remember looking
around, seeing bunches of gauges
and switches and canopy rails.
And, at that point, I was hooked!
As soon as I kind of became aware of airplanes
and knew what a camera was, I wanted
to take pictures of airplanes.
So it's been a lifelong, uh, obsession, really.
I was going to U.T. Arlington, here in this local area,
Arlington, Texas, and I just got bored one day.
So, I went out to Navy-Dallas,
went over there just to watch planes,
as a lot of people do, and I met a group
of people out there that were really cool,
that hung out there, looked like
they knew what they were doing.
Didn't have a camera, didn't
have anything, but I saw they did
and was watching what they were doing
and said, you know, this-this
looks like to be, would be fun.
Better than just watching the planes,
is-is maybe taking pictures.
Jordan Dutton: Growing up because of his hobby.
It-it kind of got me to, I was around aviation a lot,
and then when I was about a sophomore,
maybe a junior in high school,
we went out to the DFW Airport
and then he let me use his camera.
And from that day on, I just got hooked.
'cause it was something that I saw my dad do,
it's like, and that's something that I wanted to do.
It was just something that now, me
and him have been doing together for 10 years.
And it's-it's been some of the happiest times
and, you know, to share that with him
and to have all that fun, I just,
it's been great ever since. I've enjoyed it.
My dad took me to my first air show,
I think it was in 1989, at Volkel Air Base.
And that was the 10 year anniversary
of the F-16 in the Dutch Air Force.
And so it was, it was massive, you know, it was so packed
with people, you know, boys and girls,
and, and I was really fascinated by that.
I'm an aerospace engineer, so I love the background
behind the aviation, behind airplanes,
the technology that goes into aviation.
So, to be able to document that,
in a picture, is fulfilling for me.
Eric Coeckelberghs: I got into
aviation like at a pretty young age.
I think I was seven or eight, as far as I can remember.
When I saw the Starfighters,
the legendary jets, F-104 fly over my house.
And ever since I captured that image, I knew like,
"Hey, I love airplanes!"
And the best thing you can do
as the photographer in
aviation is to go up in the sky,
and catch airplanes in air-to-air photography.
But that was very, very hard
to actually get a chance to do that.
And so, by the time I was a little bit older, I tried
to create that chances myself.
And yeah, it worked, uh, step by step, by step.
My first air-to-air was in 1987
when I had a chance to fly with the Alpi Eagles.
That is an Italian team, flying four Marchettis.
And so they took me flying,
during the actual training.
I never heard of G-forces,
didn't know what a "looping" was,
but when I looked up and I saw the cows
there in the farm field,
I knew, all right, this is cool!
And I made some - some pretty good pictures.
And ever since 1987 I've been doing it.
Keith Snyder: My dad was
a fighter pilot in the Air Force,
and he had a camera at that time.
And so I've always been around airplanes
and just kind of developed
the desire to see airplanes
and then, got the camera bug
and, um, kind of caught the disease at that point.
Greg Davis: I got into photography
pretty heavily in high school,
loved taking pictures,
did a lot of military stuff, uh, via
a friend
that was in the Air National Guard.
And was introduced, uh, fairly early to, uh, one
of the Air Force's top aerial
photographers at the time.
His name was Michael James Haggerty.
And he was a photographer for Airman Magazine,
and became a mentor of mine very quickly.
And he showed me what the pros did
and how they did it, not only to make great photos,
but also to do it safely.
He always stressed safety, uh,
which has turned into my mantra as well as I-
I mentor people now.
I joined the Air Force in 1996.
I walked into the recruiter
and said, I want to be an Air Force photographer.
And the recruiter actually laughed at me,
and he said, "Nah, we're kicking people out."
I actually had my portfolio in my truck
and I walked out to my truck and I walked back in
and I said, I don't think you understand.
I wanna be an Air Force photographer.
And I had, uh, about 10 photos that were mounted.
And they were pretty exciting, dynamic stuff.
And I slammed them down on the desk in front
of him in a very cocky, you know,
22-year-old way or whatever it was.
Um, and I said, this is what I do, now.
And the first one was two F-15s going straight up.
So the recruiter looked at my
portfolio, and looked up at me
and said, let me make a few
phone calls.
And so, he did.
And I had a guarantee in my contract, when I signed up
that "if" I made it through basic training,
and "if" I made it through tech school,
that I could be an Air Force photographer.
So it's been a wild ride.
This was all, uh, grab a camera and try it.
No formal training at all.
