Steve Davies
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Posts posted by Steve Davies
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For what it's worth (probably not much) I spent a few weeks in Kuwait a year ago working with an Army O6 who had been the Apache Battalion Commander during the fight. I'd just read "Not a good day" and thought I'd ask him about it--the book and the fight and the controversy...
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
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No, he did okay. I've made quite a bit of money with my D70 over the past 4 years. Don't start that lame argument here :) Canon, Nikon, whatever, they're all good cameras.
Jorryt
As a professional aviation photographer, I honestly don't think that the argument is lame: it's more often he case that the people who get into debates end up being childish and immature. FWIW, I thought that the D70 looked like an excellent camera, and I am sure that the D80 is, too.
The truth is that there are some things that Canon does better than Nikon, and some things that Nikon does better than Canon. I happen to believe that Canon's strengths are well suited to action/sports photography, and that includes aviation photography. That's why i use Canon. Not because I am blindly loyal to one brand over the other.
On a separate level, Hacker and I know each other and he has expressed an interest in taking my kit with him on various TDYs. With him now using Nikon and me being a Canon bloke, that's now going to be even less likely to happen!
EDIT: Just saw your last post. I wasn't trying to be a punk anyway.I know you weren't. Nor am I.
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I use the Canon D30 and have had "Great Success".
Nice shot. So, when you gonna' join the big boys and leave Sports mode on your 30D behind ;)
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I'm always snapping photos when I'm on the road, and have come to the realization that my digital camera sucks arse. Anyone here have any recommendations for a quality digital camera for under $300. I'm a big fan of the compact point and shoot camera (fits nicely in the flight suit), however the pictures don't seem to come out as good.
Feel free to post a picture you've taken with your camera.
Techsan
Techsan
There's always going to be a compromise between price, compactness and size. I am sure you know all of this, so i won't bang on about it.
Since I use kit that costs more than $300, I don't have a good handle on what's competitive at the moment. However, I would offer a couple of pearls of wisdom that you may choose to follow when selecting a new camera:
1) Stick to a recognised camera manufacturer with a heritage of photography behind them (Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Fuji, Ricoh and Leica are the ones that spring to mind). Personally, i would avoid the likes of Sony, Samsung, Panasonic etc. (although these companies make the PCBs that go inside almost all of the P&S digital cameras!)
2) Don't be sold on the number of megapixels the camera offers - more megapixels in no way equates to better image quality, and the two are largely unrelated! I'd rather have a 6MP camera that takes clean, sharp and vibrant images than a 12MP camera that does not. Remember, 6MP is plenty big enough to get a whopping A3 print, which is bigger than most people will usually want
3) Remember that cameras offering 10x zooms and the like are probably going to be asking so much of the lens that it's simply not going to be that great across its entire focal length. As with the megapixel advice, i would rather have a 4x optical zoom that takes sharp and contrasty images without the aberrations and softness, than a 10x optical zoom that doesn't
4) Finally, remember that if you want your digital images to look good, it's worth investing in a cheap programme like Photoshop Elements to do some minor tweaking on the computer. Post processing is a necessary evil in the world of digital photography, and even casual enthusiasts can learn to really make their images shine with only the smallest of time and effort
And, since you offered, here's some I shot earlier!
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I just purchased a Nikon D80 and have been very happy with it. It is my first DSLR, and it was quite a bit more expensive than any P&S camera.
BUT, the title of this thread is "aviation photography". You're never going to really enter into that sport with a $300 camera.
You went Nikon? I wish you'd talked to me before you did that.
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Gents
Many thanks for the responses. I will go away and read the Airpower Perspective and see if I still have questions.
I am now also curious about Airpower Against Terrorism, although I will heed CH's caution.
Cheers
Steve
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I have just finished reading Not A Good Day To Die, which recounts Operation Anaconda principally from a ground pounder perspective.
While the book makes clear that both pre-planned and on-call CAS was crucial to the operation from the get-go, and concedes that the Air Force was only vaguely involved in the planning of the operation, it does little to analyse the eventual failures of fixed wing CAS (both the pre-planned and the on-call) that it says occurred.
Several things from the book struck me as curious:
1) That AF planners at the CAOC seemed so inflexible when an expanded list of targets was created in the build-up to the operation, despite seemingly having significant assets available to hand
2) That the AF and Army seemingly made no attempt to organise Fast FACs for the operation
3) That coordination between ground commanders and CAS assets was poor, despite the presence of TACPs and ETACs embedded with both SF and regular troops
4) That the A-10 was deployed to theater so late in the day
5) That ground pounders felt like they were having JDAM 'forced' on them when they called for CAS - what they really wanted, the book claims, was twenty mike mike
6) That the AF was unable, or unwilling, to fly an hours' worth of pre-planned precision strikes against targets before the operation was to start
7) That documented briefings, commands/orders and planning between Army/Air Force C2 cells/CAOC seems to have been almost non-existent
I just wondered if there is an unclassified report that details what the USAF made of some of these questions post-operation, or whether some of the old salts here are able to comment on the unclassified lessons learned from all of this?
