Click on any picture below to link to the related display.

After a week of winter storms, I drove out the Apache Trail to Tortilla Flat.

747-SCA N911NA departed from Runway 04 at Edwards Air Force Base bearing Space Shuttle Endeavour back to Florida at 7:10 AM on Wednesday, December 10. It landed at Biggs Air Force Base, Texas 2 hours and 18 minutes later. It made a second stop at Fort Worth later in the afternoon..

On Saturday, December 6, I started at the Mojave Airport. I drove north on the Antelope Valley Freeway to Nine Mile Canyon, which I followed to Kennedy Meadows. Above Kennedy Meadows, just past Fish Ctreek Meadow at an elevation of 7,800 feet, the road was icy, so I returned the same way.

Kennedy Meadows is reached by way of nine Mile Canyon

Bad weather caused the Space shuttle Endeavour to divert to Edwards Air Force Base at the conclusion of STS-126 on November 30. It was the 52nd Space Shuttle mission to land at Edwards. It will return to the Kennedy Space Center on a 747 Carrier Aircraft. On Friday, December 5 Endeavour was suspended under the Mate/Demate Device at the Dryden Flight Research Center being prepared for mounting on the 747.

High winds hampered the effort to mount it on the 747 Carrier Aircraft, so the departure was postponed until Wednesday, December 10.

The Space Shuttle Endeavour was suspended under the Mate/Demate Device as it was prepared to be loaded on the 747 Carrier Aircraft at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Canter at Edwards Air Force Base at sunset on Friday, December 5, 2008.

32,852 pixel by 21,708 pixel high-resolution view produced by stitching together 182 images (14 columns by 13 rows) taken with a Gigapan robotic camera mount. It has a field of view of 164.5 degrees wide by 108.7 degrees high (top=68.2, bottom=-40.5).

The crescent Moon joined Venus and Jupiter in conjunction on December 1. Venus is in the middle and brighter than Jupiter. The Moon is about 240,000 miles away. Venus is a bit over 100,000,000 miles away. It is setting later each evening and will reach maximum elongation on January 15. Jupiter is almost 600,000,0000 miles away. It is setting earlier each evening and will be in conjunction with the Sun on January 24.

The crescent Moon moves away from Venus and Jupiter between 6:34 PM and 7:20 PM PST. I animated six frames taken between sunset and moonset.

The Tea Fire started burning in the vicinity of the Tea Garden near Westmont College on the afternoon of Thursday, November 13. High winds drove the fire through the hills of Montecito and burned several dozen homes. The next day several helicopters and fixed wing tankers, including the DC-10 tanker, attached the fire in the hills above Santa Barbara.

Vintage photographs of US Air Force pre-production jet fighters including McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagle, General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, Northrop YF-17 Cobra, Northrop F-5G/F-20 Tigershark, Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptor, Northrop YF-23, Lockheed-Martin X-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and Lockheed-Martin F-35 Lightning II.

The COSMO-3 satellite was launched into polar orbit on a Delta II rocket from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base at 7:28 and 12 seconds on the evening of Friday, October 24. In order to place it in the same orbital plane as the first two COSMOS-Skymed satellites, the launch window was only one second long. This time exposure captures the launch from ignition to burn out of the first stage main engine, 4 minutes 36 seconds after launch. The second stage is too faint to register in this image. I used two cameras with 18mm lenses to capture the launch from ignition through burnout of the first stage. The lights of the City of Buellton can be seen on the lower right. The planet Venus is the brightest astronomical object to the left of center. This picture was taken in the Santa Ynez Mountains about 35 miles east of the launch pad.

The Airship Ventures Zeppelin N704LZ cruised high over the Santa Barbara Channel on its way from San Bernardino to Salinas on Friday, October 24. It will be based at Moffett Field and give aerial tours.

The first Lockheed-Martin F-35A Lightning II, AA-1 completed air-start and noise tests at Edwards Air Force Base on Thursday October 23. It returned to Fort Worth on October 24.

Century Circle, a display of Century-series fighters has been installed just outside the Rosamond Boulevard gate into Edwards Air Force Base. It is open to the public. Just pull into the parking lot before you reach the guard house. The Century series jet fighters displayed include North American YF-100 Super Sabre 52-5755, McDonnell F-101B Voodoo 58-0288, Convair TF-102A Delta Dagger 54-1353, Lockheed F-104A Starfighter 56-0860, Republic F0195D Thunderchief 61-0146, and convair F-106B Delta Dart 59-0158. They were joined in July 2008 by McDonnell Douglas YC-15 prototype N15YC.

