Aircraft of the World

Over the years I've attended over 70 public airshows around the world.   As well as capturing photos of the unequalled military power on display at shows in the USA, I've also witnessed the sheer variety of aircraft at European shows such as the Royal International Air Tattoo in the UK, which is the largest military airshow in the world, and exotic aircraft at shows in Russia, the Czech Republic, Australia and New Zealand.

Going to these events with a press pass means that I not only see events which happen only on practice days, but I also get preferential placement, such as being able to shoot with the sun behind me on the opposite side of the airfield from the crowd, and also being able to go up the control tower at places like Edwards Air Force Base in the USA and Zhukovsky Air Field in Russia.

There are many fascinating and extraordinary aircraft which are no longer flying or, in the case of experimental aircraft, hardly flew at all!

Many of these aircraft are preserved in aviation museums around the world, and I've had the opportunity to visit many of them, including dozens of museums in the USA, the Russian Air Force Museum at Monino near Moscow, the Imperial War Museum at Duxford in England, the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon in England, the Vietnamese Air Force Museum in Hanoi, the Egyptian National Military Museum in Cairo, the infamous Yushukan museum in Tokyo honoring Japan's war dead, as well as other museums in locations as diverse as the Czech Republic, New Zealand and the Solomon Islands.

Not all aircraft are on display at airshows!

You'll find many interesting photos and descriptions of aircraft flying during normal operations such as the repositioning of Space Shuttle Atlantis from Edwards AFB, the first flight of SpaceShipOne into space, fire-fighting aircraft of the world or daily operations of the Vietnamese Air Force.

There are also cool events that the public doesn't get to see, like Red Flag military exercises and Green Flag military exercises, as well as private air-to-air photo shoots such as the one I did with the Collings Foundation F-4 Phantom II.