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aletheiafelineaFor once.
Aeroklub Podhalański (Podhale Aero Club) celebrated its 60th anniversary and whipped up a fair, which basically meant a lot of aircraft showing off. So I splurged on a ticket...
... french fries (ew... overpaid) and candy floss (whee! also ugh, my teeth, I had forgotten how sticky is this stuff).
(I hesitated whether to post this at all, because photos of people. Finally I decided to compromise and post but with a little censoring. FYI, you might want to check it for your local law, but in most places it's legally safe to take and use [including commercial use] without need for permission [neither unofficial nor the full Model Release] photos of people if they are there for public reasons [like a political rally's attendees] or in an official role [like on job, especially involving public service]. In this particular case I count as 'private people being there for private reasons' also barking visitors of the fair who came with their bipedal families, which unfortunately means you won't see one lovely black Newfoundland or a fluffy beauty with wonderful heterochromatic eyes, sorry. I didn't get a good portrait pic of the latter anyway.)
The event took place on 21 August 2016, at the Club's own airport in Łososina Dolna, which later this day on the Warsaw-made TV news miraculously became Łosina Wielka *tired facepalm* (dropped 'so', and 'lower' swapped for 'big/great'. Some journalists...). Years ago, my mother was on the fair for inauguration of the airport; she remembers people telling how in the 50's, before the official opening, the ground there had been leveled and compacted for countless hours, first by tanks and later by road rollers. Now the airport is nothing special for an airport, but HUGE for a meadow; it takes at least half of the valley's basin. This is supposed to be my excuse for how difficult it is to fit it into a photo, if you're a ground-bound creature. :] Here, have a piece.
(clickable to full size)
180° of a shorter side. The fair is those colorful dots on the far right.
The whole area was divided in two, and one half (more like one tenth, actually) was fenced off and meant for people and fun stuff, while the rest was for all things taking off and touching down.
The airport's building with the control tower. It was a fenced-off area within the fenced-off area. The security man at the gate told me with an apologetic smile “Tylko dla VIPów”. :( I bet they had better fries in there...
Slushie stall getting battle ready. The colorful stuff are cups with fancy caps.
“Test your strength! Hold up 2 minutes and get 100 PLN!” For so many Army guys around, the business wasn't exactly thriving. XD
Obligatory stall with the local touristy stuff: less-wall-eyed-than-usual stuffed sheep, sheep milk cheese, sheep pelts, felt & leather slippers, and ciupagi. For some reason most had written “Zakopane” on it, which is actually some 70 km in crow's flight from Łososina.
My favorite, a stall with aviation art. Judging on their official site, it wasn't the artist himself, but probably his son.
The Army had its stall too, which for an average Pole means a lifetime opportunity to see actual weapon up close and outside of a screen or museum. Unlike all the other stalls in the fair they weren't selling their stuff, though. :D
And next to it they put up a MI-24 for unlimited groping and drooling on. *g*
It looked really worn out and I suspect it must have served for a training vehicle, because it was covered in stencil-made notions like “Beware of the propeller” all over.
“Applying force to the URS guides is strictly forbidden,” whatever they are. “Take off the streamer. Check if the latch is locked well.”
There was plenty of people with toys better than mine...
The show had a running commentary by Jan Hoffmann from Muzeum Lotnictwa Polskiego (Polish Aviation Museum, though they have non-Polish stuff too) in Kraków.
He was talking at least six hours straight with hardly a break. O____O
“...in one like this, one pilot made it beyond the Iron Curtain together with his wife...”
“...a group of pilots once fled just on the April Fool's Day and we thought it a joke when we heard it, but no, turned out they fled for serious...” (That is, he meant the news wasn't a joke, but I couldn't resist translating it like this... XD)
“...young pilots lifted the undercarriage alright, but they kept forgetting about letting it down, so the Soviet engineers decided to make the wheels retracting half the way, for when the pilot forgot again, only the cheap propeller had to be replaced instead of the whole belly...”
“...ours is the prototype variant, the only remaining in the world, with the wooden wings. The Czech museum has only the later production version, full metal. We have also a spare wooden pair, though, so they wanted it, but what they offered in exchange wasn't so swell, so we still have the spare wings...”
Yakovlev Yak-18 from 1956, whose pilot got carried a little bit and the commentator tried to be cheerful about it. “He's a young man, Ladies & Gentlemen, and is pushing the machine hard, presenting its fine abilities, uh, maybe a tad on the edge of reason...” You could almost hear his thoughts, “Good God, what is he doing... Man, can't you kill yourself in something less rare?!” XD
VIDEO
What background? Ah, right. Yes, Łososina is in the Club of Ugly Churches too.