On Sunday, October 5, I shot a series of panoramas with my Gigapan robotic camera mount in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, and up at Horshoe Meadow in the Sierra Nevada. On Monday, I drove across Lee Flat, over Hunter Mountain, through Ulida Flat and Hidden Valley, via Teakettle Junction to Racetrack Playa. Then I cruised through Racetrack Valley, past Dry Mountain to Ubehebe Crater.

A Target Launch Vehicle, a modified Minuteman ICBM, was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base at midnight on September 24, 2008 as the Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE) satellite passed overhead off the coast of California. NFIRE imaged the rocket and its plume in infra-red for the Missile Defence Agency.

I am now a beta tester for the Gigapan robotic camera mount. It automates the process of capturing multiple images to assemble into a panorama. My earlier panoaramas were typically composed of 24 pictures and contained about 70 megapixels. Now I am producing panoramas assembled from well nearly 300 images and containing over seven hundred megapixels. My Gigapan ID is GoletaBrian.

Mount Whitney and the Whitney Portal Road. Mount Whitney is the tallest mountain in the continental United States with an elevation of 14,497 feet. The Whitney Portal Road was made famous in the climactic chase scene at the end of the Humphrey Bogart movie High sierra.

See all of my Gigapan panoramas

The next time you visit Google Earth, try clicking on the Gigapan Photos Layer. It's in the Gallery section.

The Geoeye 1 satellite was launched into polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a Delta-II booster at 11:50:57 AM on Saturday, September 6, 2008.

The annual Independence Day fireworks show over Goleta was held on Labor Day this year.

Flying Aircraft Carriers of the USAF

From 1948 to 1956, the US Air Force pursued several methods of carrying launching, and retrieving small airplanes from giant bombers.

From 1948 to 1956, the US Air Force pursued several methods of carrying launching, and retrieving small airplanes from giant bombers.

In 1948 and 1949, a pair of McDonnell XF-85 Goblins were test flown from a Boeing EB-29B Superfortress at Edwards Air Force Base.

In 1949 the Wright Air Development Center conducted wing tip coupling experiments with a Douglas C-47A Skytrain and a Culver Q-14B Cadet at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

From 1950 to 1953, the Wright Air Development Center continued wing tip coupling experiments with a Boeing B-29S Superfortress and a pair of Republic F-84D Thunderjets at the Republic Aircraft Company plant at Farmingdale, new York.

From 1952 to 1956, the Project FICON investigated the potential of carrying various models of the Republic F-84 in the bomb bay of a Peacemaker to perform reconnaissance missions into areas that were too heavily defended for the RB-36 to penetrate.

In 1956 Project Tom-Tom explored wing tip coupling with a Republic RF-84F Thunderflash and a Convair RB-36.

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History of Project FICON published as a book.

Flying Aircraft Carriers of the USAF: Project FICON

The book is 172 pages long. It is available softbound with black-and-white printing or hardbound with color printing. The softbound edition is 8-1/2" x 11". It contains 171 photographs and 77 other illustrations.

You can preview the first several pages of the softcover book.

The hardbound edition is 8-1/4" x 10-3/4". It contains 12 color photographs, 165 black-and-white photographs, 8 color illustrations and 69 black-and-white illustrations.

You can preview the first several pages of the hardcover book.

Books are printed on demand by Lulu.com. When you order one, it is placed in your Lulu.com shopping cart. Lulu.com prints, packages, and ships the book direct to you.

Put a copy of the softbound Flying Aircraft Carriers of the USAF: Project FICON in your Lulu.com shopping cart for $39.95.

Put a copy of the hardbound Flying Aircraft Carriers of the USAF: Project FICON in your Lulu.com shopping cart for $74.75.

Project FICON Handbooks

Reprints of the Air Force Flight and Maintenance Handbooks for the GRB-36D.

The book is 236 pages long. It contains:

Utility Flight Handbook USAF Series GRB-36D-III/RF-84F Composite Aircraft

Utility Flight Handbook GRB-36D-III FICON Aircraft

Supplemental Handbook Maintenance Instructions USAF Series GRB-36D-III Aircraft

You can preview the first several pages of the book.

Books are printed on demand by Lulu.com. When you order one, it is placed in your Lulu.com shopping cart. Lulu.com prints, packages, and ships the book direct to you.

Put a copy of the softbound Project FICON Handbooks in your Lulu.com shopping cart for $39.95.

