As quickly as this trip began, it is soon to come to end until next year... I got up early and headed to Stead Field for the final day of the 52nd National Championship Air Races so I could do things I wasn't able to do yesterday. Most of today's races and air show routines were more or less the same as yesterday so I'll spare you on most of the photos on that unless where noted. Yesterday, I got to walk around the static displays so the first part of today was spent in the jet pets and the main race pits where there was a lot to see. After getting through both race pits, the rest of the day was spent in the grandstands watching the races and show that were in the same general order as yesterday. Here are the links:
Reno 2015 - Jet Pits
Reno 2015 - Main Pits
Reno 2015 - Flight Ramp
Reno 2015 - Jet Class Silver Heat Race
Reno 2015 - Breitling Jet Team Photo Flight Departure
Reno 2015 - C-130H Hercules Departure
Reno 2015 - C-130H Hercules Streamer Drop
Reno 2015 - P-51D Mustang "Wee Willy II" Departure
Reno 2015 - F-16 Viper Demo
Reno 2015 - USAF Heritage Flight
Reno 2015 - Unlimited Class Silver Heat Race
Reno 2015 - Breitling Jet Team
Reno 2015 - Jet Class Gold Heat Race
Reno 2015 - B-25J Mitchell "Russian Ta Get Ya" Departure
Reno 2015 - CAF Tora! Tora! Tora!
Reno 2015 - B-25J Mitchell "Russian Ta Get Ya" Fly-By
Reno 2015 - Sports Class Gold Heat Race
Reno 2015 - P-51D Mustang "The Rebel"
Reno 2015 - Lancair Evolution Demo
Reno 2015 - NBC Sports Helicopter Photoship
Reno 2015 - Unlimited Gold Class Duck Walk
Reno 2015 - Breitling Unlimited Gold Heat Race
Photo preview and the day's highlights:
Flight Ramp Shots
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| "Argonaut" going doing an engine run-up, which allowed me to get some prop-blur! |
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| "Wee Willy II" parked on the ramp. Would go up later in the day for the USAF Heritage Flight. |
Jet Pits
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| Vicky Benzing's "Dark Star" in the pits. |
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| Pete Zaccagnino's Vampire parked in the pits. |
The Main Pits
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| Cessna 525 Citation M2 (N865MT). |
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| Cessna T240 Corvalis TTx (N433CS). |
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| Pilatus PC-12/47E NG (N75NG). |
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| Lancair Evolution (N469KS). If there's one place you wanna see many Lancair Evolutions, Reno is the place to be! |
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| Lancair Evolution (N38SP). |
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| Piper PA-46-350P M350 Malibu Mirage (N350MT). |
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| Piper PA-46-500TP Malibu Meridian (N560WA). |
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| Epic Aircraft LT (N850DV). |
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| Mooney M-20TN (N448KM). |
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| "Strega" undergoing maintenance. |
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| "Voodoo" undergoing maintenance. |
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| "Rare Bear" in the pits undergoing routine maintenance. You have to get up close to get an idea of how large its engine is! |
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| A license-build version of the Yak-11, a Let C-11 (NX25YK), Race #92 "Lylia" owned and piloted by John "Dusty" Dowd, Jr. Kind of strange but I don't think I saw this one race yesterday... |
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| Beechcraft A35 Bonanza (N8483A) tucked away in a corner in the main pits. |
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| Fouga (Valmet) CM-170R Magister (N303DM) tucked away. From my understanding, this jet warbird hasn't flown in a while. Kind of sad to see it in this condition... |
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| Beechcraft Model C18S "Twin Beech" (N6409J) on display in the pits. |
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| Learjet 28 (N500LG) with winglets on display. |
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| John Parker's "Blue Thunder II parked in a hangar. |
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| Mong Sport (N7075W), Race #62 "Phantom" owned and piloted by Tom Aberle, this year's winner of the Biplane class. As of right now, this biplane is the fastest biplane in the world. |
Jet Class Silver Heat Race
One thing I didn't see yesterday was the Jet Class Silver Heat Race, which featured a pair of L-29s and a TS-11 Iskra.
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| Aero L-29 Delfín (VH-XET), Race #61 "Miss Independence" with Charlie Camilleri at the controls. This L-29 and its pilot is a long way from home. |
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| Aero L-29 Delfín (N50DG), Race #6 "Sluggo" with Jon Socolof at the controls. |
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| Aero L-39C Albatros (N139RM), Race #54 "Robin 1" with Jeff Turney at the controls. |
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| Aero L-39 Albatros (NX39AY), Race #39 "Blue Merlin" with Mike Mangold at the controls. |
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| Aero L-39C Albatros (NX139UK), Race #15 "Reality Czech" with Bob Mills at the controls. |
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| Aero L-39C Albatros (N139PJ), Race #33 "Blue Streak" with Doug Matthews at the controls. |
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| Aero L-39C Albatros (N810RC), Race #10 "Riff Raff" with David A. Culler, Jr. at the controls. |
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| And of course, the usual pace plane for the jet class, the Embraer EMB-505 Phenom 300 (N900HT) with Jay Obernolte at the controls. |
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| PZL-Mielec TS-11 Iskra (N315JB), Race #1 "Hot Section" with Lachlan Onslow at the controls. Onslow had a little bit of engine trouble on start-up and as a result met up late with the rest of the jets and lost his original pole position. |
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| The jets coming down the chute at the start of the first lap! |
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| Dave Culler in "Riff Raff." |
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| Bob Mills in "Reality Czech." |
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| Mike Mangold in "Blue Merlin." |
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| Jeff Turney in "Robin 1." |
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| Lachlan Oslow in "Hot Section." He made pretty significant progress from starting in last pole position. |
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| Jon Socoloff in "Sluggo." |
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| Charlie Camilleri in "Miss Independence." |
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| Doug Matthews in "Blue Streak." |
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| "Sluggo" and "Miss Independence" duking it out in a battle of the L-29s! |
Other Photography Angles
Shooting photos from the pits at ground offers different angles of the aircraft compared to shooting from the grand stands.
