Palmdale Plant 42 - PMD

[phantomphan1974]

Sweet and look forward to seeing Michael and Brian's shots. 

[snapperbaz]

Love that B-2...awesome!

[gfydad]

Thanks! 

[akradecki]

Jim - wish you could have stuck around a little longer. Too bad those customers were no-shows. He arrived at about 10:20, did one ILS approach to touch-and-go on rwy 25, went out for a 2nd ILS approach, then just abeam where we had parked, he broke it off, banked steep right (giving me a great belly shot, though I would have preferred to be shooting the other side!), then set up for a really tight, low pattern to rwy 7. If anyone was at BJ's Corner, they got an awesome show, it looked like he turned really low over Sierra Hwy. For fellow Nikoners: As an experiment, I shot the first pass with Active D-Lighting on, then off for the second pass, though I don't normally use that feature. For the dark color of the B-2s belly, I think it helped bring out a bit of detail.

[akradecki]

Jim, these are the two pics i was telling you about that I took years ago from BJ's with my film F-2...scanned from prints. Need to find the negs. The first one is the one that had the pole filter applied to it, as well.

[Midnight Mover]

 

[gfydad]

 

[f4_phantom_fan]

Sweet and look forward to seeing Michael and Brian's shots. 

Sorry, mine did not come out. Just not enough light out at the time. Was still very cool to see.

[gfydad]

Here's the rest of what I got today. What a day!

The night shot was the last C-130 as it left for home. Brian can attest to how dark it was! 

[gfydad]

I said it was a neat day! 

[CHILIBEAN]

Those are some good shots Jim...Im gonna have to go hang out there one day and see what happens 

[akradecki]

In the pattern right now, came over the house a couple of minutes ago. Unfortunately, I can't make it over there this morning.

[GTagami]

Just curious, how easy is it to shoot there? Any problems with any type of law enforcement? Easy access to places to shoot from?

[gfydad]

Very good to shoot from.
Simple rules...

When along side base property
NEVER park on base side of the street.
NEVER shoot into the plant proper. It's so easy to do so when following an aircraft, but that will get you unwanted attention.
ALWAYS and ONLY shoot aircraft with only sky in the background.
ALWAYS wave and smile to security.

When shooting from across Sierra Hwy
Same as above but if only runway and aircraft is in the shot, that's not bad.
NEVER shoot base infrastructure.

ALWAYS bring a friend, on slow days you even pray for birds and large flying insects to shoot. I've caught myself shooting cloud formations at times.  

ALWAYS, and I cannot stress this enough...
Don't go through bushes without extreme caution. We do have rattlesnakes!
Also
Be aware of ants. We have these HUGE black ants which love to work their way up your pant leg.
I know as last night one about two inches long with a half inch stinger got me on the back of my lap!
OK, maybe it was about 3/4 inches long, but it sure felt that big after four stings!  

[GTagami]

Thanks, man. I hope to go out there and shoot in the near future. I was going to wait until the Edwards show weekend but you guys get such great stuff from there that I can't wait.