I almost passed on going to North America’s oldest and longest running airshow because I’ve been so often in the past. Locals refer to it as the CNE or Canadian National Exhibition Airshow as it always occurs on the Labour Day weekend that signals the end of the summer and the end of the annual three week fair that is a bit of a nostalgic throwback honouring what was once the cultural highlight of the year when Toronto was a much smaller place.
So how old is this airshow? Well, in 1918, Amelia Earhart was visiting her younger sister who was attending boarding school in Toronto. Amelia decided to stay and train as a volunteer nurse to help the injured veterans returning from World War 1 in Europe. Attending that year’s airshow changed her life by revealing her hidden ambition.
But before she could become the aviatrix that would earn her strangely enduring fame, the world was struck by the Spanish Flu, an unusually virulent strain of influenza that also killed young adults and not just infants and the elderly. A third of the world became infected with a mortality rate of 10-20%. Covid showed how modern air travel can rapidly spread epidemics. Covid also showed us the incredible efficacy of mRNA vaccines and how rapidly the epidemic was contained in the West. If the Spanish Flu had hit today in a world with no vaccines, upwards of a billion deaths could be expected. Earhart was heavily stricken and hospitalized for a month and then took a year to fully recover.
So I was ultimately persuaded to shoot the airshow by participating in a yacht charter that would allow me the fresh perspective of shooting the aircraft against the Toronto city skyline. I discovered that you are significantly closer to the action when on land so this also became an experiment in how much focal power I can push the Olympus optics. All images were shot with the OM-1 and the Zuiko 150-400mm f/4.5 Pro lens (with added 2x Teleconverter). I brought the EM-1X as a backup body. Even with judicious shooting, I drained the fully charged BLX-1 battery after a thousand frames.
CF18 Hornet flies across the telecommunications tower tip of the iconic CN Tower. 500mm @ f/5.6, ISO800, 1/800s. Even though all jet aircraft are required to perform well within subsonic speeds, they are fast enough that good lens tracking is probably limited to a maximum of 500mm focal length (the Zuiko 150-400mm Pro lens with the internal 1.25x teleconverter). Shot also with a 95mm Kenko circular polarizing lens to improve canopy transparency and also to accenuate the contrast of clouds.The underside of all CF-18s have been painted with a fake canopy to confuse enemy pilots regarding its orientation. The confusion might last only seconds but that short delay is enough to give our pilots a firing solution or to dive away to safety. 400mm @f/4.5 ISO200 1/200 s.I like this unusual profile. 400mm @ f/4.5 ISO 200, 1/1250 s.The Northern Stars aerobatic team flying Pitts Specials underneath the Observation Deck of the CN Tower, each one with a custom nose nacelle. 400mm f/4.5, ISO200, 1/250 s. These aircraft are physically quite small and need a focal length boost.A husband and wife team performing a wing walking act. 800mm @ f/9, ISO 800, 1/500 s. There is a drop in image quality to be sure, but with some noise deleting software and light sharpening the results are quite acceptable. It can be difficult to find your subject at 800mm or 1000mm focal length and then to track it as it loops and dives through the air. It will take practice. I got mine by being a long time astronomer.Here at 1000mm @ f/11, ISO 800, 1/640 s. There is still enough resolution to see the facial expression of our wing walker. If you Zoom out your screen you will see a near full sized image as the captions drop to below each image. A young, sharp eyed photographer spied my Olympus kit and proclaimed nobody else present would have the reach that I had with my crop sensor. Yup, that’s 2000mm equivalent focal length on a full frame Sony. Who has one of those?The Nanchang CJ-6 is a Chinese designed and built two seat trainer from the 1960s that has been widely exported with thousands of pilots trained to fly for their national air forces. Here shown flying over the historic buildings of the Exhibition Grounds including the large white skylight of the Horticultural Building and the Green Towers of the Coliseum. At 438 mm @ f/5.6, ISO 200, 1/500 s. During all the drama, the focus ring slipped from the maximum position so its something one needs to regularly check to be sure you are getting the full range from the lens.The Nanchang is flying over BMO (Bank of Montreal) Field which has been retrofitted with a moving roof in advance of World Cup Soccer visiting North America in 2026. Toronto will host six matches and Canada has no plans to imprison foreign visitors in detention camps for suspected immigration crimes.And the Nanchang vanishes amongst the towering buildings of downtown Toronto. The CJ-6 bears a strong resemblance to the CJ-5 which was in turn a copy of the Soviet Yak-18 trainer built under license by China. Frequent readers will also recognize the familial lines of the Yak-18 in the Yak-50 flown by Gord Price in https://jimchungblog.com/2023/08/31/the-cold-warrior-who-became-an-acrobatic-pilot-twice/This is the CP-140 Aurora used for many decades in antisubmarine warfare (ASW) and drug smuggling interdiction by Canada and now facing pending retirement. Canada acquired expertise in ASW during the last years of World War 2 when her navy became solely responsible for escorting all vessels departing North America across the Atlantic to the UK and Europe. The lens was still configured for 800mm@f/9, ISO1600, 1/800 s but I managed to get all of her in, being she is designed to fly slow but for very, very long distances.The F35 Lightning visiting from our cousins in the US. Always a great show stopper with its stupendous performance and noise, this year dropping flares during its performance. 500mm@ f/5.6 ISO400, 1/800s.And finally, the precision flying team of Canada’s Snowbirds which ends every Canadian airshow by tradition. If you look carefully, you will see tourists clad in red jumpsuits and secured by safety cables walking outside on the perimeter of the CN Tower’s Observation Deck. A bonus fly by treat for them no doubt! 400mm @ f/5.6 ISO200, 1/500 s and once again I failed to flip off the internal teleconverter and rotate the zoom focus ring to maximum in order to squeeze the best image quality from this superlative lens.And a final reminder that the telephoto lens sees all. This sunbathing woman likely thought nobody would bother her solitude in the middle of Lake Ontario. Until she was awoken by the jeering catcalls from a bunch of guys on the flying bridge. Luckily, she had the presence of mind to hang onto her top as she rolled over to see what the ruckus was about.
I have degrees in Biochemistry and Dentistry and practice clinically 2 days a week. The rest of the week I devote to photography and bringing you the very best writing in this blog.
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