“…we keep this Piper in the combat colors…”
No, I haven’t reversed this photo. Why? :]
Replica of Nieuport 11 from 1916, made and flied by Krzysztof Cwynar.
RWD-5R, the modern replica of RWD-5bis, in which Stanisław Skarżyński made it across the Atlantic in 1933.
This one is dragon-painted, because it's from Kraków. :)
In spite of that, it's named “Wiedeńczyk” (Viennese [citizen]), because in 1982, which was the time of martial law in Poland, a group of officers (the plane, Antonov An-2 from 1966, belonged to the Army) used it to escape to Austria. Here's the news article from a Viennese newspaper. I'm not sure, but the April Fool's “joke” tale might have regard this case. Or not. Escaping beyond the Iron Curtain was a national sport back then.
My favorite one. What, I was an Airwolf fan, it marks you for life. :]
The W-thing is the logo of a large local company, but they have nothing in common with aviation, they make fences with automatic gates. Maybe they own the chopper and lent it for the occasion? Or just were invited. Darn, now I know not only where better fries were, but also who had them... *comes back* Yep, confirmed. Reportedly it's a VIPed up version of Agusta Westland Grand, and some also mention that such elegant coloring is rare, because usually they are painted gaudy as hell.
My favorite photo.
VIDEO
6th Airborne Brigade's descent.
They all landed neatly...
...except one, who got carried way off the landing point. No casualties except someone's windshield. I wonder if the car’s insurance covers aerial accidents… “How did it happen?” “Um, well, you wouldn’t believe how large bugs on the road can get!”
A glider starting or rather being started, and also rather the glider, because there was only one. The pilot was Capt. Jerzy Makula, who also flied the papal Boeing weeks earlier, for the World Youth Day.
Era's Ameno was being blared for it, which was supposed to emphasize the silent flight, but didn't quite work out, I'd say, because:
a. so much noise doesn't really do 'poetic', and
b. the commentator was physically unable to shutting up. :D
VIDEO
The stars of the day, two F-16 and the best (meaning: the only) photos I have of them, because the bastards were fast, Capt. Obvious at your service. :] Also, THUNDER LOUD, oh gods.
I was really crushed discovering at home that I hadn't gotten one taking a turn, as I thought. :'( Something went wrong with the recording, of all possible moments. Others got 'em, though, so there's already plenty of clips on YT, if you want. All of them have the sound wrong, though. Apparently the cameras' mics didn't 'hear' the majority of lower sounds, unlike human ears (also lungs... and guts...). For once, movies are actually closer to reality, because it didn't sound like torn paper at all. I didn't mean thunder just figuratively, because you really could take them for a regular storm, only with the underlying of the torn air more stretched than the 'compact' strike of the actual lighting. They made three circles over the valley, then one final pass, this time higher and synchronised (perfectly; it was noticeable they weren't as easily affected by the wind as anything else that day) and vanished into the clouds, going back to the north they had come from. Obviously they weren't able to land or start in Łososina. Or rather, the airport couldn't take them and remain usable.
MI-24 in air. An Army pilot (no, not one of the currently flying the machine; she was on the ground) took over the commenting for it, but the mic somehow didn't like her, because it kept lagging on her. No big loss, though, she was mostly rattling technical data with no stories behind them.
It was hard, okay? *cough* The ice cream in my other hand might have something to do with this…
Sport parachute club being dramatic. No windshields harmed.
All of them weren’t the only flyers there. Local kestrels didn’t give a slightest damn. Mice won’t catch themselves, after all. :)
VIDEO
Leaving the airport I assured over the phone my Mom, who hadn't thought she was up for a long hot day in the field, but still was very excited about the whole thing, that nothing fell on my head, I'm okay and going already home. “They just said on TV that the Minister of National Defense had been there. How it was?” “Well,” I say, “he somehow managed to work terrorists into his speech.” “What? Speak louder!” This is the sort of memories you cherish: walking at dusk through suburbia (subrusticia? *g*) still thick with security and traffic cops, and yelling “Terrorists!!!” XD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can comment also in Disqus, here.
It's okay to comment in whatever language fits you best, as long as I get it. Don't mind the entry's language.
