Tag Archives: Aviation Photos

Malaysia Holidays

Hello all, and welcome to a new photo series featuring images taken on a recent holiday to Malaysia.

In this post, I’ll provide a quick overview of the trip’s itinerary so you’ll have some idea of where Photo Morsels will be taking you over the next few weeks.

The primary destination was the island of Langkawi. Located on the western side of Malaysia just below the border with Thailand, Langkawi sits more or less midway between the Malaysian island of Penang to the south and Phuket to the north in Thailand. It’s main attractions are three geoparks that feature the island’s distinctive geological features and natural beauty. For the active, Langkawi has some nice beaches for indulging in all the usual water sports. But overall, Langkawi is much more low key compared to some of the well known South East Asian island locations like Bali or Phuket, which is fine by me.

After a week on Langkawi, several days were spent in Kuala Lumpur, and to finish, a quick stopover back in Australia at Darwin before returning home.

All up, two weeks away.

That’s plenty of time (too much time?) to take photos, and the primary reason I’ve been a bit quiet on Photo Morsels the past couple of months. I found myself with roughly 1,300 photos to sort through, process, edit and then try to select the best for sharing on Photo Morsels and elsewhere. And I discovered there is a downside to improving as a photographer – the throw-away rate has dropped noticeably. This meant more images were worthy of putting some effort into than would have been the case for equivalent numbers of photos on prior travels. I’m happy to report that the task is now complete, so let the posts commence!

This is a photo blog, so I can’t let a post slide out without at least a few photos, so for this introductory post I’ll cover the trip from Adelaide to Langkawi.

Adelaide Airport and an inspection of my ride for the first leg from Adelaide through to Kuala Lumpur. A nice shiny new A330 (registration 9M-MTO for the plane spotter) painted out with the One World logo to advertise Malaysian Airlines’ recent joining of, you might be surprised to learn, the One World alliance. My flight was just a few weeks after the disappearance of MH370, so I found myself during the flight with a somewhat heightened interest in watching known features go past…

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South Australian Aviation Museum

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South Australia’s annual Port Festival was held on the weekend of 19-20th October. The festival is held in suburban Port Adelaide, the location of South Australia’s primary commercial shipping facilities. There were activities of all sorts, providing both arty/cultural experiences and opportunities to explore the history of the Port Adelaide district (which dates back to the original settlement of Adelaide in 1836).

What caught my eye while reviewing the list of events was an offer of free entry to three separate museums that respectively record South Australia’s aviation, maritime and railway histories. Having immersed myself quite deeply in old sailing ships over the past few months (as you may have noticed from my September posts), I decided to pass on the maritime museum and give the aviation and railway museums a visit. In this post, I’ll cover the South Australian Aviation Museum and return in later posts to the railway museum.

Please note that I’m trying out WordPress’s multi-page post functionality for the first time and have spread this post over three pages to help with page loading speeds. You should find a list of page numbers at the bottom of each page below the Share and Like buttons. Use these to navigate to other pages. I’m not overly keen on how WordPress displays the page links so far below the main body of the post, but apparently it’s embedded pretty deeply in their programming. I’d be interested in hearing your comments about this and whether I should use this functionality again in future posts.

Overview of the museum’s main hanger. The combination of the Port Festival publicity and free entry drew a good crowd.

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Classic Planes (Part 2)

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This is the second half of my Jamestown Air Spectacular photo set. I’ve broken the set into two posts to keep page load speeds reasonable for viewers with slower Internet connections. If you’ve just arrived here, maybe go back to Part 1 first by clicking on this link.

But if you’ve just come from Part 1, well, let’s get on with it.<!–more–>

I’ll resume with another aerobatic aircraft. This time, the Pitts Special ‘Super Stinker’ of Chris Sperou. Chris is a South Aussie local and an aerobatics legend in Australia. I have seen him a number of times over the years, and I thought the display he put on at Jamestown was as good, if not better, than any I have seen.

Accelerating down the runway, about to get airborne. For Chris, that means going near vertical within moments of the wheels clearing the tarmac. What I hadn’t previously noticed until posting this photo was the amount of bracing used on the tail-fin and horizontal stabilisers.

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Classic Planes (Part 1)

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Last spring, a classic aircraft airshow, the Jamestown Air Spectacular, was held in South Australia’s mid north. Jamestown is a modest sized rural town approximately a three hour 200km drive north of Adelaide, and located in prime cropping country. I day-tripped up from Adelaide, making a long but enjoyable day.

Jamestown airport has a single 1350 metre runway which was sealed in 2009 as the result of a lot of fundraising by the local aviation club and with support from the local council and businesses. The airshow is held once every three years.

For an event held far from a capital city, it received wonderful spectator support and showed off a good blend of enthusiast aircraft types.

All the photos in this post were taken with my Pentax K-x dSLR using a Pentax DA 55-300 zoom lens. While there were a few photo opportunities that would have benefited from a shorter focal length lens, there was a reasonable amount of dust in the air which I did not want entering the camera body while changing lenses. My sensor already had a few blotches of gunk on it and I had no desire to add more! So, I just stuck with the 55-300.

I used a monopod extensively to reduce camera shake. A welcome side benefit was relieving me of the need to hold the camera and lens up for the many hours of photo opportunities that the Spectacular provided. I really recommend a monopod when using longer focal length lenses – much more portable and convenient that a tripod while still offering a considerable camera steadying benefits. I own a Manfrotto 776YB aluminium monopod fitted with a 234RC tilt head. The 234RC is fitted with a convenient quick release plate. The same quick release plate is used on my tripod, keeping life pretty simple.

Throughout the day I roamed the general admission area, but for keen attendees, there was also a premium viewing option which was situated by the aircraft hard standing area. Some accredited photographers were out on the airfield itself, enjoying close up, obstruction free viewing. Lucky devils.

It was a great day both for flying and photography – a light northerly breeze running straight down the runway and a clear cloudless sky.

So, onto the planes.

As we were walking into the spectator area, this little number was just finishing its routine and in my first photo of the day was photographed returning to its parking area.

DR107 aerobatic special. Built by the owner from 50 blueprint plans. Capable of eye-popping +10 to -10G turns, and a complete 360 degree roll in under one second. Finished in stunning metallic blue paint.

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