Waterkloof Airshow - 21 September 2014

I visited the Waterkloof Air show here in Pretoria at Air Force Base Waterkloof just down the road from where I live. I first went on Saturday, 20 September 2014. I arrived there just after 06:00 and was inside at about 06:15. I set up my tripod with my camera on top. Just that week I bought a Sigma DG 150-500mm 5-6.3 APO HSM for my Sony A37.


After sitting for a while and chatting with the other photographers around, I decided to take a couple of shots of the aircraft standing there. For some reason, I could not get the lens to go into Auto Focus mode at all. Even though the camera and lens were both set to Auto Focus, the camera reported that it was in Manual Focus. And, indeed, it was. I had to manually focus on moving targets!


I really didn't feel like battling with that the whole day, so, I packed up and went back to the camera store where I bought the lens. They had a look at it, and then brought out 2 other lenses like the one I had, and they all did the same. Between each lens fitting I would first put on my Sony 55-300mm lens with no problems. So, one of the guys there who keeps all the equipment there in tip-top shape asked me if he could clean my camera body's contact pins and the lens' contacts. At the time I had another Sigma lens on (same as above but with in-built Optical Stabiliser). Once he was done, I tried it again, and everything was fine, and has been ever since. I headed back to the air show the following day. I was there even earlier, before the gates opened.


Air Force Base Waterkloof is at coordinates 25° 49.695'S (LAT) and 28° 13.496'E (LONG). This air show is a biennial show, so it is quite big. Two years ago they had an F-16 from the U.S. there and it was simply thrilling to see and hear that machine fly by. Sadly, this year it wasn't here.


Anyway, here are some photographs from the day.

Here is  slideshow of the rest of the pics.

Created with flickr slideshow.

Swartkops Airshow 2014

On 10 May the Swartkops Airforce base held their annual air show, which included almost everything that could fly. Unfortunately, I did not get a very good spot to set up and I had to deal with all the human bobble heads in front of me. Something else, which they did at the airshow, that I don’t think they did in previous years, was to park a host of planes right in front of the audience, so when other planes took off or landed, the view was obstructed by the planes parked right in front of us. Anyway, here are some pics from that day.

You will find more photographs from the day in the following slideshow.

South African Air Force Museum Air Show-2012-05-12

Last weekend (Saturday), I visited the Air Force Base Zwartkops, for the South African Air Force Museum’s Air Show. One of my aims for the day was to actually get to the aircraft standing on the ground. However, that never materialized, since the air show was going non-stop, and I didn’t want to miss anything. I ended taking over 1200 photographs, but I only uploaded 54 to my Photobucket (see below).

GPS:	25°48'24.29"S
	28° 9'43.60"E

The map below shows where the air force base is.

Just messed around with the following pic. I used Picasa.

The following image depicts a race between the helicopter and the Bentley, ala Top Gear. The Bentley eventually won by the smallest of margins. The race was twice around the circuit.

The troops also did a mock rescue of friendly forces that were captured by enemy forces.

Below are the Silver Falcons from the SA Air Force.

There are more pictures in my Photobucket below.

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