Flight Photographers (2025)

[bunniefuu]

Greg Davis: I got into

aviation photography, primarily

because my family had a military background,

always around aviation.

My grandfather would always take me out

to Bergstrom Air Force Base,

and we'd watch F-4s launch out of the base.

Talk about a wonderful time, as a kid.

Matt Ellis: My introduction to airplanes was my dad.

One of my first memories of

aircraft is being a very small child

and being put in the seat of an F-4.

And I remember looking

around, seeing bunches of gauges

and switches and canopy rails.

And, at that point, I was hooked!

As soon as I kind of became aware of airplanes

and knew what a camera was, I wanted

to take pictures of airplanes.

So it's been a lifelong, uh, obsession, really.

I was going to U.T. Arlington, here in this local area,

Arlington, Texas, and I just got bored one day.

So, I went out to Navy-Dallas,

went over there just to watch planes,

as a lot of people do, and I met a group

of people out there that were really cool,

that hung out there, looked like

they knew what they were doing.

Didn't have a camera, didn't

have anything, but I saw they did

and was watching what they were doing

and said, you know, this-this

looks like to be, would be fun.

Better than just watching the planes,

is-is maybe taking pictures.

Jordan Dutton: Growing up because of his hobby.

It-it kind of got me to, I was around aviation a lot,

and then when I was about a sophomore,

maybe a junior in high school,

we went out to the DFW Airport

and then he let me use his camera.

And from that day on, I just got hooked.

'cause it was something that I saw my dad do,

it's like, and that's something that I wanted to do.

It was just something that now, me

and him have been doing together for 10 years.

And it's-it's been some of the happiest times

and, you know, to share that with him

and to have all that fun, I just,

it's been great ever since. I've enjoyed it.

My dad took me to my first air show,

I think it was in 1989, at Volkel Air Base.

And that was the 10 year anniversary

of the F-16 in the Dutch Air Force.

And so it was, it was massive, you know, it was so packed

with people, you know, boys and girls,

and, and I was really fascinated by that.

I'm an aerospace engineer, so I love the background

behind the aviation, behind airplanes,

the technology that goes into aviation.

So, to be able to document that,

in a picture, is fulfilling for me.

Eric Coeckelberghs: I got into

aviation like at a pretty young age.

I think I was seven or eight, as far as I can remember.

When I saw the Starfighters,

the legendary jets, F-104 fly over my house.

And ever since I captured that image, I knew like,

"Hey, I love airplanes!"

And the best thing you can do

as the photographer in

aviation is to go up in the sky,

and catch airplanes in air-to-air photography.

But that was very, very hard

to actually get a chance to do that.

And so, by the time I was a little bit older, I tried

to create that chances myself.

And yeah, it worked, uh, step by step, by step.

My first air-to-air was in 1987

when I had a chance to fly with the Alpi Eagles.

That is an Italian team, flying four Marchettis.

And so they took me flying,

during the actual training.

I never heard of G-forces,

didn't know what a "looping" was,

but when I looked up and I saw the cows

there in the farm field,

I knew, all right, this is cool!

And I made some - some pretty good pictures.

And ever since 1987 I've been doing it.

Keith Snyder: My dad was

a fighter pilot in the Air Force,

and he had a camera at that time.

And so I've always been around airplanes

and just kind of developed

the desire to see airplanes

and then, got the camera bug

and, um, kind of caught the disease at that point.

Greg Davis: I got into photography

pretty heavily in high school,

loved taking pictures,

did a lot of military stuff, uh, via

a friend

that was in the Air National Guard.

And was introduced, uh, fairly early to, uh, one

of the Air Force's top aerial

photographers at the time.

His name was Michael James Haggerty.

And he was a photographer for Airman Magazine,

and became a mentor of mine very quickly.

And he showed me what the pros did

and how they did it, not only to make great photos,

but also to do it safely.

He always stressed safety, uh,

which has turned into my mantra as well as I-

I mentor people now.

I joined the Air Force in 1996.

I walked into the recruiter

and said, I want to be an Air Force photographer.

And the recruiter actually laughed at me,

and he said, "Nah, we're kicking people out."

I actually had my portfolio in my truck

and I walked out to my truck and I walked back in

and I said, I don't think you understand.

I wanna be an Air Force photographer.

And I had, uh, about 10 photos that were mounted.

And they were pretty exciting, dynamic stuff.

And I slammed them down on the desk in front

of him in a very c*ck, you know,

22-year-old way or whatever it was.

Um, and I said, this is what I do, now.

And the first one was two F-15s going straight up.

