If I Had A Hammer........

I went to Robins Air Force Base this morning for the second day of historic flights. Yesterday an F-15 flew at more than twice the speed of sound using a synthetic fuel. Today was the second day of flights.

I was early enough to get some shots of the F-15 being loaded with fuel, made some nice art. We waited for a couple of hours as the aircraft was readied for flight. I was steadily shooting.



The pilots of the history making F-15 and the chase plane arrived, and finally boarded the aircraft. A writer for Jane's News was accompanying the pilot in the chase plane. She posed briefly as she boarded her F-15, then the birds were fired up. The ground grew went through their preflight checks and a group lingered under the wing of our history making plane.

One guy leaves the group and goes into a nearby hanger, returning with a large hammer. I thought "surely he's not going to....." but before I could finish my thought, he was hammering on the aircraft. Guess this is standard procedure.

Seems a valve had stuck, totally unrelated to the synthetic fuel. The flight was delayed for several hours to find a bigger hammer. I had to leave.

Glad I got this photo, cause the first time I told this story, folks thought I was making it up. This picture is a keeper.