The propellers on the Piper Aztec’s twin Lycomings have not yet come to a complete stop when the Black Hawk helicopter swoops onto the ramp, kicking up gravel from the crumbling pavement at New Bight Airport on Cat Island, Bahamas. Out jumps what seems like dozens of heavily armed, fit-looking men who surround the Piper and the Beechcraft Baron that has landed just behind us.
“What are you doing?” demands the point man as the helicopter rotors spin down.
I look in wonder at my co-pilot. He, being way more of a smooth operator than I am, steps out on the wing, hands up, and piling on the Georgia accent and with a twinge of Bahamian, says ever so slowly, “Hey, mon, we just doing a little photography.”
Despite the intensity of the moment, I chuckle a little to myself. Raconteur Tom Jones is in his element, taking on The Man. The retelling will make great material for the bar later—unless, of course, we’re in a Bahamian jail instead.
The point man looks at the Baron B58, its aft double doors missing, and then back to the Aztec. “I need to see inside,” he shouts, nodding toward the Baron.
AOPA Photographer Mike Fizer slowly slides out of the Baron, careful not to bang the expensive cameras around his neck. Baron pilot Tony Armbrister steps out of the cockpit as I climb out of the Aztec. The men in black poke around both airplanes as we explain that we are shooting air-to-air photos of the Aztec.
“We saw you on radar,” says the lead agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration team. “We see a lot of drugs coming in from this area.”
What I wonder, but wisely don’t ask, is Do you think we were running drugs from one end of Cat Island to the other?
Satisfied with our story, the team soon boards the Black Hawk and whisks away, your tax dollars at work.
I had been in formation with the Baron while Fizer shot photos of the Aztec in 1990 for a story we were working on about flying to the Bahamas. Fortunately, the drug running so common in the Bahamas during the 1980s is a thing of the past, as is the big presence of the DEA in that region.
The Bahamian adventure is just one of many we’ve encountered over the years gathering photos and, more recently, video for AOPA’s magazines and our other media channels.
As you look at the air-to-air photos in this month’s special photography section, keep in mind what it takes to get those images. Each mission requires at least two formation-trained pilots, a talented photographer or videographer, great photo gear (the handheld gyrostabilizers are amazing), an airplane to be photographed, and a photo platform that ideally doesn’t require shooting through distorting windows. Also ideally, there will be some beautiful scenery. The light will be soft, so it’s early morning (4 a.m. duty call in the summer) or late in the day. And then there’s the weather: frequently fickle and always game to mess with you. Call off a shoot because a forecast promises poor weather and you’re sure to have a beautiful sunset as you sit at the bar. Skunked again.
Occasionally a reader will ask why the pilot in the photos is always staring right into the camera; seems kind of conceited, no? My answer: He’s just trying to stay alive! Much of our flying is done within a wingspan of the photo platform, the photographer using hand signals to move us around in the frame.
Over the years, video, point-of-view cameras, and now drones are changing the techniques and angles we use.
I’ve lost count of the number of photo missions I’ve participated in over the years, many of them above some of the most magnificent landscapes in the world—the Okavango River Delta in Botswana, the coastal hills of southeastern Australia, Sedona’s Red Rocks, stunning brown mountains around Santa Fe, Washington’s Cascade Mountains. We’ve worn out the terrain around El Dorado Lake near Wichita; ditto for the Appalachian Mountains near our Maryland home, the Chesapeake Bay, Long Island Sound, all over Florida, and, of course, the beautiful aqua water of the Bahamas and lots of points in between. Sounds great, huh? The trouble is, I don’t remember most of the scenery because when flying formation, you’re completely focused on the lead airplane. You view the scenery only vicariously through the radioed ohhs and ahhs of the platform pilot.
But no matter, at the end of the day, photo missions are fun and challenging flights. They are memorable less because of the scenery and more for the great pilots and the photographic artists we’ve met along the way. Thank you for what you do.
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AOPA Editor in Chief Tom Haines began working at AOPA in 1988.
Thomas B Haines
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