CoolPix: 'Sawbones' Sea Fury At Pylon 8 - Reno 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012 at 10:25PM 
(click pic for hi-res) Sea Fury 'Sawbones' against the perfect Reno sky at pylon 8
First things first... the Avspecs Limited Mosquito has flown! Sometime early in the day Thursday September 27 (While it was still Wednesday here in the US) the Mosquito took to the skies once again. What an exciting accomplishment! Congrats to all involved, and I hope to have some cool details to post soon.
I also wanted to point it something else before I point to the CoolPix image posted above. In the 3+ years of AirPigz I've posted a pretty nice collection of the hi-res images (1600 pixels wide) that can be scrolled thru and enjoyed by checking out the CoolPix category... I just wanted y'all to know that spending some time checking out all that avgeek goodness is probably something you should do : )
This particular CoolPix is of the Sea Fury Sawbones flown by Curt Brown which actually captured 4th place in the big Gold Unlimited race on Sunday 9-16-12, the last day of the 2012 Reno Air Races. This pic is from Saturday's Silver Heat 3B where the airplane came in first with a speed of 402.338 mph. I was out at pylon 8 for five or six races of the various classes on Saturday, and this was one of the better images I captured that trip.
I've improved significantly over the one-and-only trip to the pylons that I had last year, but there is so much to learn about getting good images of airplanes that are literally only a few hundred feet away from you traveling at over 400 mph. This is a good time to thank my friend @adamcanfly for the use of his Canon 70-200 zoom lens - I'm very thankful to have had the use of it. One of the biggest challenges with the prop driven aircraft is to use a slow shutter speed to get a really blurred prop without blurring the entire airplane due to a poor pan of the camera. I came away from Reno 2012 with a pretty good collection of useable images from the pylons, but I can't wait to get the chance to be out there next year to do even better. If you don't already know, access to the pylons is only for those who have media credentials for the Reno Air Races... it's also one of the greatest experiences an avgeek will ever have!
Sawbones is an interesting airplane to me since I live in Warsaw Indiana, which just happens to be the orthopedic capital of the world. Three major producers of artificial hip, knee and other joint products are all headquartered right here. Sawbones is named as such because its owner Robin Crandall is an Orthopedist who deals with the repair and replacement of various bones in the body. Maybe Sawbones will stop by Warsaw for a visit someday... probably not! Anyway, I hope you enjoy seeing a pretty crisp pic of the beautiful Sawbones running the course at Reno!
Reader Comments (3)
very great photo
Pretty cool that they were able to get 4th place! This team always seems to be pretty consistent, which is half the battle.
Get a pit pass and come visit the team. Great shot I was on pylon 4 for the same race. Visit www.sawbonesair.com for go pro vidio and more photos.