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Warbirds 2024

Entry 2335, on 2024-04-04 at 17:28:21 (Rating 1, Activities)

I have many random interests, several of them quite geeky, and aircraft, especially military planes, has been one for a while now. I live just 3 hours drive from Wanaka which hosts what is arguably New Zealand's best air show, "Warbirds Over Wanaka", which is held every 2 years. For various reasons, amongst them COVID, it has been about 10 years since I went to this event, although I did go to a smaller show at Omaka, New Zealand in 2017.

Ironically, given the past cancellations for the pandemic, I was getting over my second case of COVID on the day that I went (I think I was past the contagious phase, plus I was outside the whole time). I went with our daughter, Nicole, so I'm not sure if I gave it to her. To be fair, I caught it off her the first time I got it, a year or two back!

I have also attended earlier shows at Wanaka in 1992, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2010, and 2012, so I am quite dedicated. Of course, I have reports on all of these shows with many photos and videos on my web site.

The Wanaka show this year was attended by about 70,000 people; not bad for a little town of just over 12,000! This does introduce a few issues. I recently joked to a friend that it took me 5 times as long to get out of the car park (a few hundred meters) at the end of the show than it would take the F16 (an American jet at the show) to fly all the way to Christchurch airport (over 400 kilometers)! To be fair, to do this the F16 would need to fly near its top speed, and the sonic booms might not be popular with those towns it flew over!

One of the great things about the Wanaka show is the scenery and the weather. The airport where it is held in on a wide flat, but there are lakes, hills, and mountains all around. And the weather has never been bad every time I have gone. This year was particularly great with perfect blue skies and a slight breeze. We had a pleasant dinner sitting outside in Wanaka near the lake shore at the end of the show.

As far as the aircraft are concerned, I have to admit I am a sucker for noisy, fast jets, so I loved the F16. If you don't know, it is an American fighter, about to be phased out in the US, but still common in other countries, capable of flying faster than Mach 2 or over 2400 km/h.

I always thought the F16, which has the official name "Fighting Falcon", but is usually referred to as the "Viper" by it pilots, was one of the best looking fighters around. It is relatively small, sleek, and "pointy". It looks like what you expect a jet fighter should look.

The other highlight was the Mosquito fighter/bomber. This British World War II aircraft is rare because, being made of glued together wood, very few survived. But despite what seems a primitive method of construction, they were the fastest plane on either side when they were introduced, thanks to light weight and two massive V12 engines!

I used my old Canon EOS70D digital SLR (20 MPx) and a Canon 75-300 mm zoom lens (giving a maximum effective focal length of about 480 mm) for the high-magnification zoomed shots, and my Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max (12, 24, and 48 MPx, 10x optical zoom) for wide angle stills and video. I did manage to get fairly close up with some shots of rapidly flying planes hundreds of meters away showing the pilot quite clearly. Of course, for every good shot there were 10 or 20 bad!

These types of photos are tricky for two reasons: first, the planes are moving quickly, so getting them centered and focussed can be difficult, because you don't have much time; and second, the sky is so bright, especially when looking towards the Sun, that the aircraft themselves tend to be underexposed, leading to more noise. I used both raw and JPEG images and did significant enhancement on every photo before displaying it!

Anyway, it was a nice break, and a great way to geek out for an aviation enthusiast. I'll wait to see what intersting aircraft they have in 2 years time, because I might just go again!

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