Plane & Pilot proudly announces the finalists for this year’s Plane & Pilot Your Flying World Photo Contest. Finalists were selected from among hundreds of entries, and while there wasn’t a bad shot in the bunch, these images shone through.
And as usual, there was a wide range of subject matter in this year’s battle of the airborne lenses, with everything from bucolic panoramas of natural beauty to studies of the finer details of the flying machines we love so much.
Enjoy these outstanding submissions, but be sure to tune in next week when we announce the winners of this year’s Plane & Pilot Your Flying World Photo Contest!
I had missed getting an intended New Yearâs Eve flight, probably to do with the weather, so I figured I could at least start the year off right the afternoon of New Yearâs Day. It was 34-36 degrees, decent visibility greater than 6mi, a bit rainy & misty, and with indeterminate ceilings high enough to tour the immediate area, take a few pictures and return for a few turns in the pattern. Tower didnât seem surprised at my presence, so I took that as a good sign. I have very little experience with ice, and knew it was near the edge of the envelope that day, so I stayed low and kept scanning what forward surfaces I could see for any evidence of ice. I could detect none at the time, but picture sequences now show a hard-to-detect accretion on the white struts. Sure couldnât see anything alarming in flight with the high wing on the Cessna 182. Itâs a 1963 F model, btw, N3498U. A tail number no one can repeat right twice. The whole flight portion lasted just sixteen minutes and never climbed above around 1,800â. We live in Bethlehem, PA, and the airplane is based at Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE). I toured the local area, with a turn around the neighborhood, then a track over the city, Lehigh University, and took a quick foray to see how the country club looked just over South Mountain. After one touch and go, then cleared for the option on runway 6, she felt just a bit âmushyâ on the second turn to final. Dad always said discretion was the better part of valor, so I kept speeds up and took her back to the hangar. Turns out it was Shakespeare who first said that through Falstaff. Anyway, I got to see a good load of clear ice for the first time when I went to push her back in the hangar. Virtually nothing was visible from the cockpit. Perhaps if Iâd turned to see the tail Iâd have known sooner. Pushing her back to the T-hangar by the prop, I noticed the mesmerizing constellation of ice on the spinner, so I snapped a photo along with others of the evidence observing the passing of one of my nine lives. May the Shiny Mistake of my New Yearâs Day 2021 inspire a second thought in some other aviator someday.
