Palm Springs Air Museum Photos

Over Memorial Day weekend, I took my family to the Palm Springs Air Museum. We got a chance to look at a number of airplanes from World War II as well as a few from more recent engagements. All of the pictures below were shot with the Pentax K20D along with the DA 14/2.8 or DA* 16-50/2.8 lenses. The six pictures of fighters consist of two U.S. Navy fighters used in the Pacific theater. These are the F4F Wildcat and the F6F Hellcat.

50mm; 1/40s @ f/2.8; ISO 400; SR On

16mm; 1/100s @ f/2.8; ISO 400; SR On

14mm; 1/80s @ f/2.8; ISO 200; SR On

16mm; 1/80s @ f/2.8; ISO 400; SR On

14mm; 1/50s @ f/2.8; ISO 200; SR On

14mm; 1/80s @ f/2.8; ISO 400; SR On

While not the best picture, the picture below shows one of the machine guns from the B-17. There are two things we learned here. One, the .50 caliber machine guns on the B-17 had interrupters that prevented the guns from being fired at the wings or the tail of the B-17. That makes perfect sense but I had never heard that before. The other item of interest was the origin of the phrase "the whole nine yards." This comes from the length of the ammunition belt that fed these .50 caliber machine guns. It was nine yards long and if you used it up, that was it.

28mm; 1/50s @ f/2.8; ISO 200; SR On; Flash