I started out with Cannon AE-1 Program film cameras,
which were pretty decent equipment,
back in the early '80s and '90s.
And, uh, it was a good platform to learn with.
They were manual cameras, um, manual focus.
And then, uh, entered the digital world about 2012
when I, uh, bought my first
Canon 7D.
And that's basically what I'm using
now, are 7Ds and Canon lenses.
It's all self-taught. Everything I've done has been
through trial and error, quite a bit
of error when you start,
especially, you know, working
with the different types of films.
Slide film was a bit of a-a learning curve for me.
Started out, uh, shooting
prints and then going to slides.
Everything was a little bit different
because of the, you know,
the ISO settings and everything else.
But it's through trial and error
I became better and better.
And of course, once the digital age hit,
that changes everything as far as the ability
to take many more pictures
and find a couple that are good out of that.
With slide, you couldn't afford to do that.
Dan Dutton: Originally, back in the
day, everybody shot with slide film.
Some people would bring out 20
rolls of 36 exposure Kodachrome.
I would have like five rolls
'cause I was a struggling college student.
So, when I took my shots, it
was usually of a static nature.
And the sunlight had to be really good,
usually early morning shots,
that sort of stuff on the ramp.
Didn't catch a whole lot other than
maybe a landing shot of stuff.
So as things progressed, digital comes into play.
Then I got to be more of a, uh,
creative photographer in that respect,
because I could deal with the settings post,
you know, production type stuff.
And so it took a lot more chances, got better lenses,
so I was able to shoot more
of the plane, the aesthetics
of the aircraft, the lighting, that sort of stuff.
So a lot of the courses I've
taken in terms of photography,
have been along those lines with like, Photoshop,
things like that, to be able
to draw that contrast out.
So, used to be a backlit,
throw it in the trash can, now backlit,
no, I'll take something with that,
make something pretty out of that,
nice and aesthetically pleasing.
So that's kind of the difference
between then and now.
Eric Coeckelberghs: The old
style of doing stuff was a lot of fun,
but everything was manual.
The good thing is, you learn
how to take pictures really well!
And you have a maximum 36 exposures.
So when I was still using that
camera, for every 36 exposures,
I had at least 25 really good photos!
And strangely enough, even today, with the gun mode,
I still do, like: I aim, I still do
like, "chick, chick, chick, chick."
While other guys take 50 pictures,
I take like five or six!
Switching from, uh, film or slides to digital,
uh, I've-I've noticed that I shoot a lot more!
So when I was shooting film,
of course, it was expensive,
especially for, you know,
like a 14 or 15-year-old, right?
So, going to digital, it was so much easier, you know,
to just shoot everything that you see.
And then when you come home
and uh, you didn't like something, you know,
you just delete it, you know, and move on.
No, uh, no harm, no foul.
To me, that's the fun part of
photographing with aviation is,
especially on the military side,
is, it's just like hunting.
When you go sitting in the stand,
you don't know what you're gonna see.
It could be nothing at all, to everything
flying in the day.
And, you know, I'm just looking,
sometimes I'm just looking
for something just to see F-16,
F-35, especially around here,
just to have something in the air.
You know, obviously from the photography side,
I would really look, you know, you know,
for those banking shots, those nice
low approach shots, things like that.
But I really don't go hunting
for anything in particular
unless I know something is
happening, obviously, which is very rare.
It's, it's very rare that we're
in the know of what's going on.
But that, to me, that's part of the fun of it,
is you don't know what you're
gonna get when you go out there,
which is the reason why we all do it, right?
It's the reason we go out there. 'Cause you don't know
what you're gonna see that day.
And, I guess the best answer is
I don't really look for anything,
but you know, obviously
as any photographer would you love looking
for those beautiful, nice takeoff shots
and nice low approach bank shots
over you at the top, things like that.
And, and yeah, just kind of
enjoying from that end of it.
As aviation photographers,
aviation doesn't always come to you,
especially nowadays, you
know, you have to go out and seek
that special aircraft that you're after.
When I started, I was definitely a "plane spotter."
If you got word, you know,
that a specific aircraft was
visiting somewhere, then,
you know, you jumped in the car.
You know, I started young, so for me it
was, uh, bicycles and trains and buses.
You know, try to get to an air base,
try to catch whatever was comin' in.
So, a good story for me, at least, one that I really, uh,
you know, hold dear to my heart is
going out with friends in about 1990ish.
And, uh, we were after the USS John F. Kennedy.
It was moorn in the south of
England, in South Hampton.
And so, we were driving at night
trying to go across the channel,
you know, from the Netherlands.
