I’m sitting in my apartment in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn today, and I hear the sound of a couple of old planes passing over head. I looked out the window and much to my surprise, there were two WW1 era bi-planes circling overhead, following some sort of average sized transport plane with overhead wings and a smooth fuselage and underbelly that could land on water.
I watched them circle around and around, over my neighbohood, probably 5 or 6 times. Pretty unenventful stuff, no? A couple of bi-planes, most likely practicing runs over Coney Island where they hold an air show every Memorial Day. This being a few days before, they must be out testing the planes.
All of a sudden, out of no where, a huge roar washed over us and there they were six US Air Force fighter jets streaking across the cloudy Brooklyn sky. Pretty amazing! Having seen the other planes already, I knew they must be part of some sort of practice run for the show. On the next run around, the planes were following a huge Hercules military transport plane. To watch that boat fly is just incredible. Needless to say, I was quite amazed.
I didn’t have my camera with me, so I ran back in the house and grabbed it. My poor dog always gets a little stressed when I run in and out of the house. Tripping over her, I ran outside with my camera in hand. Tried to get a few photos of the planes, but for some reason the shutter speed just wasn’t fast enough, or I just wasn’t following them fast enough. I’m not so skilled at my new Konica-Minolta 8-megapixel camera yet, but I’m getting there. All I was shooting was the white puffs of clouds in the background.
Forgetting the fact that I have 15 minutes of video capability with my camera, I tried to shoot a few more times, but I got nothing. While I was talking to my landlord in the front of my building, who’d come out to see the commotion, we started talking about my camera and its functions. Remembering I had video, I switched to that mode and clocked the following video footage of the planes in the sky. It’s only about 25 seconds, but it’s pretty cool to watch.
Wow…fighter jets over Brooklyn! Cool!
Click to watch the 30 second Quicktime video: Fighter Jets Over Brooklyn Movie
My friend Joe Danziger from DJ Central sent me this link to a multimedia presentation highlighting Memorial Day on Yahoo.com, with information about the fighter jets, which will appear at the Jones Beach Air Show over the weekend. Little did I know that today the jets were scheduled to fly over the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
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