Stearman Formation Clinic

Snapped this with my wide-angle of the Stearmans practicing their finger-4 formation to qualify one of them to be a 4-ship leader.

I'll post more tomorrow. I got quite a bit of sun today, so I'll write more when I can put a sentence together.

Mixed-breed Dog show.

Okay, so she looks a bit like Marilyn Manson. But this pup doesn't have a bad bone in her body. This 6-month old Australian-Shepherd pup is friendly beyond belief. I was shooting the mixed-breed dog show and this woman asked me if I could take a nice picture of her dog. I told her sure, but not inside. We went outside and found this little piece of shade about 3 feet wide. The dog is not trained yet, but we managed to have her sit on leash and still snap this portrait.

Beautiful dog.

Stearman F.A.S.T. Clinic

"Coming up on power now"

The Stearman guys at Creve Coeur just received accreditation from F.A.S.T. to give formation training. They have been having these get-togethers for years but this was the first official one. After meeting on thursday night, they flew the fabric off the wings friday getting people qualified for a 2-ship wing and 2-ship lead positions.

It's not much of a spectator sport, but to hear all those Stearman's crank-up can't be beat.

Cub Progress May 25 Starting to cover the tailfeathers.

Ace tube-cleaner Sky came out to the airport with me today to help me prep the tailfeathers for cover. I already had 3 of the 5 pieces cleaned off, so he quickly cleaned the other 2 and then we cut fabric for them.

We also had light rain this morning, so we rolled the Fairchild out to help get her clean the The Last Biplane Fly-In @ Bartelsville. We are planning on attending with the Zenith Z6a, a Travel Air 4000 and a Cessna 170.

I also lined up a photo-gig/shoot this coming weekend to cover a Stearman Formation Clinic being held at Creve Coeur.

Watching the birds.

When Gina and Sky went to a Birthday Party this afternoon and my daughter was asleep for her nap, I decided to stake-out the old Hummingbird feeder. This male ruby-throat kept coming about every 15-20 minutes. These suckers are so skittish and so very fast they're hard to catch, even with autofocus.

Great Day

I didn't get a lot done on the Cub today, but it was a great day.

Glenn and I helped Ken Thomas change the tires on his Bird biplane. Glenn got to fly the Zenith.

I got some great shots of Ken flying and of Terry and Doug Gardner flying their Ranger-powered Great Lakes.

"You say it's your birthday...Happy Birthday to ya!"

Today is my beautiful wife Gina's birthday. This morning, she went for her birthday manicure and pedicure leaving little Linds at home with me to bake her a birthday cake. Linds was truly a big help doing everything from breaking the eggs to adding the cooking oil to the batter and stirring it up. I didn't take her advice on how long to bake the cake (3 minutes) and baked it for 30 minutes instead. It turned out great!

Then, after Linds nap and mom got back, we went out to Macaroni Grill for dinner. I was disappointed to learn they had removed Vodka Rustica (my favorite!) from the menu but a nice word to our waitress had it coming our way. Then we went home and put four candles, one for each ten years, on the cake and sang Happy Birthday to Gina. Then Linds immediately blew out the candles, much to all of our surprise. This bottom photo, with Gina covering Linds mouth, was actually her 3rd try at the candles.