NZFF

Today I received a call asking if I would like to fly with the Checkers.
Am sure you can guess what my answer was.

When I got to Woodbourne I was told that we would be flying the full routine over Omaka as it was practice day.

Talk about blown away!!!

I flew with the leader and those fo you who know what the Checkers do, number one flies the inverted part or the mirror.

One hell of a flight, and flying the full routine at display seperation is quite rare from what I hear and was totally blown away.

Loads of G at times but I did try and take some photos so will post one or two soon.

Whoa !! Very very VERY Happy Easter !!!

Gary

fun, i went up with one of them in Ashburton at the flyin, wasnt for a display or a prac tho just for some fun hehe, would of been cool to do a full display tho

INCREDIBLE!!!

You lucky lucky lucky lucky.....lucky Person!

*Jealous*

Would love to see those photos!

Bit hard case really, about 1 minute after I typed that post last night I fell asleep in my chair.
Have been helping the overseas photographers get the photos they want at Classic Fighters for the past two days amongst loads of other things including working with the WW1 aircraft and trying to take a few photos and it was nice to get a call to go do some flying.

The photos from the flight look ok.
Before the actual display we flew 6 formation loops, two barrell rolls and spent 20 seconds inverted so I did have time to set things up the best I could and held the camera up through all of the G in the moves including the negative during the mirror, one small cost is really sore arms and neck today.

Here is one picture from the top of the loop and I wont get much else up for a while.

What I can say is that I did get a close cropped in cockpit shot during the mirror.
Boy the aircraft are close, in fact you can see in the photo what rank Pete Cochran is!!

Some photos will most likely be used in some airshow stories so will to have to hold what I think are the best ones for a while but will post more when I get home from the airshow.



If anyone reading this has any photos from the Friday display over Omaka please let me know.
I rang the guys producing the DVD and the recorded the flight for me so it will be great to have some memories of a once in a lifetime flight.

I do but there with a cruddy old point and shoot so they aren't great. If you want them thou

I hope they are not trying landing downunder cause if they are , they're the wrong way up ...... glad you can take us for a ride

What an amazing experience!

RED CHECKERS RULE

thats all i have to say

The Red Checkers' display never gets old for me - I have to say that the P-3, 757 displays etc. are a bit less spectacular after you've seen them a couple of times, but the Red Checkers manage to be amazing every time, and I must have seen a good 10 or 15 displays from them before.

I think that the flying I saw all weekend is the best I have seen from a Checkers team for quite a while.
Have some shots from the ground as well and boy the guys flew some great lines.