And so a long drive after school.
And, uh, so we ended up in South Hampton.
And we were gonna camp in the wild,
you know, just to save a buck or two.
So we found this place that we thought, you know,
was a, a park, you know,
where we could basically pitch a tent,
you know, and parked the car.
It ended up being a golf course.
And so when we woke up, we
looked outside the tent, you know,
and, and here's all these people
that were already playing their game, you know,
wondering what was going on with this tent, you know,
on the, on the golf course.
And there's a lot of those
stories, that you go through,
doing this hobby, I would say.
Going out with friends and, uh, you
know, just, just having a blast, you know?
I mean, that's for me, you know, what it really is about,
you know, just having fun.
And then of course you get
to watch these guys do their
professional job in military aviation
and admiring, you know, what
they, uh, what they do for us!
Going out and taking
photographs of, of, uh, airplanes.
It, I find very cathartic. No stress.
I have no expectations, uh, when I leave the house, uh,
unless I going to an event like an air show,
a prearranged visit.
And then, you know, the expectation is, well,
you gonna hopefully, see something that,
uh, catches your eye.
If it's just a normal day,
having a day out with airplanes,
I have no expectations.
As they say, any day shooting airplanes
will beat every day at work, every time.
A lot of my favorite photographs
aren't necessarily of subjects which are
that interesting.
Some of the photographs
are of interesting subjects
that aren't terribly good quality.
Uh, but each one has a story that goes with it.
Having a good story, a good
background behind the photograph
where it was taken, the
circumstances
comes part of the way I look
at my favorite photographs.
One of my favorite photographs, uh, is of a, uh,
an Egyptian MIG-21. I took on the ground
in Egypt, at an Egyptian Air Force base.
And it was probably the
closest I ever went to going to jail,
for taking a photograph.
The Egyptian Air Force were very
adamant that there'd be no cameras.
And, uh, I had run outta film.
I was on my last roll of 36 exposure Kodachrome
and, uh, this MIG-21 came in and,
and, uh, I knew I had maybe two shots left on the camera.
The Egyptian security was walking up and down
and I sneakily took a couple of photographs,
and one of the Egyptian guards kind of saw me
and I very, uh, delicately pressed the rewind button
with my thumb and my hands were big enough
that I could actually start to
rewind the film back into the canister,
while he was trying to talk to me.
And he wasn't looking at what my hand was doing.
And then at the end of it, he's, uh, "Open your camera!"
And I was more than happy to open it,
because there was a film canister in there
that was already returned to its' slot.
Now, that was a very memorable photograph.
It's not a fantastic
photograph, interesting subject,
but the story behind it, um, is,
is much more memorable for me.
Keith Snyder: Targets of opportunity.
First and primary is any aircraft
that we don't see normally in this
area, transient aircraft or aircraft types.
And it's "pot luck," whether you
will see that in a given day or not.
With our local base here,
Fort Worth there is the expectation
of getting the locally based F-16s
and F-35s flying out of Lockheed Martin.
It's a mixed bag. You're hoping for new stuff,
but you're expecting to get some
of the local stuff at the same time.
So you kind of plan on both.
We actually have examples of a perfect,
or near perfect photo day for our
purposes, that happen here, occasionally:
Hurricane evacuations,
where a hurricane will threaten
the southeast United States
and most of those bases will
evacuate their aircraft, rather than risk
having them damaged.
Navy Fort Worth is a prime location for some
of those aircraft to "bug out" to.
So, we've had occasions where we'll go out there
and catch over a hundred airplanes
that are not based at the Navy base, come in, in a day
of multiple, multiple types from multiple bases.
That's fun! And you know that a whole lot
of stuff is coming in and a lot of variety.
So, uh, that's a rich target
of opportunity for our hobby.
Favorite photos. There have been
so many and so many different types,
but I think my favorites are
ones that I took of my cousin.
I was, uh, flying
with the Lone Star Flight Museum, outta Galveston.
He was a chief pilot at that time,
and I went up in their B-25
and hung out a porthole on the side of it
and took pictures of him, while he
was flying B-17, in formation with us.
And I think those were some
of the most satisfying pictures I've ever taken,
because it was an incredible aircraft
and somebody who was close to me
who was flying it at the time, that, that was fun!
And I still look back at those photographs
with a lot of fondness.
For a photographer, there is
nothing better than a "flex departure"
at Nellis, during a Red Flag
or even at Nellis Air Force Base, in general.
If you're lucky enough to photograph out there.
