Flight-Path Memory

On this, the coldest day of winter, shall we hearken back to a summer evening? The sun in the copper-bleached sky, the sound of engines in the air. Pull up your camp chairs, grab a battery-powered fan, and get ready for a weekend of planes, planes, and more planes¹ .

All comfortable? Great! What are you here to see? Maybe it’s something old, from the history of flight. Something your great-uncle might have flown when he was training to fly bombers over France in World War II.

Ready for an airshow? I don’t know about you, but there’s something wild about the fact that as humans, we not only developed flight, and not only developed the ability to put hundreds of people inside a metal tube between metal wings, but then also decided that we were going to take that fragile instrument and go upside down in it. Of course, we also decided that from the moment we developed any kind of transportation - there’s a direct through-line back to chariot racing. Adrenaline’s a hell of a drug.

After that, it’s time to rest, time to wonder up at how many stars there are away from the sprawl of 8 million people worth of lights. We’ll come back in the morning, after waking up to discover that 60˚F is maybe a little chillier than we’d remembered when you’re in a tent. Don’t worry, though, because the day warms up quickly, and we’ve got two rolls of film² to shoot through before 2:00 PM.

We just about have the time for one final airshow before it’s time to throw everything back into the back of the plane, ready to spend the next 36 hours editing down 2000 raw photographs and trying to figure out what to do with them now that you have them!

How indeed do you end such an adventure? Well, if you were me, you’d have an hour drive home, including a stop at an HEB for much-needed necessities like ice cream and a giant bottle of water. I hope you enjoyed this journey, this foray into a weekend unlike any other³ .

1  Many thanks are due to my pilot on this adventure, the owner of the blue Stinson. It was such a joy to get to bring my cameras to something like this with someone who could tell me what direction to point the lens for things that were actually exciting, and not just another nosewheel Cessna.

2  Only one of which has been developed at press time. Turns out that you’re just not super motivated to pay to develop a roll of Delta 100 that was probably completely overexposed. (Honestly, I’ll probably ship it off for development soon with a roll of Kentmere Pan that I do actually want to see what’s on it.)

3  Y’all, let’s be real: This is such a departure from my normal writing style that I’m a little nervous about hitting send. I hope you enjoyed it - and if you didn’t enjoy the writing, I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Thanks for hanging out with me! I have some ideas for some newsletters coming up, some fun things. Expect to see a lot more digital work from me as well, though I do have some film-specific opportunities around the corner.