So the recruiter looked at my

portfolio, and looked up at me

and said, let me make a few

phone calls.

And so, he did.

And I had a guarantee in my contract, when I signed up

that "if" I made it through basic training,

and "if" I made it through tech school,

that I could be an Air Force photographer.

So it's been a wild ride.

This was all, uh, grab a camera and try it.

No formal training at all.

I started out with Cannon AE-1 Program film cameras,

which were pretty decent equipment,

back in the early '80s and '90s.

And, uh, it was a good platform to learn with.

They were manual cameras, um, manual focus.

And then, uh, entered the digital world about 2012

when I, uh, bought my first

Canon 7D.

And that's basically what I'm using

now, are 7Ds and Canon lenses.

It's all self-taught. Everything I've done has been

through trial and error, quite a bit

of error when you start,

especially, you know, working

with the different types of films.

Slide film was a bit of a-a learning curve for me.

Started out, uh, sh**ting

prints and then going to slides.

Everything was a little bit different

because of the, you know,

the ISO settings and everything else.

But it's through trial and error

I became better and better.

And of course, once the digital age hit,

that changes everything as far as the ability

to take many more pictures

and find a couple that are good out of that.

With slide, you couldn't afford to do that.

Dan Dutton: Originally, back in the

day, everybody shot with slide film.

Some people would bring out 20

rolls of 36 exposure Kodachrome.

I would have like five rolls

'cause I was a struggling college student.

So, when I took my shots, it

was usually of a static nature.

And the sunlight had to be really good,

usually early morning shots,

that sort of stuff on the ramp.

Didn't catch a whole lot other than

maybe a landing shot of stuff.

So as things progressed, digital comes into play.

Then I got to be more of a, uh,

creative photographer in that respect,

because I could deal with the settings post,

you know, production type stuff.

And so it took a lot more chances, got better lenses,

so I was able to sh**t more

of the plane, the aesthetics

of the aircraft, the lighting, that sort of stuff.

So a lot of the courses I've

taken in terms of photography,

have been along those lines with like, Photoshop,

things like that, to be able

to draw that contrast out.

So, used to be a backlit,

throw it in the trash can, now backlit,

no, I'll take something with that,

make something pretty out of that,

nice and aesthetically pleasing.

So that's kind of the difference

between then and now.

Eric Coeckelberghs: The old

style of doing stuff was a lot of fun,

but everything was manual.

The good thing is, you learn

how to take pictures really well!

And you have a maximum 36 exposures.

So when I was still using that

camera, for every 36 exposures,

I had at least 25 really good photos!

And strangely enough, even today, with the g*n mode,

I still do, like: I aim, I still do

like, "chick, chick, chick, chick."

While other guys take 50 pictures,

I take like five or six!

Switching from, uh, film or slides to digital,

uh, I've-I've noticed that I sh**t a lot more!

So when I was sh**ting film,

of course, it was expensive,

especially for, you know,

like a 14 or 15-year-old, right?

So, going to digital, it was so much easier, you know,

to just sh**t everything that you see.

And then when you come home

and uh, you didn't like something, you know,

you just delete it, you know, and move on.

No, uh, no harm, no foul.

To me, that's the fun part of

photographing with aviation is,

especially on the military side,

is, it's just like hunting.

When you go sitting in the stand,

you don't know what you're gonna see.

It could be nothing at all, to everything

flying in the day.

And, you know, I'm just looking,

sometimes I'm just looking

for something just to see F-16,

F-35, especially around here,

just to have something in the air.

You know, obviously from the photography side,

I would really look, you know, you know,

for those banking shots, those nice

low approach shots, things like that.

But I really don't go hunting

for anything in particular

unless I know something is

happening, obviously, which is very rare.

It's, it's very rare that we're

in the know of what's going on.

But that, to me, that's part of the fun of it,

is you don't know what you're

gonna get when you go out there,

which is the reason why we all do it, right?

It's the reason we go out there. 'Cause you don't know

what you're gonna see that day.

And, I guess the best answer is

I don't really look for anything,

but you know, obviously

as any photographer would you love looking

for those beautiful, nice takeoff shots

and nice low approach bank shots

over you at the top, things like that.

And, and yeah, just kind of

enjoying from that end of it.

As aviation photographers,

aviation doesn't always come to you,

especially nowadays, you

know, you have to go out and seek

that special aircraft that you're after.

When I started, I was definitely a "plane spotter."

If you got word, you know,

that a specific aircraft was

visiting somewhere, then,

you know, you jumped in the car.

You know, I started young, so for me it

was, uh, bicycles and trains and buses.