Typically during Red Flags, they uh,
take off to the north
and depending on the mission
that these guys are flying,
they either go straight out north and,
and follow the highway into the desert,
or they take a "flex departure,"
which, basically, makes a steep left turn
over the motor speedway, that's
located just north of the air base.
Greg Davis: My experience
with "flex departure," is asking for
and understanding that you're
gonna receive an opportunity to,
as soon as the wheels come up,
the gear's gonna come up,
and you're going to head to your
military operating area in most cases,
in an expedited manner!
So, that's often an opportunity
to kick burner, pull a lot of 'G's
going right out, and you get some
vapors coming off the wing tips
and it's usually a pretty exciting time for both the
occupant of the airplane as well as people
that may be photographing it
down there.
Jordan Dutton: Last year we went to Red Flag.
We had an F-35 pilot who, I don't know,
he didn't even have it, maybe a 1,000,
2,000 feet above the ground.
Kept it very, very low for us.
And I mean, he turned that stick
and he came right over the
top of the car, shook the ground,
shook the cars and everything,
and it just sent a chill down your spine,
when he yanked over the top of you.
And that's a rare occasion, I'm sure you know that
that doesn't happen all the time.
But if a pilot feels gracious
that day, he'll bless you
with a really good "flex departure!"
Keith Snyder: Got an airplane that's launching
and then basically aiming right at you,
in full afterburner, at a low altitude.
And, at least, the local pilots who are there,
who know the photographers are down there
by the raceway waiting for 'em, are putting on a show.
And if the lighting is right
and you got the right type of aircraft,
incredible photographs can be had out there.
And just the thrill
of having an F-35 go over your
head at 200 feet in full afterburner,
is just awesome!
I am extremely lucky that my wife,
not only does she let me indulge in airplanes,
she actually encourages it, because she
knows it grounds me
and she'll join me, especially
with the overseas trips,
she'll come to all the air shows with me
and she's all about the noise.
and I'm all about the jets and
the airplanes and the photography.
But she's there for the noise.
So she loves the fast jets
and of course, she came out
to Greece with me, for PhanCon,
of course she's there for the noise of the Phantoms
and let's face it, who isn't?
She loves it as much as I do.
So I have 100% support
on pretty much everything I do
as far as airplane's concerned.
And my wife likes to fly, so, uh, she
actually flies in Green Flag herself.
So, uh, she's a sensor operator for Civil Air Patrol.
My wife actually comments the-the same way, you know,
that my mom used to do, you know.
So, every time, you know, I get excited, you know,
when I had a film, uh, developed and, uh,
and pictures printed
and you run over to your parents, you know,
and you go like, oh mom, look at this, you know,
and she's like, well, yeah, but
that's the same one as this one.
And you go like, no, but
this squadron patch on the tail
is different than that one.
I'm like, okay, I don't see it.
So yeah, my-my wife is
essentially the same way, you know?
So, uh, yeah, they don't see the differences, you know,
that-that we do.
And they don't get excited when we
hear something on the radio "crack"
and they're ready to go.
You know, my adrenaline starts going!
The family puts up with it.
My daughter has zero interest in it.
She knows I do it, and she has no problem.
My wife, now, puts up with it.
Uh, this hobby almost cost me my marriage in the '80s.
You dive into it so much
that you end up spending way
too much time pursuing the hobby
and not enough time on your family.
I know a lot of photographers
in the hobbyist category,
who aren't married anymore,
and it's specifically because of this.
This is a time consuming hobby.
There are hundreds and hundreds of hours
you'll spend out in an airfield
over and over and over again,
trying to catch what you're looking for.
And it's very easy to get caught up in that
and your family suffers.
Um, I found out, you know, in the early
'90s that there's a balancing act to this.
And I saved my marriage, but it was close.
A lot of people haven't saved it.
And uh, I think that's the point
where some people get a little too serious in this.
If you're willing to dump
your family, basically, in order
to go out and get an airplane picture,
I think that's takin' the
hobby just a little too seriously.
There was a perfect excuse
after 9/11 to say, well,
security dictates we're not gonna let
you onto the airfield or anybody else.
Versus, being able to recognize, now's the
time where we need
to be telling our story more.
We need to have local media come in.
We need to have people that
understand what's going on
that can tell our story.
A lot of public affairs officers almost
consider local folks as adversarial.
They all want to have the big TV station, you know,
CBS News from New York come in and,
and do a positive report on whatever their unit is,
but they neglect and almost
ostracize their local base,
that are the supporters that
get photos in the newspaper,
that talk to pilots that are almost recruiters.