Flying Aircraft Carriers of the USAF videos on DVD

Five vintage films produced by the Wright Air Development Center that feature Air Force efforts to carry, launch, and retrieve airplanes from giant propeller driven bombers in the early cold war era. These videos were digitized directly from 35mm films in the National Archives. The subjects include the McDonnell XF-85 Goblin in 1948-49, wing tip coupling a Culver Q-14 Cadet and Douglas C-47 Skytrain in 1949, wing tip coupling a pair of Republic F-84D Thunderjets and a Boeing B-29 Superfortress in 1950, and Project FICON, in which a GRB-36F carried an F-84E Thunderjet in 1952.

DVDs are burned on demand by Lulu.com. When you order one, it is placed in your Lulu.com shopping cart. Lulu.com burns, packages, and ships the DVD direct to you.

Put a copy of the Flying Aircraft Carriers of the USAF videos on DVD in your Lulu.com shopping cart for $24.95.

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The Santa Maria Airport and the Santa Maria Museum of Flight hosted the annual Thunder Over the Valley show over the weekend of August 23 - 24. In addition to a variety of warbirds and trainers, there were several military helicopters on static display. Performances by a Navy McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18 Hornet and an Air Force Fairchild-Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II were marked by clouds of condensation and contrails.

The Camarillo Airshow was held over the weekend of August 16 - 17. It featured numerous experimental aircraft and warbirds but no aerobatics. They put up ten warbirds at the end including four twin engine warbirds.

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These videos capture the sights and sounds of steam locomotives running in southern California. Chase the Santa Fe 3751 Northern class steam locomotive as it pulls the California Limited from North Edwards to Bakersfield on December 28, 1991 and from Oro Grande Canyon to Azusa on December 30, 1991. Then follow the Union Pacific 3985 Challenger on an excursion from Pomona to Yermo on August 20, 2000. Running time: 58 minutes.

DVDs are burned on demand by Lulu.com. When you order one, it is placed in your Lulu.com shopping cart. Lulu.com burns, packages, and ships the DVD direct to you.

Samples of the videos on the DVD.

Put a copy of the Steam Locomotives DVD in your Lulu.com shopping cart for $24.95.

Boeing Business Jet 737-7AH N888TY is a regular vistor to the Santa Barbara Airport.

The Gap Fire started burning on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 1 near West Camino Cielo on the crest of the Santa Ynez Mountains above Goleta.

A pair of Sikorsky Skycranes lifted slurry from a station on Bishop Ranch to the hot spots on the ridge and in Elwood Canyon Sunday. A few Santa Barbara County Fire Department UH-1H Hueys lifted water from local reserviors.

Slideshow of the helicopters fighting the Gap Fire.

Delta II/Jason 2 launch, June 20, 2008

The Jason 2 satellite was launched into polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a Delta-II rocket at 12:46 A.M. on Friday, June 20.

A sequence of thirty-second exposures of the Delta-II launch.

Over seventy vintage airplanes were displayed at the Planes of Fame Airshow at Chino over the weekend of May 17 - 18. The sky was uncommonly clear blue and the heat was record setting.

Flying displays page 1: Silver Wings Stearman Biplane Wing Walking, B-25 Mitchell Bomber Formation Flight, Steve Hinton Bearcat Aerobatics, and Hollywood Goes to the Pacific.

Flying displays page 2: Korean Air War, The Horsemen, Baa Baa Blacksheep, and Brian Sanders Sea Fury Aerobatics.

Flying displays page 3: Airpower Formation Flight and USAF Heritage Flight.

Stattic displays

Slideshow of the flying displays at the Planes Of Fame Airshow.

The Collings Foundation Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress, Nine-O-Nine, North American B-25J Mitchell, NL3746G Tondelayo, and Consolidated B-24J Liberator, The Dragon and His Tail are touring southern California. Here's a slideshow of the Collings Foundation Bombers on previous barnstorming tours.

Although it is late in the season there is a spectacular Poppy bloom in the Antelope Valley.

Slideshow of wildflower photos.

The last four Lockheed-Martin F-117A Nighthawks from the 49th Fighter Wing departed from Air Force Plant 42 at Plamdale, California for Tonopah, Nevada on Tuesday, April 22. Their wings will be removed and they will be stored in their old hangars. The four Stealth Fighters took off from Runway 25 at 2:00 PM.

Slideshow of the visit of the last Stealth Fighters at Palmdale.

The last four Lockheed-Martin F-117A Nighthawks from the 49th Fighter Wing flew from Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico to Air Force Plant 42 at Palmdale, California on Monday, April 21.

