Kazza the Blank One

A few weeks ago DannyG put me onto the RAAF 100th Anniversary celebrations.

Of course I had to go.  

The day before, I messaged the brother.  I thought he'd be working, but sent him a message anyway.

Of course he had to go.

Turns out he actually had the day off (at the last minute), so he came up Tuesday night and stayed the night.

We did our own thing on the Wednesday though.  He had the good lenses so decided to go up Mount Ainslie.  I wanted to be closer to everything with my piddly 135mm (200 equiv) lens, so I went in with the sweetie and walked to the lake from there.  OMFG traffic was horrendous.  So bad. 

So I actually saw the beginnings of things from Kings Avenue Bridge as I made my way over.

I set myself up at the end of Anzac Parade, a little west of the ceremonial area (the main ceremony was at Yarralumla, but it was being broadcast so I could hear it all from the setup they had).

From 10:30 they had the ceremonial flypasts, which went up the lake then up Anzac Parade.

C-27J Spartans

F-35A Lightning II

F/A-18F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers (can you tell the difference?)

The bats sure were unhappy about being woken up by such noisy jets!

Then a bit of a wait for the C-130J Hercules

There were a bunch of people on top of the library

Then the Black Hawk helicopters (from the army - I call shenanigans!)

David got some awesome shots of these heading straight for him up Mount Ainslie!

Then from about 11:20 was the main flypast.  

First some old planes - Hudson, Boomerang, Harvard, Wirraway

Mustang, Spitfire, P-40 Kittyhawk

Catalina and Iroquois (Huey) and Dakota

Catalina

Iroquois (Huey) (Navy? what? I call shenanigans ;) )

Dakota

AP-C3 Orion

Caribou

Neptune

F-35A Lightning II

F/A-18F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers (can you tell the difference?)

F/A-18A Hornets - these guys are being retired

PC-21

B300 King Air 350

C-27J Spartan

C-130J Hercules

P-8A Poseidon and AP-3C Orion

P-8A Poseidon

AP-3C Orion

E-7A Wedgetail

C-17A Globemaster III

KC-30A MRTT and F/A-18F Super Hornets

KC-30A MRTT

KC-30A MRTT and F/A-18F Super Hornets

And finally the Roulettes

RAAF Roulettes (with Virgin 737-800 VH-VUK in the background)

So yeah, pretty fun morning, although a fair bit of sitting around doing nothing for the first half of it.  I took over seven hundred photos.  David took over five thousand.

:)