You know, try to get to an air base,

try to catch whatever was comin' in.

So, a good story for me, at least, one that I really, uh,

you know, hold dear to my heart is

going out with friends in about 1990ish.

And, uh, we were after the USS John F. Kennedy.

It was moorn in the south of

England, in South Hampton.

And so, we were driving at night

trying to go across the channel,

you know, from the Netherlands.

And so a long drive after school.

And, uh, so we ended up in South Hampton.

And we were gonna camp in the wild,

you know, just to save a buck or two.

So we found this place that we thought, you know,

was a, a park, you know,

where we could basically pitch a tent,

you know, and parked the car.

It ended up being a golf course.

And so when we woke up, we

looked outside the tent, you know,

and, and here's all these people

that were already playing their game, you know,

wondering what was going on with this tent, you know,

on the, on the golf course.

And there's a lot of those

stories, that you go through,

doing this hobby, I would say.

Going out with friends and, uh, you

know, just, just having a blast, you know?

I mean, that's for me, you know, what it really is about,

you know, just having fun.

And then of course you get

to watch these guys do their

professional job in military aviation

and admiring, you know, what

they, uh, what they do for us!

Going out and taking

photographs of, of, uh, airplanes.

It, I find very cathartic. No stress.

I have no expectations, uh, when I leave the house, uh,

unless I going to an event like an air show,

a prearranged visit.

And then, you know, the expectation is, well,

you gonna hopefully, see something that,

uh, catches your eye.

If it's just a normal day,

having a day out with airplanes,

I have no expectations.

As they say, any day sh**ting airplanes

will beat every day at work, every time.

A lot of my favorite photographs

aren't necessarily of subjects which are

that interesting.

Some of the photographs

are of interesting subjects

that aren't terribly good quality.

Uh, but each one has a story that goes with it.

Having a good story, a good

background behind the photograph

where it was taken, the

circumstances

comes part of the way I look

at my favorite photographs.

One of my favorite photographs, uh, is of a, uh,

an Egyptian MIG-21. I took on the ground

in Egypt, at an Egyptian Air Force base.

And it was probably the

closest I ever went to going to jail,

for taking a photograph.

The Egyptian Air Force were very

adamant that there'd be no cameras.

And, uh, I had run outta film.

I was on my last roll of 36 exposure Kodachrome

and, uh, this MIG-21 came in and,

and, uh, I knew I had maybe two shots left on the camera.

The Egyptian security was walking up and down

and I sneakily took a couple of photographs,

and one of the Egyptian guards kind of saw me

and I very, uh, delicately pressed the rewind button

with my thumb and my hands were big enough

that I could actually start to

rewind the film back into the canister,

while he was trying to talk to me.

And he wasn't looking at what my hand was doing.

And then at the end of it, he's, uh, "Open your camera!"

And I was more than happy to open it,

because there was a film canister in there

that was already returned to its' slot.

Now, that was a very memorable photograph.

It's not a fantastic

photograph, interesting subject,

but the story behind it, um, is,

is much more memorable for me.

Keith Snyder: Targets of opportunity.

First and primary is any aircraft

that we don't see normally in this

area, transient aircraft or aircraft types.

And it's "pot luck," whether you

will see that in a given day or not.

With our local base here,

Fort Worth there is the expectation

of getting the locally based F-16s

and F-35s flying out of Lockheed Martin.

It's a mixed bag. You're hoping for new stuff,

but you're expecting to get some

of the local stuff at the same time.

So you kind of plan on both.

We actually have examples of a perfect,

or near perfect photo day for our

purposes, that happen here, occasionally:

Hurricane evacuations,

where a hurricane will threaten

the southeast United States

and most of those bases will

evacuate their aircraft, rather than risk

having them damaged.

Navy Fort Worth is a prime location for some

of those aircraft to "bug out" to.

So, we've had occasions where we'll go out there

and catch over a hundred airplanes

that are not based at the Navy base, come in, in a day

of multiple, multiple types from multiple bases.

That's fun! And you know that a whole lot

of stuff is coming in and a lot of variety.

So, uh, that's a rich target

of opportunity for our hobby.

Favorite photos. There have been

so many and so many different types,

but I think my favorites are

ones that I took of my cousin.

I was, uh, flying

with the Lone Star Flight Museum, outta Galveston.

He was a chief pilot at that time,

and I went up in their B-25

and hung out a porthole on the side of it

and took pictures of him, while he

was flying B-17, in formation with us.

And I think those were some

of the most satisfying pictures I've ever taken,

because it was an incredible aircraft

and somebody who was close to me

who was flying it at the time, that, that was fun!