The book, which I thought was excellent despite mixed reviews on Amazon, derided some of the USAF's leadership within CENTCOM (with good reason, it seems), but I'll leave that to another discussion.
Any thoughts suitable for open source reading much appreciated.
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Brilliant!
Apparently, this is called 'Rickrolling'. From Wiki:
In 2007, an internet phenomenon known as "Rickrolling" began to spread rapidly. Its origins are commonly attributed to 4chan[citation needed], where its origins lead to a similar phenomenon called "duckrolling". "Rickrolling" consists of tricking internet surfers into clicking on hyperlinks routed to Astley's video of "Never Gonna Give You Up".[2] Notable examples of this meme entering the mainstream are Carson Daly's attempt to Rickroll his audience [1] and a performance of the song in the Family Guy episode "Meet the Quagmires." One hyperlink frequently used is a classic MTV version of "Never Gonna Give You Up" posted on YouTube on November 27, 2006. As of July 30, 2007, the YouTube video had been viewed over 1.8 million times. -
Interesting that Aero TV tries to justify showing the footage in the interests of 'keeping the rumour mill at bay', when the reality is that showing the footage is actually more likely to fuel that rumour mill, as well it knows.
Why can't they just grow a pair of balls and say, 'we are showing this footage because we are a media outlet and that's our job', rather than make
excuses?Beaver
The centreline may well be a brick wall, but from this angle is it possible to tell who crossed it?
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Is there any truth to the suggestion that the decision to force everyone to wear their PT gear was to stop people wearing gang colours?
I ask because there has been some speculation that this issue is what prompted it:
(CBS) U.S. Army Sgt. Juwan Johnson got a hero's welcome while home on leave in June of 2004."Not only did I love my son - but my god - I liked the man he was becoming," his mother, Stephanie Cockrell, remembers.
But that trip home was the last time his family saw him alive.
When Johnson died, he wasn't in a war zone, he was in Germany.
"He had finished his term in Iraq," his mother said. "I talked to him the day before his death. He said, 'Mom, I'm in the process of discharging out. I'll be out in two weeks'."
On July 3, 2005, Sgt. Johnson went to a park not far from his base in Germany to be initiated into the 'Gangster Disciples,' a notorious Chicago-based street gang. He was beaten by eight other soldiers in a "jump-in" - an initiation rite common to many gangs.
"My son never spoke of joining a gang," Cockrell told CBS News correspondent Thalia Assuras.
Johnson died that night from his injuries. His son, Juwan Jr., was born five months later.
"I feel like I didn't prepare him enough to deal with this and I should have," his mother said. "But how would I have known there were gangs in the military? I could have had that talk with him."
Evidence of gang culture and gang activity in the military is increasing so much an FBI report calls it "a threat to law enforcement and national security." The signs are chilling: Marines in gang attire on Parris Island; paratroopers flashing gang hand signs at a nightclub near Ft. Bragg; infantrymen showing-off gang tattoos at Ft. Hood.
"It's obvious that many of these people do not give up their gang affiliations," said Hunter Glass, a retired police detective in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the home of Ft. Bragg and the 82nd Airborne. He monitors gang activity at the base and across the military.
"If we weren't in the middle of fighting a war, yes, I think the military would have a lot more control over this issue," Glass said. "But with a war going on, I think it's very difficult to do."
Gang activity clues are appearing in Iraq and Afghanistan, too. Gang graffiti is sprayed on blast walls – even on Humvees. Kilroy – the doodle made famous by U.S. soldiers in World War II – is here, but so is the star emblem of the Gangster Disciples.
The soldier who took photos if the graffiti told CBS News that he's been warned he's as good as dead if he ever returns to Iraq.
"We represent America – our demographics are the same – so the same problems that America contends with we often times contend with," said Colonel Gene Smith of the Army's Office of the Provost Marshal.
The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command reported 61 gang investigations and incidents last year, compared to just 9 in 2004. But army officials point out less than 1 percent of all its criminal investigations are gang related.
"We must remember that there are a million people in the army community," Smith said, "And these small numbers are not reflective of a tremendous, pervasive, rampant problem."
The rise in gang activity coincides with the increase in recruits with records. Since 2003, 125,000 recruits with criminal histories have been granted what are known as "moral waivers" for felonies including robbery and assault.
A hidden-camera investigation by CBS Denver station KCNC found one military recruiter was quick to offer the waiver option even when asked, "Does it matter that i was in a gang or anything?" That is well within military regulations.
