HELLO COMMUNITY!
It’s been a while, hasn’t it. For what is (probably) my last or close to it spotting trip of 2024, I flew back down to LA for a weekend with @Altaria55 and @Kamryn (and a @Tyler and @Thunderbolt cameo). Unfortunately, the time I chose to go was also when LA was in the middle of a deep marine layer, so anything near the coast before noon or after 5 pm was covered in a dense sheet of fog. While fog is sometimes cool, it is also an extremely difficult condition to both shoot in and to edit, so this was a good shakedown run of my new α7R IV and a good refresh on my editing skills. Hope you enjoy!
Gear: Sony α7R IV + Sony 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS
Day 1: Point Mugu & LAX
We started the trip by visiting Point Mugu. I’m not a military spotter but it was a cool little place and I’m sure @Altaria55 will tell you about why all of these planes are rare and cool but for me personally they all seem kind of the same. Here’s an F-35B emerging from the fog in STOL form.
We wanted to get some golden hour but some Mugu P-3 and the fog had other plans. Here’s an Alaska E175 cutting through the fog on 24R. Not bad for a 61 MP camera.
We pulled up at Pacific Airshow the next day. Honestly, it looked pretty alright until the Thunderbirds went up for practice and we realized…you cannot see anything more than 500 feet above the ground. A B-1 did a swept wing pass at 450 knots and it could only be detected in two senses, none of which were vision. We did get this Red Bull Cub(?) though.
We then realized there was a very normal and not suspicious at all looking 727 on radar over Ontario - 90 minutes away. Given how the airshow was going, we cut our losses, packed up, and drove that Prius C as fast as those 99 horses could take us (which was exactly the speed limit, not a single mph over). Got to the very normal looking 727 just in time.
Given how the weather was going, we figured attempting LAX golden hour was going to be a useless effort. However, just 50 miles away in Ontario, not a single cloud in sight. As such, we decided to stay and were rewarded with this Convair 580. This image is cropped to 2.5 MP and yet it still has all the detail. That’s α7R IV propaganda.
We also got this UPS MD-11. God bless our troops, America, and the McDonnell Douglas MD-11. and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 apparently
Our ETE to LAX: 43 minutes. Sichuan A350 ETE to LAX: 48 minutes. The Prius C got us there once again.
As the night went on the fog got deeper and deeper. Really pretty to look at in person but a living nightmare to edit. Good skill to have, though. Here’s a Virgin Atlantic A350 barely visible on approach to 24R.
Figuring the airshow would be another fruitless lack of visibility (a completely correct assumption), we went to Seal Beach to watch them return from trying to do their demos (which mind you, is just FIVE MILES from the coast with not a cloud in the sky). Here’s Razz bringing the Raptor home after the Great Pacific Soundshow.
“Mom, can we get Vista Del Mar?”
“We have Vista Del Mar at home.”
Vista Del Mar at home:
At the very end of the day, we watched two F-35s go out (we now know that they were doing an A2A photoshoot over the coast). Figuring they wouldn’t return soon, we packed up and left. Literally as we were leaving the parking lot, the two of them came screaming back in over the airfield for a carrier break. I’ve never seen a Prius do a 180 that fast nor have I seen a person assemble a camera that fast. Here’s the business end of one of the F-35s.
So, what did we learn? That this hobby is incredibly weather dependent and I probably shouldn’t be spending decent amounts of money to cross the country just to spot? Nah, I haven’t learned that yet. I shall choose to take away that sometimes stuff doesn’t work out and you have to make the best of it, which we did. This way I can avoid accountability for my own actions and keep on spotting.
Check out my Instagram, just finished up a 25 day posting streak which is unheard of for me:
