Saturday night flights

Warmer weather brought me to Randall Airport recently. While raking leftover leaves in front of my house, I could see planes towing gliders into the sky and decided to make the short drive to the airport.

I did not have to wait long to get pictures of  a plane and glider taking off.

 

This pilot flew low over the airport before coming in for a landing.

I saw this ultralight flying from by house. But when I got to the airport the pilot was finished flying and just lifted a few feet off the runway once or twice.

A hot air balloon crew had started to set up on the side of the airport. But they waited a while, I think for the winds to die down, before inflating the balloon.

The photograph I really wanted to get was the balloon and the moon, which was in the eastern sky.

The problem was that I was so close to the balloon that I had to use a wide angle lens. A telephoto lens would have made the moon larger in the frame.The first photo below is with a wide angle. The second and third photos are with a longer zoom lens.

Here's a slideshow of more photos from the airport that evening:

Saturday night flights - Images by Tom Bushey

Friday night flights

Friday night flights of gliders, hang gliders and ultralights at Randall Airport had been on my list of things to photograph for the Times Herald-Record for a long time. Friday is my day to work late, starting at 1 p.m., but I usually have assignments to shoot that evening.

A few weeks ago I was finished with my other assignments by 6 p.m. and headed to the airport to see if any balloons were preparing to take off. I saw no balloons but I did notice one ultralight coming in for a landing.

 Luckily for me, the ultralight was preparing to tow another tandem hang glider into the sky. He actually towed the hang glider four times, which allowed me to figure out how to get the pictures  I wanted.

My later photos were also helped by a beautiful sunset. I really like the scale of the ultralight in this picture:

Finally, here a picture of the hang glider approaching the airport.

The images above and others were published in a photo gallery at recordonline.com. The Times Herald-Record also published four of  the photos on Aug., 28, 2013.

 In case you're interested in taking a flight, the tandem hang glider rides at Randall Airport are offered by Hangar 3.

More hang gliders above Ellenville, N.Y.

I figured a good way to get back to blogging would be to start where I left off, with hang gliding photographs. Only this time the background has gone from green trees to browns and yellows.



I shot theses photos on a weekend, and there were at least 20 people watching the hang gliders and paragliders from the parking areas on Route 52 above Ellenville. I was hoping to shoot down on some of the gliders when there were landing, but most of them continued soaring high above me the entire time I was there.

Since I already had tight shots of hang gliders, I tried to get groups or hang gliders with something else in the frame, like a glider or a bird.


Here's a slideshow of some of the photos:


Hang gliders above Ellenville II - Images by Tom Bushey

Wurtsboro airport

Here are two photographs I liked from the grand reopening of Wurtsboro Airport on May 8. The first shows a radio controlled airplane in the foreground and real planes in the background.






The body language of the instructor makes the second picture. The airport is located on Route 209 in Wurtsboro. To see a slideshow of more photographs of the airport, click here.