I thought some people on here might be interested in this, so...
I was asked to carry out an air-air photoshoot by 41 Squadron, after photographing their newly-finished Tornado GR4 which has been painted to commemorate the Squadrons 95th anniversary.
The brief was to produce some iconic images which would show the jet off ahead of its' public unveiling across the European airshow circuit, as well as be printed in various publications around the world and to decorate the walls inside 41Sqn itself.
There wasn't much notice prior to the shoot, so planning between myself and the aircrew was limited to a 20 minute conversation as we got into the G-suits. Fortunately for me, they were very clear on what they wanted out of the sortie, and were also very accomodating with the ideas I had. I knew the difficulty with this sort of job was to produce something different to what had been done before, particularly as a friend of mine had done the last photoshoot of a lone 41sqn GR4 air-air and done a bloody good job.
We were to fly down to Dover to fly past the Battle of Britain memorial, and on the way we would pass over certain landmarks which the aircrew thought would be photogenic. I made some slight deviations to the route to include further landmarks I thought would be photogenic, and we included some dead space in the flight where we could try some aerobatics and try to shoot something unique.
(Just to clarify before I post these images, they are subject to MOD Crown Copyright)
Walking out to our jet, with the GR4 in the background (taken by Steve):
Strapped into the Hawk, from 100sqn RAF Leeming:
The Hawk was chosen due to its ability to perform high-G very quickly, which is ideal for suddenly peeling away from the jet we were photographing. We could have used a Typhoon, although we didn't really need to sustain high-G and the flight would have cost more. The only real downside to the Hawk was the lack of grunt in comparison to the GR4, although this was only really noticeable in the loop, and on the take-off, where it left us for dead.
The 'zig-zag' lines in this shot are the lines of detonation-chord which line the canopy to shatter it, should we need to eject:
Once airborne, we had a 5-10 minute slot of fairly easy flying, to give me chance to get used to photographing in my new environment. I've been asked a lot since about what it's like, and the difficulties of shooting.
Firstly, the cockpit is very cramped; there's no room for anything that doesn't need to be there. The life-vest of the flying suit also makes it difficult to turn around, so you have to physically turn your entire torso to glance over your shoulder. The harness is on a release lever to allow you to move forward, to then give you enough room to turn around, although this then brings you face to face with the instrument panel. I also found it pretty difficult to avoid hitting the stick with the camera lens under G, which was undoubtedly annoying my pilot no end. But probably the most difficult is forcing yourself not to fight the G, which I failed quite miserably at. I'm glad I did to get the shots I did...but I paid for it the next day! The reflections on the canopy were a nightmare, and I couldnt get hold of a polarising filter beforehand to eliminate them. Also, as I always shoot on Manual, coming through cloud cover into direct sunlight meant second-guessing the cloud positions themselves, which proved pretty difficult too.
Anyway, I'll let the rest of the images do the talking. I won't include some of the more iconic images, as I'd rather they were officially released by 41Sqn in their brochure (and on their stand this weekend at the RAF Waddington airshow for anyone going). So these are some of the poorer images which I doubt will be used by them.
I hope you enjoy, if for nothing else than to get an insight into the world of a four year old boy who finally got to strap into a live ejection seat after 20 years of trying.
Please stay tuned, more images to follow.
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