Ever wondered how some of the air-to-air photos which appear in aviation magazines are taken? This video will give you an answer…

The following clip was filmed by world famous photographer Sławek Krajniewski, best known as “Hesja“, from a Polish Air Force CASA C-295 during NATO Tiger Meet 2018, that took place at the 31^st Tactical Air Base in Poznan-Krzesiny, Poland, between May 14 and May 25.

The air-to-air photo shooting involved two Polish Air Force F-16C Block 52+ Fighting Falcon jets from 6th Tiger’s Fighter Squadron somewhere over Kołobrzeg and Bagicz airfield.

As you can see, the two “Vipers” flew extremely close to the photo-ship, so much so it seems the photographers could almost touch the F-16s. The video is also interesting because it shows the maneuvering and work required from both sides (pilots and photographers) to get the cool shots you can find on aircraft magazines and websites all around the world.

In case you were wondering what kind of lens Hesja used during the shooting, here they are: 70-200mm and 24-120mm. One of the shots resulting from the multiple “breaks” that you can see in the last part of the clip can be found here below:

Make sure you visit Hesja website and like his Facebook page here for more amazing photographs!

The Royal Air Force held its annual Photographic Competition last month.

The photos were amazing, most of them can be seen and downloaded in extremely high resolutions here. We have chosen two pictures to share with TheAviationist readers.

A stunning image of Tornado over London that became a PR photo of the year, by SAC Andy Masson:

And a photo of a flame bursting out of the Spitfire’s exhaust pipes by SAC Graham Taylor, the RAF Photographer of the year:

Image Credit: Crown Copyright/RAF Andy Mason and Graham Taylor

A special mention goes once again to Graham Taylor for his stunning long exposure shot of a Eurofighter Typhoon (top image of this post) sitting under the star-lit sky of the Middle-East during a multi-national traning exercise.

Thanks for the heads-up go to Tomasz Skirecki, PhD from the Faculty of English of University of Poznan.

Jacek Siminski for TheAviationist

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If you ever wondered how air to air photos which appear in aviation magazines are made, this video may be a clue which would provide an answer.

It was made when Polish MiG-29s did their duty at Baltic Air Policing mission stationing in Lithuania last year, during the PKW Orlik 4 mission.

The photos were taken from C-27 Spartan plane. Note how hard it is for the MiG-29 pilot to keep up with the Spartan.

And here is a part of the final effect:

The images taken during the photoshoot were published on the Polish Lotnictwo magazine

Photo Credit: Onboard photos of the photo-crew: cpt. Grzegorz Grabarczuk. Air2Air Photos: Bartosz Bera, Maciej Wolański

Jacek Siminski for TheAviationist.com

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These pictures were shot by a friend of mine who was flying a two ship formation with another SF-260EA. The images are beautiful but what make them more interesting is that the propeller blades look bent in both pictures. Is the aircraft flying with a damage propeller or is it an odd effect of taking a picture with a cell phone camera to a high speed rotating object? Obviously, the correct answer is the second one (in fact, Roberto and his wingman landed without any problem with the propeller in perfect shape…), but is anybody able to explain why the phone camera produces such oddities?

I’ve flown with the SF260 in the past and took many pictures using professional cameras and none gave the same results (read here and here).

The 2011 calendar is available for download (and print up to A3 size). Two versions available: one for Italian readers (with Italian festivities) the other one for foreign readers.

Click on the following links to download the printable pdf of the 2011 calendar:

• Calendario 2011 (Italiano)
• Calendar 2011 (English)