There's people that do that, that have a passion
for photography and for
aviation, that make great photos,
that help people, the civilians,
understand what's going on.
There's a few folks that I personally know
and, uh, that I-I see out in the D.O.D.
that do a really great job of keeping in mind the
enthusiast, the hobbyist,
the people that are out there to
gawk at jets, but also make
great photos.
One of the guys, he's a
civilian public affairs officer
for the Navy, he hosts an aviation day.
It's very well organized.
It brings people out that he
knows they have a passion for it.
They get to see all kinds of cool stuff.
They make great photos, they amplify the mission
into the local community and around the country.
Um, and it's a win-win
because he also asks, if you get some great photos,
will you share them with us?
So, he gets photos from
some of the top photographers
that he can then put into his official products
and show his command
and show the Navy in a positive light,
didn't cost him anything!
We've got to get back to a point
where people recognize
those kind of opportunities
as, in the public affairs field and leverage them,
because there's not enough
people going into aviation.
There's not enough pilots,
there's not enough mechanics,
there's not enough people that
want to fuel jets or helicopters.
There's not enough people that want to
learn aerodynamics.
We're competing against everything under the sun,
for people's attention,
especially in those critical
high school years and early college.
So, if we don't have something that's eye catching
that's interesting, a great story
that captures people's
attention, then we're gonna lose.
And that is, that's concerning to me
because it is a passion for me,
both photography and aviation.
But when you consider the
big picture of national defense
and just aviation in general, we need more pilots
to fly people around the
country to conduct the business
that occurs in the United States.
We've got to be able to be
mobile, we've gotta have people
that know what they're doing, fly great,
get their passengers there on time,
deliver weapons if it's military, et cetera.
And we've, we've gotta get back to that.
Greg Davis: Everybody likes
to have their picture taken.
And when I was an Air Force
photographer, I recognized that
very quickly, that all pilots, they've got an ego,
they want to have a great photo of them.
But you have to be careful and you have to,
as a photographer, understand
that sometimes appealing
to somebody's ego is, is a negative thing.
And I think we saw that out in the "Star Wars Canyon"
in California, where you had photographers
who discovered a great
location to go and photograph
and they started making pictures
of the pilots flying the low level routes.
And then the word quickly got out
and lots of photographers started showing up
and they also started
coordinating behind the scenes
with the pilots.
And it went so far as to coordinate
with units in advance.
So they would, they were
having people come through the,
the low level route that
traditionally would not fly
through that low level route:
Larger aircraft, adversary aircraft,
aircraft wearing cool paint schemes.
And it got dangerous, very quickly,
because you had these pilots
that were coordinating and,
and knowing that there's 50
photographers on the ridge,
they're gonna get great photos if I go through
that pass upside down,
versus flying it, pushing over
and continuing in.
And we actually lost an F-18E a few years ago
where the pilot was being very aggressive
and ended up impacting ground and...
Loss of life of the pilot was devastating,
but that's also a national asset for an F-18 aircraft
that's, you know, now smoldering
metal in the middle of the desert.
And I even told photographers
at the time, I said, you have
to be very careful about this
because you're gonna get
somebody that's gonna think
going through there faster than
the published airspeed is gonna
make a better photo when,
actually probably doing it slower
would be better for photos and for safety.
I had a-an acquaintance in a local Post Office, uh,
that I had known for several years,
he worked behind the counter.
And, I found out that he had been
in the Navy
and had been a
bombardier-navigator in an A-6 Intruder.
He knew that I had photographed
airplanes and enjoyed it
and he had no photographs
of any aircraft he had ever flown in.
So I asked him and got his
log book from him and went back
and researched and looked
through trying to match up
to see if I had photographed any aircraft
that he had in his log book.
And I found an entry: "March of 1986"
where there was a, a VA-75 A-6
that landed at Navy-Dallas, and I caught it.
It was the only VA-75 A-6 I ever saw.
And it turns out that was him, in that airplane
and it was in the afternoon,
so I shot the right side of the airplane.
So, he was on the side facing me and I went back
and found the slide and I
was able to give him a print of
that airplane, from 30 years before.
And it just, it freaked me out!
The coincidence of it just
freaked me out at the time.
But it-it was fun,
and it kind of illustrates, kind of why I do this
is just to kind of document
these airplanes and it was luck
or happenstance or whatever
that all that worked out.
It-it was quite a hoot
to see him looking at himself in that picture.
Look at my T-shirt.
It's the one airplane that got
me inspired, when I was a kid.
