Last weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in a SAREX (Search And Rescue EXercise) with a number of other members of our Easter South Dakota Civil Air Patrol squadrons. Because after spending the previous weekend hanging out with CAP folks at the airshow, clearly what Adventure Girl and I needed in our lives was more weekend CAP activities. I count myself fortunate that MLGB is willing to put up with these shenanigans.
Since my main objective since joining CAP has been to get my butt back into the air, this SAREX was a chance to work on my Aviation Photography and Mission Scanner skills. I’m so close to being fully qualified as a scanner. But having a photographer rating opens up a lot of other opportunities, since our squadron has gotten a lot of requests in the past few years to fly photo missions for things like flooding and downed power lines.
And that’s how I ended up strapped into the back seat of a CAP Cessna 182T with a heavy Nikon camera up to my eye, trying desperately to get a good overhead shot of a practice target while our pilot held the plane in a nice fifty degree bank, and I tried to hold onto my breakfast. Hence the post title – my photography trainer told us to always carry two gallon ziploc bags when flying. One to barf in, and one to put the barf bag into to ensure containment.
(Photo credit South Dakota CAP)
Beats puking into your helmet bag or t-shirt, at least.
I also heeded C.W. “Mover” Lemoine’s advice about airsickness and packed a couple different kinds of ginger chews. That seemed to help a bit. Anyway, I kept breakfast where it belonged and managed to get the shots I needed.
A later flight went a lot better. Probably because I was just practicing scanner work, which meant just looking outside the airplane – no soda straw camera view to deal with. Heck, I almost fell asleep on that one. Something about a warm day and the bumpy air rocking me to sleep.
I really hope the issue is just a matter of familiarity, and that as I get more flights I’ll get more used to the camera. As much as I want to be able to do ground team work, aviation is definitely where my heart belongs.