For anyone interested, I have a few photos from an air show this weekend featuring the amazing F-22 Raptor. More photos at Photo Album - last two page

wow, the last one is awesome.

Great shots Zimm!! The F-22 is an amazing jet.

Very impressive! (Both the jet AND the photos!

I can remember getting a very close up view of some F-15's that were up at the Red Deer airshow back in the late 80's, early 90's. Only thing I was at my parents lake property which is about 60km's north west of Red Deer. The jets flew right over the lake and they seemed like they were giving us all on the lake our own private show, they flew about as slow as they could and about as low as I think they felt safe, about 200 ft up, close enough that the last pic was about the detail I could see with my eyes, after a slow circle, they throttled up and they were out of sight in seconds, very cool.

Great pics, thanks.

Their awesome specs aside, they are definitely the coolest looking plane ever.

hmmm, I don't know, to me the SR-71 Blackbird is the coolest thing that has ever flown, so far. Particularly knowing that this plane was designed in the late 50s.

Blackbirds were also pretty awesome looking birds but since it's just my opinion, my opinion stands until such time that I'm of the opinion that I should change my opinion.

What this thing does in the air is freakish. With its vectored nozzles it can move in ways no aircraft ever has, and in ways physics don't seem to allow. The only sad part is the F-22 is so impressive, it leaves the show's highlight - the famous Blue Angles - as a bit of a let down. Not so special to see a 9g turn when the previous show had a plane flip 180 degrees but continue traveling in the same direction, only to flip back over and keep going.

Since I lack the words to explain it, here is a video.
f-22 Airshow

I'm pretty sure the 1977 MIG29 has vectored nozzles.

I saw the video , wow, those engines sound great!

It may have had vectored nozzles, but I don't think it had the computer or engine power to figure out how to fly after the nozzle disrupted the normal airflow. But yes, impressive regardless of the originality.

I agree.

SR-71

Nice pics, Charles. Hard to say what is the "coolest" thing to fly. It's all relative to the times I guess. One can imagine our bomber/fighter pilots in WW2 seeing some of those Nazi Comets/ME262s for the very first time...shocked, no doubt.

Very nice pics, thanks for sharing. I was able to see the blackbird when I was in the Navy in 1980. It is the most amazing bird I have ever seen in the air.

Great pictures Zimm ... I do enjoy me some good aircraft pictures, thanks for sharing.

Clarence Johnson was an innovative genius, as his designs very well proved. I've always thought the SR-71 as well as the U-2 were both very intriguing airplanes, my step-father was a crew chief on the U-2 and I am still amazed at the things that airplane did in all of it's simplicity.

And after that scared as hell. My best friend's father was both a tail and a belly gunner on a Lancaster. The only time he talked about it was during his once a year 3 day bender. I never put it together until years later, but its must have been on the aneversary of the day he pulled his best buddy out of the tail turret after he got shot up by German fighters. To make things worse, he had to crawl into the turret to take over or they would have all ended up in the ditch. Scared *hitless was how he described himself that day.

Great pics, Zimm. They reminded me of the pics that I took every year as a teen that I went to the Abbotsford International Airshow. My favorite was always the "Vulcan bomber".

Back then, they used to do high speed flybys ridiculously close to the crowd, and IIRC, timed it so they'd break the sound barrier right in the middle of the crowd. The jet would whizz by silently, and a few seconds later, BOOM!

Awesome pics Zimm! It is a very impressive aircraft.