Moose135

I think they may have been connected to the 434th for administrative purposes. I was flying -135s on the active duty side (70th ARS/305th ARW) at Grissom through 1988, and never heard the Reserve guys talk about KC-10s. I know they were never based at Grissom.

That doesn't look like any SAC shield I've ever seen. When did the 434th fly the KC-10? As far as I know, in the "modern era" of the Air Force (1970s up), the 434th has been a Reserve wing at Grissom AFB/ARB in Indiana, flying A-10s and KC-135s.

The convention hotel usually sells out months in advance, and I'm sure most of the guys who booked rooms are waiting to see what happens before they cancel. If the convention goes off as scheduled, I wouldn't be surprised to see a much lower turnout.

I don't know that they are open, given the museum is shut indefinitely while they figure out where their new home will be.

I was back home on the Island in December and stopped by the Bethpage Tomcat. From the Google Maps image included, you can see a driveway off Grumman Road next to where the Tomcat is parked. There is a gate and guard booth, but the gate is locked and the booth empty - it was a weekday, and it looked like it's been closed for a while. We just parked in the driveway near the Tomcat to take some photos.

Sounds like a fun build, Terry, but I'll be spending those 24 hours shooting...

Took a ride to CLT this afternoon to get a few shots of the Antonov that showed up at 2am. While we were shooting the Antonov, I saw something unusual arriving on 36R and I realized it was the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital DC-10!!! Orbis operates this aircraft in developing countries to provide eye care, as well as to teach local doctors. It is a state-of-the-art facility with operating rooms and teaching areas. This aircraft was donated to Orbis by FedEx, who also provide maintenance. It replaced an earlier DC-10, also donated by FedEx. In 2009, the older

You know what a T-6 and Bf-109 look like, most people - especially if you aren't a WWII or aviation fan - don't. Heck, even on the Warbird Information Exchange page on FB, several people thought it was an Fw-190 from the first pictures, and it took a while before people figured out what it really was. I've flown in the T-6, and spent hours around them at my museum back on Long Island, and even I had to take a close look at the photos to figure out it was a T-6.

I was flying KC-135s out of Grissom AFB, Indiana at the time. In addition to our straight tankers, we also had EC-135G/L radio relay aircraft. We had one EC on alert with the tankers at Grissom, and we had another on alert at Rickenbacker - on a couple of occasions, a sortie I was on dropped into to Rick to swap out alert crews. If they were away from the normal ramp with a barrier and armed guards around them, I would suspect what you actually saw was the alert EC.

Because you have to find an organization that will accept the ship, locate an appropriate place to dock it for display, pay for ongoing upkeep, and maintain it in a manner that it can be safe for the public to visit. That is incredibly expensive for a ship of this size, and incredibly difficult for a private organization to do.

Depending on the type of lights used in the hall, it could be that the light is changing - if you've seen the type of lights used in the average high school gymnasium, you'll know what I mean. The color temperature continually cycles, so frames shot in sequence will have different light balance. Shooting at a preset white balance won't really help that. About the only way to fight it is to shoot in raw and correct the white balance in post processing. Nice images! Hope to see more from the show.

My first name is John, but I've also gone by Moose since I was just a little Moose - in fact, my father was called Moose since he was a little Moose too, it comes from our last name. When I joined the Internet back around 1995, it was all new and open, and few people posted their real names. I grabbed Moose135 (I flew KC-135s) when I signed up with Prodigy (remember them?) and have used it as a screen name on most everything since. If you spot a Moose135 on a forum somewhere, it's most likely me. Moose er, John...

So it is an MiG-29, just poorly built?

That's Aluminum Overcast, the EAA's B-17. Good looking airplane.

From a Facebook post on the official Thunderbirds page:

Directional control as in it didn't go where he wanted it to - whether that was going off the side of the runway or stopping/turning at the end, he couldn't control it.

Earlier today, Luke AFB (@LukeAFB) tweeted this: Sounds like he got it on the ground but had issues with directional control, and decided it was prudent to exit the aircraft.

We've had some neat stuff show up at CLT, but here's the current candidate for Catch of the Year. Dubai Air Wing / Royal Flight 747-400 stopped by today!

I got that same e-mail. It said to opt out, my "request to opt out must be received no later than April 6, 2018." I received the e-mail at 9:56pm on April 6. Nothing like last minute notice. It's good I checked my e-mail before heading up to bed so I could opt out before their deadline.

The 145th Airlift Wing of the North Carolina Air National Guard, based at CLT, is transitioning from the C-130 to the C-17. Their last C-130 departed about a month ago, and today, their first C-17 arrived. It was a lousy day - low clouds, on and off rain, just perfect conditions. This aircraft, like the rest they will get, came from the 437th Airlift Wing in Charleston. Accompanying the first C-17 was another C-17, this one carrying special markings commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the North Carolina ANG.

You apply enough thrust to something...

I took a ride down to CLT on Saturday afternoon, and found Michael Jordan's new Gulfstream G-V at the FBO. It's around CLT enough (MJ is one of the owners of the Charlotte Hornets) but not always in a good spot to shoot. I was more than surprised to see this Luftwaffe Global 5000 on the ramp at the FBO - I've never seen the Luftwaffe down here, and didn't know they had a Global. It's been a good start to the year spotting-wise!

The Dallas Mavericks are in town to play the Charlotte Hornets tonight. The Mavericks are one of the few teams that use their own aircraft, rather than charter with an airline.

Thanks to the storm the folks along the East Coast are enjoying, we got a few interesting diversions into CLT today. AA Flight 67 from Barcelona to JFK, scheduled into JFK around 12:30pm, diverted down to CLT. We don't get many 777s in town, so it was a sight to see. US Coast Guard HC-130J out of Elizabeth City, NC not far from the Outer Banks, escaping the storm. Not sure if this was storm related or not, it's a Lockheed L-100, civilian version of the C-130 transport.