And I still look back at those photographs

with a lot of fondness.

For a photographer, there is

nothing better than a "flex departure"

at Nellis, during a Red Flag

or even at Nellis Air Force Base, in general.

If you're lucky enough to photograph out there.

Typically during Red Flags, they uh,

take off to the north

and depending on the mission

that these guys are flying,

they either go straight out north and,

and follow the highway into the desert,

or they take a "flex departure,"

which, basically, makes a steep left turn

over the motor speedway, that's

located just north of the air base.

Greg Davis: My experience

with "flex departure," is asking for

and understanding that you're

gonna receive an opportunity to,

as soon as the wheels come up,

the gear's gonna come up,

and you're going to head to your

military operating area in most cases,

in an expedited manner!

So, that's often an opportunity

to kick burner, pull a lot of 'G's

going right out, and you get some

vapors coming off the wing tips

and it's usually a pretty exciting time for both the

occupant of the airplane as well as people

that may be photographing it

down there.

Jordan Dutton: Last year we went to Red Flag.

We had an F-35 pilot who, I don't know,

he didn't even have it, maybe a 1,000,

2,000 feet above the ground.

Kept it very, very low for us.

And I mean, he turned that stick

and he came right over the

top of the car, shook the ground,

shook the cars and everything,

and it just sent a chill down your spine,

when he yanked over the top of you.

And that's a rare occasion, I'm sure you know that

that doesn't happen all the time.

But if a pilot feels gracious

that day, he'll bless you

with a really good "flex departure!"

Keith Snyder: Got an airplane that's launching

and then basically aiming right at you,

in full afterburner, at a low altitude.

And, at least, the local pilots who are there,

who know the photographers are down there

by the raceway waiting for 'em, are putting on a show.

And if the lighting is right

and you got the right type of aircraft,

incredible photographs can be had out there.

And just the thrill

of having an F-35 go over your

head at 200 feet in full afterburner,

is just awesome!

I am extremely lucky that my wife,

not only does she let me indulge in airplanes,

she actually encourages it, because she

knows it grounds me

and she'll join me, especially

with the overseas trips,

she'll come to all the air shows with me

and she's all about the noise.

and I'm all about the jets and

the airplanes and the photography.

But she's there for the noise.

So she loves the fast jets

and of course, she came out

to Greece with me, for PhanCon,

of course she's there for the noise of the Phantoms

and let's face it, who isn't?

She loves it as much as I do.

So I have 100% support

on pretty much everything I do

as far as airplane's concerned.

And my wife likes to fly, so, uh, she

actually flies in Green Flag herself.

So, uh, she's a sensor operator for Civil Air Patrol.

My wife actually comments the-the same way, you know,

that my mom used to do, you know.

So, every time, you know, I get excited, you know,

when I had a film, uh, developed and, uh,

and pictures printed

and you run over to your parents, you know,

and you go like, oh mom, look at this, you know,

and she's like, well, yeah, but

that's the same one as this one.

And you go like, no, but

this squadron patch on the tail

is different than that one.

I'm like, okay, I don't see it.

So yeah, my-my wife is

essentially the same way, you know?

So, uh, yeah, they don't see the differences, you know,

that-that we do.

And they don't get excited when we

hear something on the radio "crack"

and they're ready to go.

You know, my adrenaline starts going!

The family puts up with it.

My daughter has zero interest in it.

She knows I do it, and she has no problem.

My wife, now, puts up with it.

Uh, this hobby almost cost me my marriage in the '80s.

You dive into it so much

that you end up spending way

too much time pursuing the hobby

and not enough time on your family.

I know a lot of photographers

in the hobbyist category,

who aren't married anymore,

and it's specifically because of this.

This is a time consuming hobby.

There are hundreds and hundreds of hours

you'll spend out in an airfield

over and over and over again,

trying to catch what you're looking for.

And it's very easy to get caught up in that

and your family suffers.

Um, I found out, you know, in the early

'90s that there's a balancing act to this.

And I saved my marriage, but it was close.

A lot of people haven't saved it.

And uh, I think that's the point

where some people get a little too serious in this.

If you're willing to dump

your family, basically, in order

to go out and get an airplane picture,

I think that's takin' the

hobby just a little too seriously.

There was a perfect excuse

after 9/11 to say, well,

security dictates we're not gonna let

you onto the airfield or anybody else.

Versus, being able to recognize, now's the

time where we need

to be telling our story more.

We need to have local media come in.

We need to have people that

understand what's going on

that can tell our story.

A lot of public affairs officers almost

consider local folks as adversarial.