The F-104 Starfighter.
There are only very few flying nowadays. In Europe,
for a very brief moment,
there was one flying, it was a group in Norway
that restored a two-seater
to flying condition in 2018,
after I think 10 years of restoration,
they finally got it to fly.
Now, the Starfighter is a flying rocket.
The Aviation PhotoCrew team flies a Skyvan,
a flying shoebox, with a maximum of 160 knots.
That thing flies at a minimum of way more than that!
So that was the first challenge.
But the biggest challenge was,
basically, to get in contact with them
and get an agreement that they would be willing
to give us a few flybys.
Yeah, they were interested in all
and the guy who was overseeing
the project was a former F-104 pilot
and he said, "Look,
alright, I mean we gonna see,
we gonna do you guys, and
we gonna do flybys at 230 knots
in the central line.
Alright, we go!" So that's all I needed to know!
Once we started off flying with the other guys,
we were super lucky with
the weather.
It was a steel blue, wonderful, summer evening.
And I think at some point, uh, you-you expect
that a Starfighter is flying
over the coast at like 10,000 feet
and all of a sudden we could track it.
There was something coming in
very fast at 1,500 feet over the water
and then obviously you hear it on the radio.
So I can guarantee you when you see that in the end
and you know it's gonna happen
and you know it's gonna come to the Skyvan!
That was probably the best moment I had so far!
And then the first pass was already magic,
but that second pass was
directly in the center line at 200 feet.
And the most magical thing
happened is when it buzzed under us,
we could hear the famous howl
of the engine!
And everyone in the Skyvan went like,
we got it! We got it!
And we were lucky enough to get seven more passes,
before it finally landed.
That was our best moment so far!
Early on, when I was doing photography,
I had an opportunity to go to Barksdale.
That was kind of our home plate, there, and
capture TU-142M Bears,
when they came in.
There's a gentleman named
Robert Hopkins, he's a author.
Uh, and um, he called me up on the phone one day
and said, hey. At the time he ran a magazine called.
Journal of Military Aviation.
He says, I understand you live in that area.
Would you mind going down there
and taking some interior/exterior
pictures of those Bears?
I said, well, absolutely love to.
And so I got to go down there and do that.
The interesting part, because it
was a magazine publication back then,
not digital, he wanted it done in black and white.
So I actually had to scrounge up another camera
'cause I wanted some
slides to get the color part of it.
So I was able to take some exterior colors,
but I wasn't able to do it inside
just 'cause I was jumbling...
the-the Russian guys were shuffling us
in and out and sort of things like that.
And so those actually got published
in Journal of Military Aviation.
So that was one of the crowning
jewels of things I got to do,
probably the best to this point, I would say.
Greg Davis: I was assigned to Shaw
Air Force Base at the 20th Fighter Wing
at the time that 9/11 went down.
And I'd been there for a-a significant amount of time,
so that my photos had been out in the media
and across the Air Force.
And, I remember when "September
11th" went down, the Commander
of Air Combat Command made a by-name request
that he wanted me to come from Shaw, to document
what was happening with the common air patrols.
And so I was very quickly sent up to, uh, Washington, D.C.
and I flew out of Langley for a few days
and I got to fly in F-15s and F-16s
and document the time where
the absolute airspace was closed, except for
the fighters that I was in
and the tankers supporting us.
And so one of my most famous photos, to this day,
that is often used whe-
when you talk about Operation Noble Eagle is, uh,
two F-16s from North Dakota,
flying over Washington, D.C.,
where you can see all of the major monuments
and government facilities,
including the Pentagon,
right between the two jets, where you can see
where the airliner went in.
That's been very rewarding
personally and professionally.
But um, you know, I have kids, now, that are teenagers
that look at that and say, hey, that's my dad's photo,
and that's, that's pretty cool!
I would've loved to have photographed
the F-14 Tomcat,
just because I hear so many
stories, you know, from him,
from our photography buddies,
just how fun of an aircraft
that was to photograph,
especially in the Naval Air Station,
Dallas days
and the Carswell days, just
the mystique of that aircraft.
Obviously "Top Gun" made
that aircraft very, very popular.
It's just such a cool airframe and aircraft to do.
Keith Snyder: I think my favorite subject was one
that I never got a chance to take a picture of.
My father flew the F-101 Voodoo
over in England for three years,
and that was such an impressive aircraft
and I have no active memory
of it, because I was so young.
I've always missed not having had the opportunity
to actively photograph those aircraft.
They were gone before I got
into the hobby. It saddens me.
