Air2Air with Richard Mallory Allnutt

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There are good aviation photographers and there are great aviation photographers. At Vintage Wings of Canada we’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the best - Eric Dumigan, John McQuarrie, Seth Goltzer, Peter Handley and Richard Allnutt to name a few. In the months ahead we will be profiling all of them on our website. There are many who think that all it takes is a seat on a B-25 and a behemoth camera to guarantee great images. This may guarantee good images, but not great ones.

It takes the talent and creative spirit of someone like Richard Allnutt combined with a passion for the flying machine and its place in history to produce the great images - images that evoke emotions, make us linger on the details and put us there in the “delerious burning blue” as a Grumman Wildcat thunders past - on its way to some reckless fight over the Pacific. By virtue of his British birth, Allnutt was imbued with genetic passion for vintage aircraft and in particular fighting warbirds. A professional shooter now living in the Washington DC area, Allnutt chases the ultimate-air-to air shot like a hunter stalks big game - with persistance and patience.

Here are just a few of his amazing photographs and his notes about the time and place they were taken.

Lead Photo: I had a pretty exciting experience at the MAPS air show in Akron, Ohio in 2005. We got up with five other warbirds: a Wildcat, Dauntless, Kate replica, Zero replica and a PBY Catalina. The weather was really murky, so we climbed all the way to 3,500 meters to do the shoot. It was bloody cold in the back of "Panchito"! The wind really rushes through when the waist hatch, and the tail turret are removed from the aircraft. But what a view! Steve Craig brought his beautiful F4F-3 Wildcat in for some stunning photographic opportunities. This aircraft is the only airworthy, non-folding wing Wildcat. It is one of the few aircraft raised from Lake Michigan to make it into private hands.

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Joining us for the trip out to Thunder Over Michigan last year were the father-son team of Bob and Chris Baranaskas flying a P-40 Kittyhawk and P-51 Mustang. Here Chris brings his father's Mustang close in to "Panchito" for some air-to-air. Chris is…

Joining us for the trip out to Thunder Over Michigan last year were the father-son team of Bob and Chris Baranaskas flying a P-40 Kittyhawk and P-51 Mustang. Here Chris brings his father's Mustang close in to "Panchito" for some air-to-air. Chris is an exceptional pilot, flying formation like a pro. He's also very young, perhaps the youngest active Mustang pilot out there. This shot was pretty tough to get. A full prop arc is every air-to-air photographer's dream, but hard to achieve in sharp focus, since shutter speeds are usually so slow (1/50th to 1/25th sec) that camera shake blurs the image. I was very fortunate on this one. It's not perfect, but still pretty sharp. I wish that the background had been more interesting though,

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This is Larry Kelley's Cessna UC-78 Bobcat after a heavy rain shower at the 2003 Georgetown Fly In. It is a delightful aircraft that Larry restored himself more than a decade ago. Sadly another pilot wrecked the aircraft at Oshkosh a few years ago. …

This is Larry Kelley's Cessna UC-78 Bobcat after a heavy rain shower at the 2003 Georgetown Fly In. It is a delightful aircraft that Larry restored himself more than a decade ago. Sadly another pilot wrecked the aircraft at Oshkosh a few years ago. It is now under very slow rebuild at Larry Kelley's base in Georgetown, Delaware. UC-78's were known as Cranes in Canadian service. On a technical note; I often use a circular polarizer filter for shots like these. It really helps pull out the reflections in the water.

I was fortunate to fly out to the 2007 Thunder Over Michigan airshow in a mass formation of five B-25 bombers, two P-47's, a P-40 and a P-51. It was one of those serendipitous moments where pilots decide to make some fun out of a long journey. We al…

I was fortunate to fly out to the 2007 Thunder Over Michigan airshow in a mass formation of five B-25 bombers, two P-47's, a P-40 and a P-51. It was one of those serendipitous moments where pilots decide to make some fun out of a long journey. We all took off from separate airfields, and met up at specific points along the way before arriving en-masse at Ypsilanti. It was quite an adventure, and most of the aircraft took turns coming up behind us in "Panchito" to have their photographs taken. The two P-47D's came in very close. Here you can see Terry Rush flying "No Guts, No Glory" with Dan Dameo in "Jacky's Revenge". They were so close at times that it felt like I could feel the breeze from their propellers!

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A mechanic works on the starboard inner engine of former US Air Force Lockheed VC-121A Constellation 48-609 at the 2003 Thunder Over Michigan air show. This aircraft was a regular performer on the show circuit during the 80's and 90's and known unof…
There was a torrential thundershower just before sunset on arrivals day during the 2003 Thunder Over Michigan air show. Water pooled over a foot deep in places. I went out looking for interesting images and caught the CAF's Helldiver and Dr. Mike Sc…
Five Corsairs showed up for the Corsairs Over Connecticut air show in June 2005. We managed to get three of them to join us for an air-to-air sortie in Larry Kelley's wonderful B-25J "Panchito". Larry is an expert formation pilot, and has been incre…
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Jerry Yagen has the great fortune of owning and flying a huge collection of vintage aircraft. He has over sixty, most of which are either airworthy, or being rebuilt to fly. He has had a major impact on the restoration of very rare aircraft. These p…
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We had to make a refueling stop in Akron, Ohio during the group flight out to Thunder Over Michigan last year. B-25 "Miss Hap" and B-25J "Take Off Time" formed up quickly after departure, allowing this interesting shot of them over the Akron suburbs…
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This is Charlie Clements' PBY-5A Catalina. We were flying over Akron at the time, and the "Black Cat" was moving all over the sky. It was the one time I've been a little uncomfortable when flying in formation.
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It was Richard Allnutt’s love of vintage aircraft that brought him to the attention of the crew of B-25 “Panchito”. He soon became part of the ground crew and eventually the opportunity came to sit in the tail gunner’s position and employ his profes…

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