They all want to have the big TV station, you know,

CBS News from New York come in and,

and do a positive report on whatever their unit is,

but they neglect and almost

ostracize their local base,

that are the supporters that

get photos in the newspaper,

that talk to pilots that are almost recruiters.

There's people that do that, that have a passion

for photography and for

aviation, that make great photos,

that help people, the civilians,

understand what's going on.

There's a few folks that I personally know

and, uh, that I-I see out in the D.O.D.

that do a really great job of keeping in mind the

enthusiast, the hobbyist,

the people that are out there to

gawk at jets, but also make

great photos.

One of the guys, he's a

civilian public affairs officer

for the Navy, he hosts an aviation day.

It's very well organized.

It brings people out that he

knows they have a passion for it.

They get to see all kinds of cool stuff.

They make great photos, they amplify the mission

into the local community and around the country.

Um, and it's a win-win

because he also asks, if you get some great photos,

will you share them with us?

So, he gets photos from

some of the top photographers

that he can then put into his official products

and show his command

and show the Navy in a positive light,

didn't cost him anything!

We've got to get back to a point

where people recognize

those kind of opportunities

as, in the public affairs field and leverage them,

because there's not enough

people going into aviation.

There's not enough pilots,

there's not enough mechanics,

there's not enough people that

want to fuel jets or helicopters.

There's not enough people that want to

learn aerodynamics.

We're competing against everything under the sun,

for people's attention,

especially in those critical

high school years and early college.

So, if we don't have something that's eye catching

that's interesting, a great story

that captures people's

attention, then we're gonna lose.

And that is, that's concerning to me

because it is a passion for me,

both photography and aviation.

But when you consider the

big picture of national defense

and just aviation in general, we need more pilots

to fly people around the

country to conduct the business

that occurs in the United States.

We've got to be able to be

mobile, we've gotta have people

that know what they're doing, fly great,

get their passengers there on time,

deliver weapons if it's military, et cetera.

And we've, we've gotta get back to that.

Greg Davis: Everybody likes

to have their picture taken.

And when I was an Air Force

photographer, I recognized that

very quickly, that all pilots, they've got an ego,

they want to have a great photo of them.

But you have to be careful and you have to,

as a photographer, understand

that sometimes appealing

to somebody's ego is, is a negative thing.

And I think we saw that out in the "Star Wars Canyon"

in California, where you had photographers

who discovered a great

location to go and photograph

and they started making pictures

of the pilots flying the low level routes.

And then the word quickly got out

and lots of photographers started showing up

and they also started

coordinating behind the scenes

with the pilots.

And it went so far as to coordinate

with units in advance.

So they would, they were

having people come through the,

the low level route that

traditionally would not fly

through that low level route:

Larger aircraft, adversary aircraft,

aircraft wearing cool paint schemes.

And it got dangerous, very quickly,

because you had these pilots

that were coordinating and,

and knowing that there's 50

photographers on the ridge,

they're gonna get great photos if I go through

that pass upside down,

versus flying it, pushing over

and continuing in.

And we actually lost an F-18E a few years ago

where the pilot was being very aggressive

and ended up impacting ground and...

Loss of life of the pilot was devastating,

but that's also a national asset for an F-18 aircraft

that's, you know, now smoldering

metal in the middle of the desert.

And I even told photographers

at the time, I said, you have

to be very careful about this

because you're gonna get

somebody that's gonna think

going through there faster than

the published airspeed is gonna

make a better photo when,

actually probably doing it slower

would be better for photos and for safety.

I had a-an acquaintance in a local Post Office, uh,

that I had known for several years,

he worked behind the counter.

And, I found out that he had been

in the Navy

and had been a

bombardier-navigator in an A-6 Intruder.

He knew that I had photographed

airplanes and enjoyed it

and he had no photographs

of any aircraft he had ever flown in.

So I asked him and got his

log book from him and went back

and researched and looked

through trying to match up

to see if I had photographed any aircraft

that he had in his log book.

And I found an entry: "March of 1986"

where there was a, a VA-75 A-6

that landed at Navy-Dallas, and I caught it.

It was the only VA-75 A-6 I ever saw.

And it turns out that was him, in that airplane

and it was in the afternoon,

so I shot the right side of the airplane.

So, he was on the side facing me and I went back

and found the slide and I

was able to give him a print of

that airplane, from 30 years before.

And it just, it freaked me out!

The coincidence of it just

freaked me out at the time.

But it-it was fun,

and it kind of illustrates, kind of why I do this

is just to kind of document

these airplanes and it was luck

or happenstance or whatever

that all that worked out.

