May 2nd 2009 was the Armed Forces Day at 15 Wing Moose Jaw. It started off cold and windy and only warmed up to around +15c
The ground displays were cool just like the weather. The highlight of the show this year was a F86 Saber restored to represent a Saber from the Golden Hawk Air Demonstration Team from the early 1960's. As always the hometown Snowbirds put on a great first of the year opening show along with a 100 years of powered flight paint scheme on a CF18, which will be retired this year and put in the Canadian Aviation Museum. All the ground display images were shot with the 10.5mm fisheye or the 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom. The flying display was captured with the 70-200 f/2.8 zoom and the 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom.
I seem to only use the 80-400mm once a year for this airshow, it's dog of a lens that is slow to focus, but I have had this glass for so long I'm used to it and seem to make it work just fine most of the time, the 3D tracking on the D300 seems to really help this glass over it's short comings...........enjoy the gallery........Mike