Można komentować w języku, który najbardziej ci odpowiada, o ile go zrozumiem. Nie przejmuj się językiem notki.
Aeroklub Podhalański (Podhale Aero Club) celebrated its 60th anniversary and whipped up a fair, which basically meant a lot of aircraft showing off. So I splurged on a ticket...
... french fries (ew... overpaid) and candy floss (whee! also ugh, my teeth, I had forgotten how sticky is this stuff).
(I hesitated whether to post this at all, because photos of people. Finally I decided to compromise and post but with a little censoring. FYI, you might want to check it for your local law, but in most places it's legally safe to take and use [including commercial use] without need for permission [neither unofficial nor the full Model Release] photos of people if they are there for public reasons [like a political rally's attendees] or in an official role [like on job, especially involving public service]. In this particular case I count as 'private people being there for private reasons' also barking visitors of the fair who came with their bipedal families, which unfortunately means you won't see one lovely black Newfoundland or a fluffy beauty with wonderful heterochromatic eyes, sorry. I didn't get a good portrait pic of the latter anyway.)
The event took place on 21 August 2016, at the Club's own airport in Łososina Dolna, which later this day on the Warsaw-made TV news miraculously became Łosina Wielka *tired facepalm* (dropped 'so', and 'lower' swapped for 'big/great'. Some journalists...). Years ago, my mother was on the fair for inauguration of the airport; she remembers people telling how in the 50's, before the official opening, the ground there had been leveled and compacted for countless hours, first by tanks and later by road rollers. Now the airport is nothing special for an airport, but HUGE for a meadow; it takes at least half of the valley's basin. This is supposed to be my excuse for how difficult it is to fit it into a photo, if you're a ground-bound creature. :] Here, have a piece.
(clickable to full size)
180° of a shorter side. The fair is those colorful dots on the far right.
The whole area was divided in two, and one half (more like one tenth, actually) was fenced off and meant for people and fun stuff, while the rest was for all things taking off and touching down.
The airport's building with the control tower. It was a fenced-off area within the fenced-off area. The security man at the gate told me with an apologetic smile “Tylko dla VIPów”. :( I bet they had better fries in there...
Slushie stall getting battle ready. The colorful stuff are cups with fancy caps.
“Test your strength! Hold up 2 minutes and get 100 PLN!” For so many Army guys around, the business wasn't exactly thriving. XD
Obligatory stall with the local touristy stuff: less-wall-eyed-than-usual stuffed sheep, sheep milk cheese, sheep pelts, felt & leather slippers, and ciupagi. For some reason most had written “Zakopane” on it, which is actually some 70 km in crow's flight from Łososina.
My favorite, a stall with aviation art. Judging on their official site, it wasn't the artist himself, but probably his son.
The Army had its stall too, which for an average Pole means a lifetime opportunity to see actual weapon up close and outside of a screen or museum. Unlike all the other stalls in the fair they weren't selling their stuff, though. :D
And next to it they put up a MI-24 for unlimited groping and drooling on. *g*
It looked really worn out and I suspect it must have served for a training vehicle, because it was covered in stencil-made notions like “Beware of the propeller” all over.
“Applying force to the URS guides is strictly forbidden,” whatever they are. “Take off the streamer. Check if the latch is locked well.”
There was plenty of people with toys better than mine...
The show had a running commentary by Jan Hoffmann from Muzeum Lotnictwa Polskiego (Polish Aviation Museum, though they have non-Polish stuff too) in Kraków.
He was talking at least six hours straight with hardly a break. O____O
“...in one like this, one pilot made it beyond the Iron Curtain together with his wife...”
“...a group of pilots once fled just on the April Fool's Day and we thought it a joke when we heard it, but no, turned out they fled for serious...” (That is, he meant the news wasn't a joke, but I couldn't resist translating it like this... XD)
“...young pilots lifted the undercarriage alright, but they kept forgetting about letting it down, so the Soviet engineers decided to make the wheels retracting half the way, for when the pilot forgot again, only the cheap propeller had to be replaced instead of the whole belly...”
“...ours is the prototype variant, the only remaining in the world, with the wooden wings. The Czech museum has only the later production version, full metal. We have also a spare wooden pair, though, so they wanted it, but what they offered in exchange wasn't so swell, so we still have the spare wings...”