It-it was quite a hoot

to see him looking at himself in that picture.

Look at my T-shirt.

It's the one airplane that got

me inspired, when I was a kid.

The F-104 Starfighter.

There are only very few flying nowadays. In Europe,

for a very brief moment,

there was one flying, it was a group in Norway

that restored a two-seater

to flying condition in 2018,

after I think 10 years of restoration,

they finally got it to fly.

Now, the Starfighter is a flying rocket.

The Aviation PhotoCrew team flies a Skyvan,

a flying shoebox, with a maximum of 160 knots.

That thing flies at a minimum of way more than that!

So that was the first challenge.

But the biggest challenge was,

basically, to get in contact with them

and get an agreement that they would be willing

to give us a few flybys.

Yeah, they were interested in all

and the guy who was overseeing

the project was a former F-104 pilot

and he said, "Look,

alright, I mean we gonna see,

we gonna do you guys, and

we gonna do flybys at 230 knots

in the central line.

Alright, we go!" So that's all I needed to know!

Once we started off flying with the other guys,

we were super lucky with

the weather.

It was a steel blue, wonderful, summer evening.

And I think at some point, uh, you-you expect

that a Starfighter is flying

over the coast at like 10,000 feet

and all of a sudden we could track it.

There was something coming in

very fast at 1,500 feet over the water

and then obviously you hear it on the radio.

So I can guarantee you when you see that in the end

and you know it's gonna happen

and you know it's gonna come to the Skyvan!

That was probably the best moment I had so far!

And then the first pass was already magic,

but that second pass was

directly in the center line at 200 feet.

And the most magical thing

happened is when it buzzed under us,

we could hear the famous howl

of the engine!

And everyone in the Skyvan went like,

we got it! We got it!

And we were lucky enough to get seven more passes,

before it finally landed.

That was our best moment so far!

Early on, when I was doing photography,

I had an opportunity to go to Barksdale.

That was kind of our home plate, there, and

capture TU-142M Bears,

when they came in.

There's a gentleman named

Robert Hopkins, he's a author.

Uh, and um, he called me up on the phone one day

and said, hey. At the time he ran a magazine called.

Journal of Military Aviation.

He says, I understand you live in that area.

Would you mind going down there

and taking some interior/exterior

pictures of those Bears?

I said, well, absolutely love to.

And so I got to go down there and do that.

The interesting part, because it

was a magazine publication back then,

not digital, he wanted it done in black and white.

So I actually had to scrounge up another camera

'cause I wanted some

slides to get the color part of it.

So I was able to take some exterior colors,

but I wasn't able to do it inside

just 'cause I was jumbling...

the-the Russian guys were shuffling us

in and out and sort of things like that.

And so those actually got published

in Journal of Military Aviation.

So that was one of the crowning

jewels of things I got to do,

probably the best to this point, I would say.

Greg Davis: I was assigned to Shaw

Air Force Base at the 20th Fighter Wing

at the time that 9/11 went down.

And I'd been there for a-a significant amount of time,

so that my photos had been out in the media

and across the Air Force.

And, I remember when "September

11th" went down, the Commander

of Air Combat Command made a by-name request

that he wanted me to come from Shaw, to document

what was happening with the common air patrols.

And so I was very quickly sent up to, uh, Washington, D.C.

and I flew out of Langley for a few days

and I got to fly in F-15s and F-16s

and document the time where

the absolute airspace was closed, except for

the fighters that I was in

and the tankers supporting us.

And so one of my most famous photos, to this day,

that is often used whe-

when you talk about Operation Noble Eagle is, uh,

two F-16s from North Dakota,

flying over Washington, D.C.,

where you can see all of the major monuments

and government facilities,

including the Pentagon,

right between the two jets, where you can see

where the airliner went in.

That's been very rewarding

personally and professionally.

But um, you know, I have kids, now, that are teenagers

that look at that and say, hey, that's my dad's photo,

and that's, that's pretty cool!

I would've loved to have photographed

the F-14 Tomcat,

just because I hear so many

stories, you know, from him,

from our photography buddies,

just how fun of an aircraft

that was to photograph,

especially in the Naval Air Station,

Dallas days

and the Carswell days, just

the mystique of that aircraft.

Obviously "Top g*n" made

that aircraft very, very popular.

It's just such a cool airframe and aircraft to do.

Keith Snyder: I think my favorite subject was one

that I never got a chance to take a picture of.

My father flew the F-101 Voodoo

over in England for three years,

and that was such an impressive aircraft

and I have no active memory

of it, because I was so young.