But the few Voodoos
that are actually still on display, they're cool.
I like seeing them and I like
photographing 'em even though
they're just sittin' there on a stick.
I really wish that I'd had the opportunity
to see those in actual service.
Dan Dutton: F-117, just because it's so elusive
and it's made kind of a comeback.
I've always been interested
in the 'black world' aircraft.
I love every aircraft there is out there;
Tomcats, Hornets, Eagles.
But something with F-117,
it has that mystique about it.
Reading the story, knowing things about it,
always been a fan of that.
I wasn't ever able to see a Blackbird fly,
I was kind of beyond that, when I was younger.
I've been able to see a F-117, see it fly several times,
catch it static, all those kind of good things.
Uh, hopefully in the near
future, we can see one flying
that would kind of put a really good finish
to the F-117. As far as I'm seeing it.
Matt Ellis: The SR-71 is
always gonna be the one airplane
that I could never get enough of.
I used to see it fly, probably about once
a month. No matter how many times I saw
an SR-71 fly,
it was always the most exciting
thing I think I'd ever seen.
It was a sight to behold.
It looks like it's doing a thousand
miles an hour just standing still.
So that's my all time favorite aircraft!
Sebastiaan Does: People may argue, you know, that it's
not necessarily a real airplane,
but I would say the-the Space Shuttle launch.
I've tried so many times
and every time I've went, you know, it got canceled.
So, uh, that's a, that's an extreme bummer,
but I wish, you know, that I could have seen, you know,
like a Space Shuttle launch
that would've been, that would've been amazing!
The aircraft that I would've
most liked to have flown in,
that I never got to, would be an RF-4 Phantom.
I actually flew in an F-4 Phantom E model
and that was very exciting!
It was a dream come true
because as I mentioned, I grew up at one
of the largest Air Force bases
that had F-4 Phantoms, as a kid.
So they would fly over my house.
I knew all about 'em, used to see
'em launch! Just amazing aircraft!
But, I never got to fly in an RF-4,
which was a reconnaissance version,
that actually captured my attention.
The crazy thing is, they would launch to the south
and turn to the west, which is where I lived, in Austin.
They would be climbing up to, uh, fly out to west Texas
and do low level runs.
And I had a friend, his father was a navigator in RF-4s,
so he educated me about what they would do and
it just seemed like the coolest mission.
So RF-4 Phantom is the missed opportunity,
but I did get to fly in, in F-4
and that was pretty amazing
because it's a beast of an aircraft!
Got to do aerobatics, got to go Mach 1,
got to do all kinds of cool stuff
that most people would never
get to do, and I was very lucky,
because that was actually a, uh,
QF-4 when they were being used as drones.
So, sort of the tail end for the, uh,
U.S. Military's use of F-4s.
But, uh, it was, it was pretty awesome!
I'm still hooked, and I presume
I'm going to be hooked on this
until I'm no longer physically capable of doing it.
I enjoy going out there, and seeing
the airplanes
and getting the rush of seeing a jet,
in "afterburner" blow over my
head and taking pictures of it.
I still get a rush out of seeing somebody respond
to a picture that I posted, that I took 40 years ago
and say, "Hey, I remember that airplane!"
I published a picture on Facebook
of an F-4 Phantom, from Fort Worth.
And it was sitting down at the "last chance,"
waiting to take off, and it turned
out that a guy responded to it,
who was flying it, at the time,
and he had-had no photographs
of himself in that aircraft at all.
And, all of a sudden here I am, 30 - 35 years later
and I'm able to give him this photograph. That's fun,
and that's got me hooked.
And, being able to contribute
to the history of aviation.
The pictures we take today, are tomorrow's history.
People in the military, with very few exceptions,
very rarely use a camera.
They very rarely take photographs of the aircraft
or vehicles or whatever it is, they're doing
because it's their day-to-day job.
It's not a big deal. So, people come along trying
to document the history of aviation, down the road,
they're relying, in large part,
to what we are doing now.
Now, that might seem, trying to make myself
a little self important, here, or whatever,
but, when somebody comes
along, looking for photographs
of a Tomcat that flew out of
Navy-Dallas in the early 1990s,
they're not gonna find it in the Navy.
They're not gonna find it in official logs.
They're going to find it, in my slide books.
And, the ability to keep that
history going is a lot of fun,
and it's a reason to keep after it.
I don't know how many more years I've got left in this,
but uh, as long as I can keep doing it,
I'm gonna keep going out there.
