Tag Archives: Hood River

The 2014 Hood River Fly-In

26 Friday Sep 2014

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I recently attended my third Hood River Fly-In and I have to say this event keeps getting better and better.

This year I chose not to volunteer, unlike last year. There was more going on this year making me a little less certain that I’d be able to make it, as well as I wanted a little more freedom to photograph. I do feel a little guilty for not helping out, but some other opportunities to help unexpectedly arose.

By Friday afternoon, I was already getting reports that there were many airplanes there and I was fairly certain from this report that it was going to be a great event.

The Parker Pusher was scheduled to fly early Saturday and Sunday mornings, so I made plans to get there very early. I arrived in plenty of time and met up with a photographer friend of mine who had done much work around the museum. We made arrangements to chase the Pusher in a pickup truck for its takeoff run and be in position for its landing. The chase on the takeoff run didn’t work out as well as hoped, but we were expecting other opportunities. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way. It was time for the Pusher to return from its first flight and I noticed that it had turned really early for the runway and the propeller was getting very slow. I was so focused on getting the shot that I wasn’t really hearing the radio, when suddenly the driver said something I didn’t catch and drove off quickly for the trees at the edge of the field. When we reached the trees he braked and swung us back around so we could see what was happening. We got turned around just in time to see the Pusher make a turn on to the runway and the skid at the tip of the wing caught the runway, spinning the plane around on to its landing gear. Turns out, the only damage to the plane was one of the wheels broke all its spokes. The pilot was ok, but it sure did scare us.

The rest of the event was just a great deal of fun photographing a wide variety of planes. To my knowledge, it was the biggest Hood River Fly-In yet. Make a plan to come next September.

Check out the rest of my images of the 2014 Hood River Fly-In, or my aviation portfolio.

Hood River Fly In: Fantastic Show!

01 Monday Oct 2012

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When I decided in the late Autumn of 2011 to pursue a project of a story of a road tour of all the aviation museums in Oregon, I did a search of what those museums are. I then started visiting the museums, photographing their collections and interviewing staff members.

When I arrived at the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum, I was initially struck by the beauty of their location; as you turn into the museum parking lot, Mt. Hood stands proud over the museum’s main building. If you look behind you, Mt. Adams is in clear view. It got even better when I went inside, the staff and volunteers at WAAAM are exceedingly friendly and they have very fascinating displays. I was especially drawn to a video loop they had running on the first powder puff race. I was immediately enthralled with the stories of Louise Thaden and Pancho Barnes and have researched them a great deal since. I was particularly surprised to see the influence that Pancho Barnes had on the early career of George Hurrell, one of my favorite photographers.

Anyhow, the fact most essential to this blog entry is that I was very excited about attending WAAAM events through the summer of 2012. They have an event the second Saturday of every month with a large fly in held on the second Saturday of September. This was the event that I was most excited about.

We got there as early as we could. There is a charity breakfast before the event starts in earnest and we walked to the breakfast photographing planes along the way. Airplanes outdoors in the early morning light are a thing of beauty.

My two main goals for the fly in were to make photographs that show the planes along with the beautiful setting of WAAAM, and to meet and talk with pilots. I was able to meet both goals and the below photograph is one of my favorite in how it captures the feel of the Hood River Fly In, with lots of planes, tents, a pilot working on his plane, and a beautiful landscape shot of Mt. Hood. (By the way, if you think I missed cloning out a giant chunk of sensor dust almost in the middle of the shot, that’s actually a Piper Cub flying in to the festivities.)

The early morning scene at the Hood River Fly In at Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum (Rick A. Brown)

If you forced me to come up with a complaint about the fly in, the only thing I could come up with is that it would’ve been nice if more of WAAAM’s own planes had been pushed outside. It would’ve been real sweet to have photographed one of their Wacos or their Jenny for example in the location where I photographed their J3P with Mt. Hood in the window between the trees.

Take a closer look at my images from the Hood River Fly-In, and make sure you go next year.