I've always missed not having had the opportunity

to actively photograph those aircraft.

They were gone before I got

into the hobby. It saddens me.

But the few Voodoos

that are actually still on display, they're cool.

I like seeing them and I like

photographing 'em even though

they're just sittin' there on a stick.

I really wish that I'd had the opportunity

to see those in actual service.

Dan Dutton: F-117, just because it's so elusive

and it's made kind of a comeback.

I've always been interested

in the 'black world' aircraft.

I love every aircraft there is out there;

Tomcats, Hornets, Eagles.

But something with F-117,

it has that mystique about it.

Reading the story, knowing things about it,

always been a fan of that.

I wasn't ever able to see a Blackbird fly,

I was kind of beyond that, when I was younger.

I've been able to see a F-117, see it fly several times,

catch it static, all those kind of good things.

Uh, hopefully in the near

future, we can see one flying

that would kind of put a really good finish

to the F-117. As far as I'm seeing it.

Matt Ellis: The SR-71 is

always gonna be the one airplane

that I could never get enough of.

I used to see it fly, probably about once

a month. No matter how many times I saw

an SR-71 fly,

it was always the most exciting

thing I think I'd ever seen.

It was a sight to behold.

It looks like it's doing a thousand

miles an hour just standing still.

So that's my all time favorite aircraft!

Sebastiaan Does: People may argue, you know, that it's

not necessarily a real airplane,

but I would say the-the Space Shuttle launch.

I've tried so many times

and every time I've went, you know, it got canceled.

So, uh, that's a, that's an extreme bummer,

but I wish, you know, that I could have seen, you know,

like a Space Shuttle launch

that would've been, that would've been amazing!

The aircraft that I would've

most liked to have flown in,

that I never got to, would be an RF-4 Phantom.

I actually flew in an F-4 Phantom E model

and that was very exciting!

It was a dream come true

because as I mentioned, I grew up at one

of the largest Air Force bases

that had F-4 Phantoms, as a kid.

So they would fly over my house.

I knew all about 'em, used to see

'em launch! Just amazing aircraft!

But, I never got to fly in an RF-4,

which was a reconnaissance version,

that actually captured my attention.

The crazy thing is, they would launch to the south

and turn to the west, which is where I lived, in Austin.

They would be climbing up to, uh, fly out to west Texas

and do low level runs.

And I had a friend, his father was a navigator in RF-4s,

so he educated me about what they would do and

it just seemed like the coolest mission.

So RF-4 Phantom is the missed opportunity,

but I did get to fly in, in F-4

and that was pretty amazing

because it's a beast of an aircraft!

Got to do aerobatics, got to go Mach 1,

got to do all kinds of cool stuff

that most people would never

get to do, and I was very lucky,

because that was actually a, uh,

QF-4 when they were being used as drones.

So, sort of the tail end for the, uh,

U.S. Military's use of F-4s.

But, uh, it was, it was pretty awesome!

I'm still hooked, and I presume

I'm going to be hooked on this

until I'm no longer physically capable of doing it.

I enjoy going out there, and seeing

the airplanes

and getting the rush of seeing a jet,

in "afterburner" blow over my

head and taking pictures of it.

I still get a rush out of seeing somebody respond

to a picture that I posted, that I took 40 years ago

and say, "Hey, I remember that airplane!"

I published a picture on Facebook

of an F-4 Phantom, from Fort Worth.

And it was sitting down at the "last chance,"

waiting to take off, and it turned

out that a guy responded to it,

who was flying it, at the time,

and he had-had no photographs

of himself in that aircraft at all.

And, all of a sudden here I am, 30 - 35 years later

and I'm able to give him this photograph. That's fun,

and that's got me hooked.

And, being able to contribute

to the history of aviation.

The pictures we take today, are tomorrow's history.

People in the military, with very few exceptions,

very rarely use a camera.

They very rarely take photographs of the aircraft

or vehicles or whatever it is, they're doing

because it's their day-to-day job.

It's not a big deal. So, people come along trying

to document the history of aviation, down the road,

they're relying, in large part,

to what we are doing now.

Now, that might seem, trying to make myself

a little self important, here, or whatever,

but, when somebody comes

along, looking for photographs

of a Tomcat that flew out of

Navy-Dallas in the early 1990s,

they're not gonna find it in the Navy.

They're not gonna find it in official logs.

They're going to find it, in my slide books.

And, the ability to keep that

history going is a lot of fun,

and it's a reason to keep after it.

I don't know how many more years I've got left in this,

but uh, as long as I can keep doing it,

I'm gonna keep going out there.

