The B-17 Flying Fortress “Aluminum Overcast” landing at EAA Airventure.

This warplane no longer drops bombs but serves the public by offering ground tours and flights.

Aluminum Overcast grants ground torus of the aircraft for about fifteen bucks, while children under eight, active military personnel and veterans can take a ground tour for free.

During the EAA Airventure Air Show this plane spent more time in the air than on the ground.

It would land to disembark a tour group…

and in a matter of minutes it taxied out to the runaway to take off again.

Currently touring in Texas and Louisiana a ride on Aluminum Overcast costs about $400.00.

When I first saw these eagles and began taking pictures, I had thought I was getting a rare glimpse of Golden Eagles.  Golden Eagles rarely venture this far east, preferring the more mountainous regions of Western Canada, Western United States and Mexico.  It is common to mistake adolescent Bald Eagles for Golden Eagles and in my defense I’m not a wildlife biologist, I am a history major.  With that said here is a good picture of an adolescent Bald Eagle.

This was a big bird and it cruised above me mostly by itself, while the other adolescent Bald Eagles left it alone.  The mottled coloring underneath helps to camouflage it, and, as you can see, it has not got white tail feathers or a white head.  In the next photo, which is somewhat overexposed, this adolescent has begun to get white feathers.

One of the disadvantages of using manual settings on my camera and shooting wildlife, as happened with this photo, is that I was shooting toward some trees at the adult Bald Eagles across the river and this bird flew over-head in the bright sky.  I snapped pictures before I adjusted the aperture.  But as you can see the bird has white tail feathers, but does not have a white head, nor does it have a yellow beak.  Bald Eagles will get their white feathers somewhere between three to five years of age.

Bald Eagles will also migrate.  You’ll see family units gather along the Wisconsin River before heading southwest toward the Mississippi River, where some will spend Winter and others will continue further south.  I happened on this family of eagles along US 60 which runs along the edge of the Wisconsin River between Muscoda and Gotham.

Here a pair of adolescent eagles chase each other while an adult looks on from the trees.

An adolescent eagle perched near the river’s edge.

One of the adult eagles flew out of the trees to grab some breakfast.

And then had to fend off a pair of crows while it ate.

Then the adult returned to the trees.

And the young eagles continued to play.

In this group of eagles there were four adult Bald Eagles and five adolescent eagles.  The adults mostly hung out in the trees, leaving their perches occasionally to grab fish, while the younger eagles never stopped playing.

While hiking I heard a wind-like sound.  I didn’t immediately comprehend the sound because I thought I was about to get caught out in the rain.  Then I realized it couldn’t be the wind because the sound was too high-pitched.  Birds?  I questioned.  Birds.

Earlier in the morning I had seen a large flock of birds on the other side of a field.  So a few days later, when I managed to drag myself out of bed at six in the morning, I headed back to the same spot to see how large the flock might be.

The time stamp on the first picture I took that morning was 7:26 AM. 

I wondered how long I would see birds flying passed.  I figured two or three minutes.

Two minutes turned into five minutes…

which turned into ten minutes and the endless stream of birds continued on a southward flight.

Sometimes portions of a the stream of birds would settle onto a tree or group of trees.

Only to burst back into the air a few seconds later.

The final time stamp on the last picture I took was 7:41 AM.  For fifteen minutes a continuous ribbon of tens of thousands of small to medium sized birds streamed south.

White-tailed doe resting in warm sunshine on a November afternoon.

Ready on the flight line.

Hellcat in flight.

Hellcat after landing.

A-10 Thunderbird II.

A-10 Thunderbird II in flight.

F-86 Saber, A-10 Thunderbird II, P-38 Lightning, P-51 Mustang.

During the salute to these great warplanes, I also kept on eye on the people around me.  A group of four stood about fifteen feet behind me; two boys, what I assumed was their father and their grandfather or perhaps great grandfather.  The grandfather looked old enough to have been part of the what I like to call the greatest generation.  You know, the generation that survived the Great Depression, fought World War II, drew the line against Communism, and eventually led us to the moon.  Some pretty tough folks to say the least.  He watched these planes fly-by along with the three others, and when they all had their backs turned to him, watching the planes, he reached up with his right index finger and wiped away a tear.

Taxiing to the runway.

In Flight just above the runway.

The sound of a Rolls-Merlin engine is so distinctive that no matter where you are during this event you can tell when a P-51 Mustang takes off.

F-86 Saber on the deck.

Oshkosh, Wisconsin

To help you understand what you are looking at, I decided to include this You Tube video.

I had been at EAA Airventure about two hours when my dad pointed out that he could see White Knight Two way down at the other end of the airfield.  I didn’t know it at the time because I’m not that familiar with the layout of the airfield at Oshkosh, but White Knight Two sat on runway 27 (two seven) waiting to take-off.  We listened as the announcer on the loudspeaker announced Burt Rutan.  The chief designer of White Knight One, Mr. Rutan quickly pointed out that he did not design White-Knight Two, which is part of a company owned by Sir Richard Bransom called Virgin Galactic. 

The jet-plane portion, without the shuttle hanging from the middle, flew into Oshkosh Monday.

And much to my delight, while Mr. Rutan talked about White Knight Two, it took off.

Circled the airfield several times…

Displaying its power and beauty…

Showed its landing gear to the tower and then landed.

It taxied to where I stood.

Giving me a great look at this powerful jet…

with very beautiful nose-art.

Look closely through the window and you can see the pilot.

That’s the pilot’s hatch.

That’s the owner, Sir Richard Bransom.

Oshkosh, Wisconsin

I had planned on two days in Oshkosh, which meant I had a pretty quick learning curve to be able to bring you some of these pictures.  I’ve never been to an air show, so I had no idea the types of things I would see, stunts pilots would try or the sheer number of people I would be confronted with.  Obstacles and lack of understanding aside, I have some really nice pictures to share, including parachutists, death defying stunts, impressive fly-ins, incredible fly-bys, and a whole lot of airplanes.

Since I went on Tuesday and Wednesday, I’m certain the crowds were thinner than on the weekend.  Typically, whenever you neared a unique attraction, like this vintage World War II era British Avro Lancaster, the crowds thickened.  This is a beautifully kept machine and for five bucks you could climb the ladder beneath the nose and take an inside tour of the plane.  As far as I was concerned, the British had already satisfied my price of admission because this is a very rare machine.  However the Brits weren’t done trying to please my need for historical aircraft.

This is an extremely rare P-40 Kittyhawk.  Sold to the British as part of Lend-Lease during World War II, P-40 Kittyhawks and Tomahawks helped keep the British in the fight against Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

The primary British fighter at the beginning of World War II, the Hawker Hurricane.

Hurricanes eventually gave way to an air superiority fighter that maintains legendary status to this day.

The Supermarine Spitfire.

So, as you can see, EAA Airventure in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with tens of thousands of people present and thousands of aircraft to look at, attracts the very finest examples of aircraft from vintage warplanes to modern jets.  I’ll be posting more over the next few days.  I hope you enjoy seeing these pictures as much as I did seeing these aircraft.

More shots from EAA Airventure in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

From the EAA Air-show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

An incredibly entertaining event that has included “The White Knight II” the privately funded space-plane project, also today an Airbus 380 flew in.  Some say this is the air-show of air-shows.  All I know is it’s huge.  You could not possibly see all these planes in one day.  From vintage bi-planes to modern jet airliners — the whole world seems to be here.

There was something across that field more important to him than his fear of me.