rock lobster

and so we found oursleves heading out to the fringes of coventry airport on saturday afternoon, to a photoshoot using some old aircraft.
the other half was there to be in a model shoot, for a group of local photogs who had an interest in classic aircraft, and i tagged along at the behest of the organiser, just to take photos of the machines.
and while the others were doing their model pose thing, i mooched around grabbing images.
an odd place to shoot though - very security conscious, as we were next to the taxi'ing runway, so i had a few volunteer-organisers making sure i didn't blindly stray into the path of a cessna(or the annoying helicopter that buzzed back and forth on a training flight at low level...). all good fun though, definately the largest pieces of machinery i have had to photograph, i was more than impressed by the old planes(mostly 1950's...), and i am planning to go up in one for a pleasure flight at some point(in the next couple of months).
i must've spent about three or four hours there, just marvelling at the majesty of these things... and spoke to a few of the people who run and maintain them(who were mostly impressed that i'd spent the previous weekend rummaging about in an old tramshed, taking photos of vintage trucks and coaches)... we had lunch in between the hangars(where i sneaked a peak at some of the bi-planes they had in there... wow, is all i can say.)
yet again, it was hard work, tramping around, being carefull where i walk, getting followed by one bloke in a hi-res jacket, catching some odd images of the aircraft... i'm no spotter, i was looking for images i hadn't seen before. but despite that - couldn't resist taking some classically inspired shots(especially of the bomber)... i gather it had been sold, so we couldn't go inside, which would have been too much to take-in.

i was wearing a vintage flight jacket(oddly enough), so i kind of looked the part to anyone who would know these things... thankfully i didn't get asked to take part in the modelling... as i was happy enough to just wander around, taking it all in.
more images to follow, through the week, but i think i may pursue this path a little more, as i'm happy with the images, and they are ever so slightly more impressive than old buses.
now, if i could get myself up in the air in one of these things and get some amazing images of them in flight(using my various retro techniques...), that would be impressive!
watch this (air)space for more developments on this. i did manage to clamber into one old flyer and had a few moments to catch sight of the cockpit, which for the size of the airplane was really small.