I'm predominantly

photographing military aircraft,

trying different locations, within the vicinity

of the airfield to give you that different angle,

that keeps it interesting.

So, will you ever have enough pictures of an F-16?

I don't know. For me it's all about hanging out

with your friends and talk

about different things, you know,

that they've experienced in

their hobby versus you, um,

you know, different places

that they have traveled, uh,

versus where you have been.

And especially if, you know,

when you're talking about,

you know, guys that do the same hobby as you do

that actually have been in the service

and even sometimes, in a w*r zone

and be able to take pictures, you know, from

what these guys train for, day to day.

To be able to reflect that in a picture,

and take that home, and for

me to be able to look at that.

I always enjoy that.

I mentioned, before, that as a young

kid, I used to go out with my grandfather

to Bergtsrom Air Force Base

and we would watch the airplanes

from the end of the runway area,

where we could drive up, at that time,

and you could watch the F-4s taxi down a long taxiway,

do their end-of-runway checks, before taking off.

As a kid I would wave and

wave and wave at these pilots,

but the pilot was usually taxiing the aircraft,

looking at his stuff.

And the backseater was always running checklists.

I remember that and understand

fully now, having done it,

the intensity of-of what's required.

There was one time where I was waving and waving

and a backseater looked up

and just took a minute to wave. Acknowledged me.

And I mean he was 50 - 60 feet away. The

jet was loud and they were about to turn

and he just took that fraction of a second.

I think that moment, in time, is what actually said,

"Man, I wanna be that guy!"

I made a point in my career

as an aerial photographer,

flying in the backseat of jets.

There were some times, where I

knew there were photographers, there

I knew there were kids there, especially

where I would take that moment

and wave at the kids, acknowledge 'em,

wave at the photographers.

I think part of what has driven me, is knowing that

over the years I've had that impact on people.

I've had kids come up to me

and say, "Oh, I've seen your picture in Airman Magazine!"

That was really cool and now I wanna be a pilot, or

I wanna join the Air Force and be a Pararescueman,

'cause I saw your photo of guys

coming out of an HH-60G, in Kuwait

and that was just super!

That's pretty inspirational!

Dan Dutton: To do anything with

your family is always awesome!

To be able to share, uh, you

know, any kind of experiences

and beyond just what you do as a family.

I never thought I'd have a

buddy, to be able to do that with.

I've got my aviation friends

that, uh, obviously we do that

and I've introduced him

and he's got to be their friends

and peers as well, which I,

which is even cooler than that!

A lot of the, the guys I've known and had known him, now

and uh, you know, and accept him as a peer, as well.

It's always fun to have somebody to talk to

or share the experience with.

And so, uh, I think that's the best part, now, is, you know,

if a B-1 flies by, it's cool to take a shot,

but it's even better to have your son with you,

who enjoys it even more than you do, you know.

We were at Shepherd

for the Air Show a couple years ago.

And, I saw a gentleman in a wheelchair

and his son was wheeling around showing the run.

I said, "Well Jordan, you know, you're-

you're you're gonna have to do that to me someday."

He said, "Anytime, Dad!"

So, uh, that's always good to know that I may be in

that wheelchair with my camera,

but somebody's gonna be pushing me,

that I know. So, that's pretty cool!

Jordan Dutton: Anytime you

get to spend time with your dad

and doing something that he loves,

but also something-something that you love too,

It's just a really special moment.

It, for-for me, it's just, you know,

the quality time I get to spend with him.

'cause obviously now, you know, with me hav-

having a full-time job being

busy, it's, it's harder to have

that family time at home.

And so, it's something that me and him

both were able to do together

and something that, you know, we get

to experience everything together!

I mean, there's no one really else that I have, you know,

outside of the peers that he was talking about

that I can share that with. I

tell my friends, as a hobby,

I'm an aviation photographer,

you know, what's that? You know, you know, what's, you know,

it's-it's not really that big of a deal

to them or you know, it's, you know,

they don't really get it, and I understand that

and it's just a big hobby of mine

and he's the only one that really gets it.

I mean, who better just...

to have those experiences

with than-than your father.

There's a photograph that, you know, that I have

that's on my desk at my at work

that, you know,

it's a picture that me and him took.

If, if you ever go to Nellis Air

Force Base at the entrance,

there's basically a big statue

of fourth Thunderbird in formation.

And that was at our first Red Flag, together.

And that's something that I cherish,

that I keep really close to me.

'cause that was a time where

we both had gone to a place

and doing something that we both

really enjoyed and loved being at.

And, having those memories

is something that you can't...

that money or nothing can replace.