Yakovlev Yak-18 from 1956, whose pilot got carried a little bit and the commentator tried to be cheerful about it. “He's a young man, Ladies & Gentlemen, and is pushing the machine hard, presenting its fine abilities, uh, maybe a tad on the edge of reason...” You could almost hear his thoughts, “Good God, what is he doing... Man, can't you kill yourself in something less rare?!” XD
What background? Ah, right. Yes, Łososina is in the Club of Ugly Churches too.
“…we keep this Piper in the combat colors…”
No, I haven’t reversed this photo. Why? :]
Replica of Nieuport 11 from 1916, made and flied by Krzysztof Cwynar.
RWD-5R, the modern replica of RWD-5bis, in which Stanisław Skarżyński made it across the Atlantic in 1933.
This one is dragon-painted, because it's from Kraków. :)
In spite of that, it's named “Wiedeńczyk” (Viennese [citizen]), because in 1982, which was the time of martial law in Poland, a group of officers (the plane, Antonov An-2 from 1966, belonged to the Army) used it to escape to Austria. Here's the news article from a Viennese newspaper. I'm not sure, but the April Fool's “joke” tale might have regard this case. Or not. Escaping beyond the Iron Curtain was a national sport back then.
The W-thing is the logo of a large local company, but they have nothing in common with aviation, they make fences with automatic gates. Maybe they own the chopper and lent it for the occasion? Or just were invited. Darn, now I know not only where better fries were, but also who had them... *comes back* Yep, confirmed. Reportedly it's a VIPed up version of Agusta Westland Grand, and some also mention that such elegant coloring is rare, because usually they are painted gaudy as hell.
VIDEO
6th Airborne Brigade's descent.
They all landed neatly...
...except one, who got carried way off the landing point. No casualties except someone's windshield. I wonder if the car’s insurance covers aerial accidents… “How did it happen?” “Um, well, you wouldn’t believe how large bugs on the road can get!”
A glider starting or rather being started, and also rather the glider, because there was only one. The pilot was Capt. Jerzy Makula, who also flied the papal Boeing weeks earlier, for the World Youth Day.
Era's Ameno was being blared for it, which was supposed to emphasize the silent flight, but didn't quite work out, I'd say, because:
a. so much noise doesn't really do 'poetic', and
b. the commentator was physically unable to shutting up. :D
The stars of the day, two F-16 and the best (meaning: the only) photos I have of them, because the bastards were fast, Capt. Obvious at your service. :] Also, THUNDER LOUD, oh gods.
I was really crushed discovering at home that I hadn't gotten one taking a turn, as I thought. :'( Something went wrong with the recording, of all possible moments. Others got 'em, though, so there's already plenty of clips on YT, if you want. All of them have the sound wrong, though. Apparently the cameras' mics didn't 'hear' the majority of lower sounds, unlike human ears (also lungs... and guts...). For once, movies are actually closer to reality, because it didn't sound like torn paper at all. I didn't mean thunder just figuratively, because you really could take them for a regular storm, only with the underlying of the torn air more stretched than the 'compact' strike of the actual lighting. They made three circles over the valley, then one final pass, this time higher and synchronised (perfectly; it was noticeable they weren't as easily affected by the wind as anything else that day) and vanished into the clouds, going back to the north they had come from. Obviously they weren't able to land or start in Łososina. Or rather, the airport couldn't take them and remain usable.
MI-24 in air. An Army pilot (no, not one of the currently flying the machine; she was on the ground) took over the commenting for it, but the mic somehow didn't like her, because it kept lagging on her. No big loss, though, she was mostly rattling technical data with no stories behind them.
It was hard, okay? *cough* The ice cream in my other hand might have something to do with this…
Sport parachute club being dramatic. No windshields harmed.
All of them weren’t the only flyers there. Local kestrels didn’t give a slightest damn. Mice won’t catch themselves, after all. :)
VIDEO
Leaving the airport I assured over the phone my Mom, who hadn't thought she was up for a long hot day in the field, but still was very excited about the whole thing, that nothing fell on my head, I'm okay and going already home. “They just said on TV that the Minister of National Defense had been there. How it was?” “Well,” I say, “he somehow managed to work terrorists into his speech.” “What? Speak louder!” This is the sort of memories you cherish: walking at dusk through suburbia (subrusticia? *g*) still thick with security and traffic cops, and yelling “Terrorists!!!” XD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can comment also in Disqus, here.
It's okay to comment in whatever language fits you best, as long as I get it. Don't mind the entry's language.
Można komentować w języku, który najbardziej ci odpowiada, o ile go zrozumiem. Nie przejmuj się językiem notki.
