Red Thunder Airshow 2018 – Sunrise and Dusk Aircraft Shoots

Over the weekend of 26th and 27th of May 2018 the Red Thunder Airshow 2018 was staged at Watts Bridge Memorial Airfield, around 1.5 hours drive west of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. I made my way to the airfield on the final day of the TFC, as I had heard there would be the chance to get some sunrise images of a couple of the early attendee aircraft. This proved to be correct, with a CAC Wirraway and T-28 Trojan left out overnight to allow some other photographers to do some astro photography with these aircraft. I had made plans to camp overnight on the weekend to attend both days of the actual airshow, the Friday was a hastily-organised extra trip when I was told of the opportunity.

Aircraft at Sunrise - Friday

Arriving just at sunrise around 6am on this crisp May morning, I was met by a nice scene with clear sky, lifting fog and a nice mountain and rural backdrop. The main focus was to be North American T-28B Trojan VH-RPX “Miss Stress” and Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) CA-16 Wirraway VH-MFW. Both of these aircraft are operated by Warplanes Pty Ltd of Caboolture, Queensland. Other photographers had arranged for these aircraft to be left uncovered overnight so they could do some astrophotography and light painting, I am very grateful to the owners for allowing this and for the opportunity to photograph them the next morning. I met with the person that invited me out for the day and we set to work trying to get the best angle and light for each of the trainers.

After shooting the T-28 and Wirraway for a while, I grabbed a few shots of some other parked aircraft on the airfield. As Friday was the last day of the Red Thunder TFC, all of the aircraft that were participating in the week-long event were still at the airfield, lined up abreast along the flight line. A mix of Nanchang CJ-6 and Yakovlev Yak-52’s were in attendance, also a T-34 Mentor is visible on the second row in the photo below.

I took a shot across the wing of Yak-3UPW VH-YOV “Steadfast” with the Nanchang and Yak flight line. You can see the smoke canister under the right wingtip of Steadfast, which creates some interesting smoke trails during its displays.

In the shot below, pilot Egon Mahr is preparing his Nanchang CJ-6A VH-CJX “China Doll” for flight.

Aircraft at Dusk - Friday

At the end of a long day of shooting on the Friday, I was still pretty excited at having good access to some beautiful aircraft. As the moon rose over the mountain range to the east of the airfield, I took the opportunity to get a couple of moon/astro shots with some of the parked aircraft.

Aircraft at Sunrise - Sunday

As I had camped at the airfield overnight Saturday, I was up and about early at sunrise on the Sunday morning, roaming the flight line for some more sunrise photos. My first target was North American P-51D VH-FST “The Flying Undertaker/Snooks 6th”, operated by Fighter Pilot Adventure Flights out of Archerfield, Queensland. With the polished metal skin, she just looked lovely in the early morning light.

Next it was on to Temora Aviation Museum Supermarine Spitfire Mk XVI VH-XVI. You can read about the interesting wartime operational and movie history of this particular aircraft on the museum’s website.

My next subject was Yakovlev Yak-3UPW VH-YOV “Steadfast”. Although the original Yak-3 was built with an inline engine, a prototype was fitted with a Shvetsov ASh-82 radial engine. The war ended before any radial-engined production units were built. This aircraft was built by Romanian company Avioane Craiova in 2005. She is powered by a Pratt and Whitney R-2000 radial engine, while this is the same engine that powered the DHC Caribou it certainly doesn’t perform or sound like any Caribou that I ever saw.

Following is a collection of various other aircraft that I photographed at sunrise that morning.

Other Information

Location

Watts Bridge Memorial Airfield is located near the town of Toogoolawah, around 125Km (1.5 hours) by road North-West of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. For more information about the airfield and its operation, visit the airfield’s website.