I'm predominantly
photographing military aircraft,
trying different locations, within the vicinity
of the airfield to give you that different angle,
that keeps it interesting.
So, will you ever have enough pictures of an F-16?
I don't know. For me it's all about hanging out
with your friends and talk
about different things, you know,
that they've experienced in
their hobby versus you, um,
you know, different places
that they have traveled, uh,
versus where you have been.
And especially if, you know,
when you're talking about,
you know, guys that do the same hobby as you do
that actually have been in the service
and even sometimes, in a war zone
and be able to take pictures, you know, from
what these guys train for, day to day.
To be able to reflect that in a picture,
and take that home, and for
me to be able to look at that.
I always enjoy that.
I mentioned, before, that as a young
kid, I used to go out with my grandfather
to Bergtsrom Air Force Base
and we would watch the airplanes
from the end of the runway area,
where we could drive up, at that time,
and you could watch the F-4s taxi down a long taxiway,
do their end-of-runway checks, before taking off.
As a kid I would wave and
wave and wave at these pilots,
but the pilot was usually taxiing the aircraft,
looking at his stuff.
And the backseater was always running checklists.
I remember that and understand
fully now, having done it,
the intensity of-of what's required.
There was one time where I was waving and waving
and a backseater looked up
and just took a minute to wave. Acknowledged me.
And I mean he was 50 - 60 feet away. The
jet was loud and they were about to turn
and he just took that fraction of a second.
I think that moment, in time, is what actually said,
"Man, I wanna be that guy!"
I made a point in my career
as an aerial photographer,
flying in the backseat of jets.
There were some times, where I
knew there were photographers, there
I knew there were kids there, especially
where I would take that moment
and wave at the kids, acknowledge 'em,
wave at the photographers.
I think part of what has driven me, is knowing that
over the years I've had that impact on people.
I've had kids come up to me
and say, "Oh, I've seen your picture in Airman Magazine!"
That was really cool and now I wanna be a pilot, or
I wanna join the Air Force and be a Pararescueman,
'cause I saw your photo of guys
coming out of an HH-60G, in Kuwait
and that was just super!
That's pretty inspirational!
Dan Dutton: To do anything with
your family is always awesome!
To be able to share, uh, you
know, any kind of experiences
and beyond just what you do as a family.
I never thought I'd have a
buddy, to be able to do that with.
I've got my aviation friends
that, uh, obviously we do that
and I've introduced him
and he's got to be their friends
and peers as well, which I,
which is even cooler than that!
A lot of the, the guys I've known and had known him, now
and uh, you know, and accept him as a peer, as well.
It's always fun to have somebody to talk to
or share the experience with.
And so, uh, I think that's the best part, now, is, you know,
if a B-1 flies by, it's cool to take a shot,
but it's even better to have your son with you,
who enjoys it even more than you do, you know.
We were at Shepherd
for the Air Show a couple years ago.
And, I saw a gentleman in a wheelchair
and his son was wheeling around showing the run.
I said, "Well Jordan, you know, you're-
you're you're gonna have to do that to me someday."
He said, "Anytime, Dad!"
So, uh, that's always good to know that I may be in
that wheelchair with my camera,
but somebody's gonna be pushing me,
that I know. So, that's pretty cool!
Jordan Dutton: Anytime you
get to spend time with your dad
and doing something that he loves,
but also something-something that you love too,
It's just a really special moment.
It, for-for me, it's just, you know,
the quality time I get to spend with him.
'cause obviously now, you know, with me hav-
having a full-time job being
busy, it's, it's harder to have
that family time at home.
And so, it's something that me and him
both were able to do together
and something that, you know, we get
to experience everything together!
I mean, there's no one really else that I have, you know,
outside of the peers that he was talking about
that I can share that with. I
tell my friends, as a hobby,
I'm an aviation photographer,
you know, what's that? You know, you know, what's, you know,
it's-it's not really that big of a deal
to them or you know, it's, you know,
they don't really get it, and I understand that
and it's just a big hobby of mine
and he's the only one that really gets it.
I mean, who better just...
to have those experiences
with than-than your father.
There's a photograph that, you know, that I have
that's on my desk at my at work
that, you know,
it's a picture that me and him took.
If, if you ever go to Nellis Air
Force Base at the entrance,
there's basically a big statue
of fourth Thunderbird in formation.
And that was at our first Red Flag, together.
And that's something that I cherish,
that I keep really close to me.
'cause that was a time where
we both had gone to a place
and doing something that we both
really enjoyed and loved being at.
And, having those memories
is something that you can't...
that money or nothing can replace.