craniac’s place

A Cheetah C of the South African Air Force.

The only four Lightnings still flying in the world today.

Three Harvards of the Flying Lions complete a loop during their performance at the AAD2006 air show held at Ysterplaat AFB this past weekend.

I’m saddened to hear of the death of another Sasol Tigers pilot, who crashed into Table Bay this afternoon, during a practice session for the AAD air show this weekend. This is particularly sad as it is less than a year since another of the team crashed during a show, resulting in the death of the pilot and passenger.

The US Air Force has announced that the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be named Lightning II, after the P-38 Lightning of WWII fame. Surely Lightning III would have been more appropriate, given that NATO already had another Lightning in the form of the English Electric Lightning.

In my opinion the F-35 may have the technological edge on anything in the skies but to British aviation fans like myself this aircraft will not have the character of the classic English Electric Lightning.

See more photographs of the last flying Lightnings here.

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Photographed at the 2005 TFDC air show and processed using an HDR technique to bring out the detail in both dark and light areas.

I’ve been going through my older photos looking for ones that make good candidates for enhancing using HDR techniques. This is one of the ones that gave a particularly good result.