Video clips and still frames from the Air Force Engineering Division film report: Experimental and Research Aircraft that feature the first flights of the Convair XB-36 42-13570 prototype of the Peacemaker and the Convair XC-99 43-52436.

The XB-36

The XC-99

A Minuteman III missile was launched on a suborbital trajectory toward Kwajalein Atoll from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 1:01 A.M. on Wednesday, April 2.

The Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk fleet is being retired. Here's a retrospective of photos of the Stealth Fighter.

Chase the Union Pacific Challenger class 4-6-6-4 steam locomotive 3985 from Pomona through Cajon Pass and Victorville to Yermo on August 20, 2000.

Vintage video of Boeing B-52G Stratofortresses of the 93rd Bomb Wing at Castle Air Force Base in 1992 and 1993.

Vintage video of Boeing KC=135A and KC-135R Stratotankers of the 93rd Bomb Wing at Castle Air Force Base in 1992 and 1993.

The Saline Valley is home to a great deal of military jet training and testing. I photographed several Super Hornets and Fighting Falcons during a recent visit.

Saline Valley Birdwatching: Slideshow of Boeing-McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18 Hornets from NAS Lemoore and NAWS China Lake and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons from Fresno ANG and Edwards AFB flying at low altitude in the Saline Valley in March 2008.

Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale is home to Blackbird Airpark and the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark at Palmdale Plant 42. Both airparks are located on Avenue P, adjacent to 25th Street East. Blackbird Airpark is the only place where you can see an SR-71A, an A-12, and a D-21 drone together. There will eventually be over 40 airplanes on display at the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark. Blackbird Airpark recently received another black bird, Lockheed F-117A Stealth Fighter 79-0783. The Boeing B-52F Stratofortress 57-0038 that was delivered to the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark last year has been almost fully reassembled. Their Curtiss C-46 Commando is undergoing restoration.

The Boeing NB-52B Stratofortress mothership has been placed on display outside the north gate of Edwards Air Force Base, just off Highway 58 between Mojave and Boron.

I spent five days in the Saline Valley photographing scenery and jets in the wild. Two days after I returned home, the winds were gusting to 48 miles per hour where I was camping.

Panamint Valley and Saline Valley Slideshow: Slideshow of scenery in Panamint Valley and Saline Valley in March 2008.

I used some new methods to build panoramas from old slides that required a lot of perspective correction. I also straightened out some of the more recent panoramas.

On a typically windy day in the Saline Valley I spotted a most unusual cloud.

Raytheon's Convair 580 N580HH arrived at Naval Air Station Pt Mugu From Tucson, Arizona on February 25, 2008.

I recently acquired a Neuros OSD video digitizer and a big hard drive. I digitized my old VHS tapes of airshows, tankers, steam locomotives, and rocket launches. I have started producing Video Shorts and adding them to the displays of the museum.

The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds perform at the Edwards Air Force Base open house in six General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons on November 8, 1987.

Several of my short Time Lapse Video clips have been reworked into compilation videos.

Electric Eye: Different perspective of the lightning storm over Santa Maria on August 30, 2007.

The Pregnant, Mini, and Super Guppies display has been revised with bigger and better image files.

On Thursday, December 27 a flight plan was filed for Honeywell Boeing 720 N720H to fly from Williams-Gateway to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. It actually departed from Phoenix and activated its flight plan over Williams-Gateway. It was scheduled to depart at 9:50 AM MST and to return at 1:20 PM MST. I parked on the top of the Terminal 4 parking structure at 1:00 PM to wait for its return. As I waited, I photographed a number of the flights taking off and landing on Runway 26.

I stopped by the local airport on Sunday, January 13 to see what was flying. Mostly regional jets and business jets including a small fleet of Honeywell Corporate jets.

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan CVN-76 paid a visit to Santa Barbara over the weekend of January 12 - 13.

Early Boeing four-engine jet airliners, beginning with the 367-80 prototype, shared a 130-foot 10-inch wingspan. Boeing's first production jet airliner, the 707-120, was 144 feet 6 inches long. To suit QANTAS need for a longer range, the 707-138 was ten feet shorter than the standard 707-120 but kept the same take-off weight. Boeing built the 720 with a shorter, lighter fuselage for short range operations.

Airworthy Vintage Boeing Jetliners

Honeywell's Boeing 720-051B engine testbed is the oldest Boeing jet airliner that still flies in the United States. Here's a collection of pictures of some of the oldest examples of Boeing jet airliners that still fly.

New Display Archives:

2007 New Displays

2006 New Displays

2005 New Displays

2004 New Displays

2003 New Displays

2002 New Displays

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