F-22 and the Heritage Flight at Fleet Week 2012

Words can't really express how great a plane the F-22 is (from a design standpoint, anyway.) So let's just check out some photos here.














I'm not really one for bragging, so I hope this doesn't come across as such. All these photos were taken with a 30-or-more-year-old manual-focus camera lens with a TX mount to M42 and an M42 to K adapter. There's so much room for manufacturing intolerances in there, that this lens' ability to capture such sharp images is an incredible testament to the nerds who designed it. With slide rules and protractors. Yeah. This was before computers. Pretty amazing engineering and manufacturing quality.

Following the F22 demonstration, the jet was joined by two other planes for the heritage flight. Lots of people wearing flag bandannas and dew rags wept for this.



So, that last photo is NOT a composite. However,I  did lose the Mustang's propeller to the edge of the frame, so I re-built it from another image. I made the sky by mirroring the other end of the image. Totally worth it.