My grandmother used to always tell me, "La ignorancia es atrevida." This means that those who are ignorant are sometimes daring in what they do because they do not know any better. One August around the end of the 70s I went to the Abbotsford Air Show with my daughter Ale and my friend Paul Leisz. Both are in the picture in front of a US Navy Blue Angels A-4 Skyhawk. I attempted to photograph the Blue Angel formations and mostly failed in my enterprise as I did not know what I was doing. My most memorably stupid mistake what taking pictures of a Blue Angel flying upside down. I had no mountain or horizon reference in my picture. All you had to do was to turn the picture upside down and the airplane was flying right side up. By the time I caught up with the Blue Angels again in 1994 I sort of knew what I was doing. Look here. In 2002 I went all the way to Pensacola, Florida to the home of the Blue Angels. I wonder if any of the planes suspended from the National Naval Aviation Museum at the Pensacola Naval Air Station were any of the ones this amateur had photographed back in 1980?
 |
| Alexandra Waterhouse-Hayward & Paul Leisz |
The only person in my family that was ever interested in Airplanes was Ale. She went back with me several times through the years. She found a job working for the industry side of the show which was called Airshow Canada. She was so well-liked that she went to work for the Chilean Air Force one year in a show in Santiago.
I attempted to interest Rebecca in airplanes but her enthusiasm waned very quickly. The one time I took her I asked her which was her favourite airplane. "It's the Tomcat,"she told me. "Why?"I asked her. Her reply was most satisfactory, "Because it is the loudest."
In the additional blog below I show one of the most remarkable pictures ever taken of a Skyhawk about to attack a ship. The photograph (Click on it to enlarge it. The Skyhawk is right smack in the middle.) affects me close to my heart because I have a special affection for this grand and beautiful airplane. The reason for this affection is here.
