contrail_artist's Profile

Making condensation trails with a Learjet-60 was my job, not really my artistic medium, and was not even all that fun (except when I paused to ponder other ways of making a living), but it makes me seem clever... hence the name, "contrail artist". I am currently employed as a pilot in the Learjet-35 in air ambulance service, based in Anchorage, Alaska.

I was previously employed as a Beechcraft King Air C90 pilot, a twin turboprop airplane, in air-ambulance service in the southwestern part of the USA, based at Kayenta, Arizona. My 1947 Luscombe 8E airplane is currently kept in Blanding, Utah. I'll bring it to Anchorage next spring.

I`ve been with a camera since the age of about eight or nine, starting with a Kodak 127 rollfilm camera made of Bakelite, graduated to a Kodak 126 Instamatic, then a Minolta SRT-202 around the age of eleven or twelve circa 1976. This progressed to other 135 format SLRs; and a 4x5 view camera, an underwater housing and a Nikonos V, none of which I`ve put to great use.

About four years later I started piloting airplanes, but didn`t really combine the two until the 1990`s when I was flying for a living in western Alaska throughout that decade and just into the present millennium. In early 2000 I decided to try digital photography and was pleasantly surprised by the quality rendered by a lowly Nikon Coolpix 800.

In May of 2002 I fulfilled a long-held desire to own an airplane, in this case, a 1947 Luscombe 8E, 85 horsepower, two seat tail-dragger, a model that struck me with its aesthetics in 1981 (as a sixteen year old working on his Private Pilot Certificate), and later as an affordable and pretty good aerial photo platform. Closer to an ideal flying platform would be the Kolb Firestar "ultralight" airplane I acquired in late 2004 for this purpose, which I've yet to fully implement.

I work alone in the airplane, with my sometimes shoeless toes curled over the rudder pedals, and the stick (another reason to have a Luscombe-it has a control stick in lieu of a yoke/wheel) between my knees, powered back about 50% in slow flight, often less than 1000 feet above ground level (AGL) in moderately steep turns of tight radius (made possible by the low speed, about 70 mph), comfortably above aerodynamic stall speed, with the window open while grasping a camera, often a Bronica SQAi 6x6 or Pentax 6x7 cm format film camera or a Canon 20D SLR digicam attached to an L-series 70-210 f2.8 lens. The wing is mounted above, with a single lift-strut positioned slightly ahead of the forward doorpost, giving me a more-or-less adequately unobstructed view.

Original digital images made starting in February 2003 are with a Canon G3; original digital images from the 20D starting in mid-2005.

Some photographic influences include: William Garnett, Emmet Gowan, Bradford Washburn, Adriel Heisey and Marilyn Bridges.

I also have a hang-glider, and intend to learn how to fly it, though I`ve been a bit slow in getting around to that task, despite an interest in "free flight" since an early age, watching the early rogallo pilots launch off the hills of San Luis Obispo County in the early 1970`s, only to see "No Trespassing" and "No Hang Gliding" signs suddenly spring up. I will always admire turkey vultures, and would be most honored to see a California condor in flight, especially if we were working the same air column. I've been contemplating the acquisition of a powered harness for the HG, a British-built "DoodleBug 2", which will allow me an especially intimate aerial relationship with the earth, flying at bird-heights and -speeds giving me greater photographic flexibility... if I can somehow safely stow the big camera for takeoff and landing, and change film in flight without dropping anything, assuming there won't be too many cables, etc. blocking a clear view. I`m still researching it.

Anchorage, Alaska, United States

Male

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/vision_aerie

April 29, 2003

• Pentax 67 (Film)
• Bronica SQAi (Film)
• Canon 5D (Digital)