The sunset landing in Toronto this evening was amazing… I know, aren’t all sunsets amazing? But I still take pictures of them. These photos are all straight of the Canon A520 point-and-shoot.

I’m back, Toronto! Back to all your G20 mayhem and madness, and gritting my teeth to work through it all. I arrived home to find my G20 passes to enter The Security Fence, but I need to bring photo ID with me, too! I’ll be so glad when this is all over and we can get back to regular summer activity. In better news, I got to board a retired British Airways Concorde (Alpha Echo) yesterday afternoon in Barbados before I left. WOW, that’s all I can say. I had one chance only to fly in a Concorde (for free), but I’ll tell the story when I get the photos downloaded off the card and after some sleep.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_Has_Landed

I’ve seen the Blue Angels a bunch of times before, but never this close! I don’t have much zoom on the lens I brought with me, yet I could read the numbers on the sides of the planes. Amazing. Some of their high-speed passes were so low over the water and close to the beach they could take out swimmers.

I’m leaving for Toronto in a couple of hours. More pics to come after I get back.

On May 30 every year I fly for David’s birthday, and this year I decided to go up in a helicopter. Mount Pocono Municipal Airport was where David trained for his pilot’s license in 1994, and where he surprised me with my very first helicopter flight that fateful weekend in October 2004.

Spent most of the day with friends on Long Island, and the air show was a bonus!

I still want to be one.

But still trying to figure out how to do everything I want to do, since it all takes time and money.

Taken in the cockpit of the Beech D18S Expeditor, Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. (SOOC, by the way — my Pentax K100 took great photos. I was sad to part with it!)

August 23, 2008
Mount Hope, Ontario
(Hamilton Airport)

I arrived home from PA/NY after 4am, so I’ll forgo the photo uploading until later and in the meantime upload a short (30 sec) video clip of my exhilarating biplane flight. I shot a bunch of short video clips but this one’s my favourite.

Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome
Dutchess County, NY

While talking to my mother-in-law earlier this evening, I’ve only just realised how late it is in the airshow season and I haven’t flown in the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome biplane yet. ORA’s airshows finish around the middle of October and usually by this time I’ve made several trips over the Hudson River. Maybe it’s because I’ve been to three airshows, flew once with Alan, had a biplane ride in Ottawa in July, and my summer’s flown by at breakneck speed, but it just occurred to me that I only have one opportunity left to make an ORA biplane ride this year. With two weddings booked and various commitments between now and then, my fingers and toes are crossed that the weather — and aircraft — cooperate for my next road trip to Rhinebeck and I can put on my goggles and helmet and fly!

The photo above was taken during the last weekend of the 2007 season. The museum folk know that I like to film from the backseat and are very accommodating about it, so that’s where I usually sit. On this particular trip I was sitting behind a couple who were riding in a biplane for the first time and were pretty thrilled with the experience. I especially remember the wife’s reaction, and I wanted to capture it.

It’s rare that I’m in Toronto on a long weekend, but I committed myself to volunteering on Saturday and needed some catch-up days so here I am. Two years ago Arliin and I joined a bunch of her friends who are members at the National Yacht Club and have an annual tradition of watching the airshow over Lake Ontario from the outdoor patio. (Last year I skipped the airshow and decided to go flying instead. It just didn’t seem the same without Arliin there, and I wanted to be up in the sky.)

This year I found myself wanting the Arliin connection and viewed the airshow from the National Yacht Club patio again, but didn’t take nearly as many photos as I did two years ago. Arliin and I spectated the airshow twice in 2007, the second time sitting on the dock of the Argonaut Rowing Club. It was a scorching hot weekend, I remember getting sunburned at both the yacht club and the rowing dock. I also drove us to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum that weekend, so we really got our fill of aircraft between the museum and watching the airshow over two days.

I’ve uploaded a few photos and a videoclip of the F/A 22 Raptor in action from this afternoon:

I have one more early morning so I’m hitting the sack early tonight. A day of sun has wiped me out!

The other nine videos shot from takeoff to landing can be viewed here. The biplane was a 1939 Waco UPF-7. For more information about the biplane rides, I refer you to the Canada Aviation Museum website.

Update: I put together some of the clips to make one video and added music.

Biplane Ride Over Ottawa from Gail Edwin-Fielding on Vimeo.

July 19, 2009
Canada Aviation Museum
Rockcliffe Airport, Ottawa

Canada is celebrating 100 years of powered flight in 2009.

Official Website: http://canadiancentennialofflight.ca
Air Force website: http://canadiancentennialofflight.ca/airforce/
Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53984079560
CAPA Website: http://www.capa-acca.com
Baddeck Website: http://www.flightofthesilverdart.ca
Hawk One Website: http://www.hawkone.ca
Blog: http://canadiancentennialofflight.blogspot.com/

Right now the weather in Ottawa looks unfavourable for flying this weekend, which means I’ll have to try for a biplane ride another day. Who knows, maybe the forecasters are wrong?

In any case, I’m going to check out whatever aviation exhibits there are in Ottawa celebrating the Centennial of Flight and maybe even get myself to an airport next week to see if I can photograph part of the Century Flight, an armada of more than 100 small aircraft making a commemorative journey from coast to coast, beginning in Boundary Bay, BC, and ending in Baddeck, Nova Scotia.