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| Breitling Jet Team #s 1, 2, & 4 departing as a formation of three for a photo flight. |
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| Breitling #s 6, 7, & 8 departing as a formation of three for a photo flight. Jet #8 is the photoship of the group and is not performing in actual shows unless the need for a back-up aircraft arises. |
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| And bringing up the rear are Breitling #s 3 & 5 departing as a group of two for the team's photo flight. |
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| Nevada Air National Guard's C-130H Hercules (79-0477) departing in preparation for the opening ceremony. |
Air Race/Air Show Highlights
After I was done in the pits, I spent the rest of the day in the grand stands and I'll mention some quick highlights from otherwise repeated show routines from yesterday.
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| United States Air Force Heritage Flight, same planes from yesterday. |
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| Just before the formation split. Note the F-16's air brakes deployed. |
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| Just as the planes crossed and did the formation split. |
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| John "Dusty" Dowd, Jr. in the Let C-11 "Lylia" racing in the Unlimited Silver heat race. This one didn't race at all yesterday. |
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| "Lylia" just passing the home pylon. |
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| "Dusty" taxiing the Yak-11 back to the past at the conclusion of the Silver race. |
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| One thing I didn't photograph yesterday during the Breitling Jet Team's performance because I got distracted was their Final Salute, and believe me, this was amazing! |
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| Wait for it... |
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| Wait for it! |
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| They shot flares! |
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| The crowd went absolutely nuts when this happened! |
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| I don't think I've seen something like this air shows before so this was a first for me! |
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| For an aerobatic formation team flying the humble L-39 Albatros, the Breitling Jet Team is a personal favorite of mine! |
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| This sets the bar for how air show performance finales! I was just in awe of this moment! |
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| Jet Class Gold racers coming down the chute for would end up being a very exciting race! |
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| To everyone's surprise and delight, Pete Zaccagnino in the De Havilland Vampire made air racing history and took first place for what would be a very historic win! Zaccagnino even took a victory lap!!! This is probably the first time a DH Vampire won in air racing history! No doubt, this Jet Class Gold race was one for the history books! |
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| Some pyrotechnics going off during the Commemorative Air Force's "Tora! Tora! Tora!" display. |
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| With the Sports Class Gold race now being paced by an L-39 Albatros, that freed up the typical Lancair Evolution pace plane to give audiences a demo of the kit turboprop. Here is Bob Wolstenholme in his Lancair Evolution (N698W), putting the aircraft through its paces. Wolstenholme is the CEO of Lancair International, Inc. |
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| Wolstenholme bringing the Evolution in on a high-speed pass. |
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| The "dirty" pass. |
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| Rolling out after landing, passing the home pylon. |
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| Taxiing back to the pits. My uncle's always been talking about owning one of these and I can see why; it's a very nice looking kit aircraft. |
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| John Parker in his Thunder Mustang "Blue Thunder II," this year's winner of the Sports Gold class. |
Breitling Unlimited Gold Heat Race
It's time for the main event, the event that everyone came to see! It's time for the Breitling Unlimited Gold Heat Race for the 52nd National Championship Air Races featuring the fastest warbirds out there! This was an incredible race to behold!
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| Gentlemen, start your engines! The final Gold Class race starts with the duck-walk followed by introductions. Note the flames spitting out the exhaust pipes of "Strega." |
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| Robert "Hoot" Gibson in "Strega." |
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| Steven Hinton in "Voodoo." |
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| Stewart Dawson in "Rare Bear." |
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| Dennis Sanders in "Dreadnought." |
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| Curt Brown in "Sawbones." |
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| Mark Watt in "Argonaut." |
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| Korey Wells in Race #924. Once again, all three Hawker Sea Furies from the Sanders Aeronautics group were together in the Gold Race. |
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| Steve Hinton taxiing out the "Pacemaker." Steve Hinton is pretty much a fixture at the races. |
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| All lined up and waiting for the pace plane to take the lead. |
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| Rounding out the first lap! |
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| With "Hoot" taking the lead!!! |
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| Steve-o in "Voodoo" maintaining second place. |
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| Stewart Dawson in "Rare Bear" maintaining third place. Any race fan can recognize those short, stubby wings anywhere! |
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| And then THIS happened! Steve-o ended up calling a 'Mayday' due to oil spewing out of the breather around the start of the 6th lap. |
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| This year's Unlimited Gold winner! Robert "Hoot" Gibson! He FINALLY has a place in the winner's circle. |
This year's Unlimited Gold Class podium consists of...
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1st Place: Race #7, P-51D Mustang "Strega" with Robert "Hoot Gibson.
(488.983 MPH) |
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2nd Place: Race #77, F8F Bearcat "Rare Bear" with Stewart Dawson.
(471.957 MPH) |
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3rd Place: Race #8, Hawker Sea Fury "Dreadnought" with Dennis Sanders.
(420.361 MPH) |
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| Steven Hinton made a successful emergency landing in "Voodoo" and the P-51 can be reused. One small issue kept the team from reaching their goal. They’ll be back, and they won’t ever have that problem again. |
And that's a wrap for the 52nd National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nevada! Until next year!
