NAF El Centro, CA, USA - 22/01/2009

As per the forecast, Thursday dawned pretty grey.

By the time we arrived at the airfield the Blues were already airborne and VFA-122 Hornets were already recovering. The T-45s from both units were just springing into life too.

We had some clear ideas on what we wanted to capture today. Blues landing, line-up shots on the cross runway, and head-ons of anything crossing the piano-keys there.

It didn't take long before the first of those was crossed off, albeit in pretty nasty light.

Waiting for Blues 1-4 to land were numbers 5 and 6.

We moved back down to the corner spot as we'd heard the Harriers startup. The conditions even improved for a minute or two, but it didn't last.

With more T-45s starting up it was time to head down for the head-on shots of them crossing the piano-keys of the cross-runway. A VFA-125 T-34C Mentor even made an appearance.

With lunchtime rapidly approaching it was time for the second Blues four-ship practice of the day.

Before we'd travelled I'd spoken to the base Public Affairs lady, Michelle Dee, about the possibility of shooting the preserved aircraft just inside the gate. She very kindly cleared it with security and we were able to do just that. Unfortunately the sky now was almost completely overcast, and the sand in the sky seemed to be getting ever closer.

We made it back to the cross runway just in time to see the four-ship recover, this time from the other side of the centreline.

By now conditions were really rather grim and a runway change also ensued. If nothing else it provided some different angles.

We'd already decided that 1500 would be our cut-off time here and with the conditions ever deteriorating it was easy to stick to that. Leaving when we did would allow us an hour at MCAS Yuma as the sun would be setting.