"You may have had some gang activity in your past and everything ... OK ... but that in itself does not disqualify...," the recruiter said.
Military regulations disqualify members of hate groups from enlisting, but there is no specific ban on members of street gangs. Sgt. Juwan Johnson's family says such a prohibition is long overdue.
"Just maybe we can save someone else's child ... somebody else's husband ... somebody else's father," his mother said. "I would have loved to have seen him with his child, I really would have -- that part is hard, that part is hard."
This month a military court sentenced two of Juwan Johnson's attackers to prison.
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I just think the AF and an AF Major need to sit down and make a statement, clear the air, and let the taxpayer know what all the money was for searching, investigating, minding, etc.
Do you think that should happen before or after the United States Air Force or the US Government apologies to the host nation for the way that this has been handled?
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Steve,
Have you checked out Missing Sync software? I've been very impressed with it - syncs Mac apps to my Palm (and vice versa) beautifully. I imagine their Blackberry and others versions would be just as good.
Hydro
Many thanks for the tip.
As a point of principle, I decided not to spend another $40 on Missing Sync to make the Pearl actually work in the manner that RIM's marketing bumpf told me that it would. I suppose that already having to pay almost $100 per month (including line rental and the BB email service) was enough of an expense already for me.
When I heard that the iPhone would be out in the UK in December, I decided to cancel my contract within the agreed get-out period, and will wait and see what the reviews for the Mac equivalent are like.
At least I can rest assured that if I do get an iPhone, it'll sync with my Mac without having to splash out on third-party software!
Cheers
Steve
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I use a blackberry pearl. It's not as big, in fact, its smaller than most phones, but it is still as functional as regular blackberries/pdas. I can email, stream video/audio, excel, word, internet etc.
I used a BB Pearl, too. However, I sent it back after it consistently refused to sync with Mac OS X.
Just a warning for all the Mac users out there.
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Not much more to say, but "throw a nickel on the grass, save a fighter pilot's ass."
THE quintessential USAF fighter pilot, as far as I'm concerned, and a great loss to the fighter community.
RIP.
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On a related note:
The 728th Armament Systems Group, 328th Armament Systems Wing (AFMC), announces the first of a series of Industry Days for the future acquisition of the QF-16 Air Superiority Target (AST) to be held 16-19 July 2007 at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The purpose of this event is to provide available program information pertaining to the QF-16 Full Scale Target Drone and will include a QF-16 program overview and draft QF-16 requirements. Additional briefings will include the technical requirements relevant to Logistics, Engineering, Drone Operations, and Testing. -
I was there this is what was really going on...
That is funny shit, ShineR!
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Mark with
Gotta love the OV-10. Anyone here read Forward Air Controller Vietnam by Marshall Harrison? The best Vietnam FAC book out there.
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elevated stage + front row seat = ?
= a sight that no man should have to endure, by the looks of things.
They're modeling the new camo pattern for the ABU.Excellent!
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OK, it gets worse...
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Anyone care to explain what this is all about?
Just by looking at the men you can tell that they can't dance. And is the chick in the bottom right corner actually a bloke?
And while we're at it, anyone fancy starting up a caption competition?
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C-17 and C-130 (and possibly tanks, chime in) pilots go through the MPD program (Mobility Pilot Development). Coming out of the schoolhouse as a brand new copilot, they can fly airland in the left or the right seat. Depending on what time period they graduated, they may be able to fly tactical airdrop and low levels in both seats as well.
These pilots do not have to return to the schoolhouse for aircraft commander upgrade, they can upgrade inhouse. So it's a big $$ savings all around, and copilots get the experience in both seats before becoming ACs.
That makes sense. So, who decides which seat the co will fly from?
Thanks for the info.
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Just farming images from the AF website and came accross a series of shots showing C-17 co-pilots flying left handed in the left hand seat.
Would it not make more sense to have the more experienced A/C fly from the left seat, allowing the co-pilot to fly with the 'more natural' right hand? Is there a particular reason that the AF does it this way (or is it just the done thing a la the civilian world)?
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You actually completely missed the sarcasm of my post -- JTACs sometimes make some really retarded weaponeering requests. Marking the target with the gun is a really stupid idea (I know it's not a big deal in the Hog, but a strafe is a relatively high-performance maneuver for an F-15E) as is hitting a mover with a GPS-guided weapon.
Yeah, I missed it. The 20mm reference was obvious, but I actually thought that hitting movers with GBU-38/GBU-39 was an art the F-15E community might have mastered; hence the idiot reply.
Thanks for clarifying.
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Thanks, fellas.
Digital cameras
in Squadron Bar
Posted
Damn! I need to send you some flight gloves with instructions painted on them:
push forward: trees get bigger
slow shutter speed: props and rotors get blurrier
pull back: trees get smaller
fast shutter speed: props and rotors get frozen