I live in Northern Virginia, close enough to Joint Base Andrews to easily visit for the biennial air show. I like photographic challenges and airplanes, so this is a good event for me.
I’ve done this enough times to know most of their routine, what to look for so I’m ready to shoot, and what kind of shots I like. Here are some of my favorites from the 2025 show.
The mirror image pass is performed with both aircraft passing along the runway, on parallel paths, with the inverted one, #5, nearer to the crowd than the upright one, #6. Number 6 flies alongside and slightly above #5. Here the illusion of
belly-to-belly is almost perfect. You can see #5 looking straight ahead, while #6 is watching #5 to hold position. I’ve never seen this maneuver head-on; I’m guessing #5 flies above the near edge of the runway while #6 flies significantly farther away, hence #6 appears smaller than #5 because of the added distance.
The show uses six aircraft, with the commander flying #1, with #1-4 doing most of their work together in a
diamond formation, and a pair of solos, #5 and #6 mostly performing apart from 1-4. The show mostly alternates between the main group of 1-4 doing a maneuver, followed by one or both of the solos doing a maneuver while the main group repositions, then back to the main group showing off. For some maneuvers, the solos join the main group to form their delta formation. There is also a seventh aircraft, and this is the first time I’ve seen it fly. It didn’t participate in the show, except for this flyby.
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| Diamond Formation Pulling Gs and Making Vapor Trails |
On humid days, the aircraft sometimes form
vapor trails, usually when they’re pulling Gs. This day wasn’t especially humid, so the trails were minimal. I always like vapor trails and the maneuvers when they come in especially fast after a dive from high altitude.
When I see them approaching on a converging path, I pick one to follow in frame and spray the shutter when I think they’re getting close to one another in frame. They roll as they approach each other, and if I’m lucky, I get one shot with them both in frame. If I’m really lucky, both aircraft will be sharp.
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| #5 Is Frequently Inverted |
Famously, solo #5 has its number painted upside down in a nod to the fact that this pilot spends a lot of time inverted.
I keep trying, and failing, to get both aircraft sharp in a head-to-head pass. I use the same technique for this as with the right angle cross: follow one, spray the shutter when they get close. The one that I panned with is usually sharp (the one on the left in this photo) and, if I’m lucky, I’ll freeze the other one too. I need to use a faster shutter speed for this, but I keep underestimating the requirement.
The Calypso Pass is a nice slow pass with the solos flying back-to-back, an easy shot to get that shows both sides of an
F-16.
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| Top Side Visible During Aileron Roll |
These airplanes are subjected to lots of stresses and wear during a season. By late Summer, the paint has taken a beating. The maintenance crews do a great job of keeping the airplanes looking great, as shown by this view of the top. I always like to get a shot that shows the riveted panels and control surfaces. Here you can clearly see the ailerons positioned for a roll to the left.
It was a very bright sunny day, making it really difficult to get good exposures of the white airplanes. I had to shoot everything really underexposed just to keep from blowing the whites out. Fortunately my camera does a great job capturing dim details that I can recover in post-processing. There was also a lot of heat haze. And the wind blew the smoke back toward the crowd area to my right so most of my shots to the right were smoky.
So, not my best work, but I got some keepers.
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