Full Disc Aviation got to spend a few minutes with Chef Pitts (Clemens Kuhlig) at the fenceline before the Manassas airshow and he was kind enough to answer some of our questions. Chef flies a crimson and black Pitts S1S with a mustache on the cowling, his signature triple smoke trails and outside loops wowing audiences along the east coast.

Adam pulled the aircraft out and lined her up for us just as the rain started to fall, typical of Virginia in the spring. Undeterred, he climbed in the cockpit and fired her up for us. If that wasn’t enough, he asked us if he should hit the smoke. The photography tells the rest of that story.

I recognized that I was not as sharp with everything as I would like to be so I took my sweet time with my pre-flight.  I even sat in the cockpit for a few extra minutes rehearsing my panel flow. Finally, after feeling a little more comfortable, it was time for the fun part to begin:

What do you think about when you think of the US Air Force? You think of the jets, the level of service, and the people that strap on their boots and throw their uniforms on every day. But what you may not think about are the men and women who wear a suit and tie, the men and women that are in the car next to you on your commute, who may very well commit to a level of service before self.

To anyone who follows the Blue Angels, there is one place that always seems to be at the top of their lists for seeing them: Naval Air Facility El Centro. Follow along with our adventure as we make our inaugural trip to the witness the greatness that is El Centro.

Winter is officially over (although no one told mother nature that) and Full Disc Aviation has some exciting things coming to you in the weeks ahead.

One of the greatest bits of wisdom I received wasn’t about settings at all. Once I understood what panning was and was comfortable with a certain shutter speed, I’d drop it again. Struggling slightly with my panning, I reached out to an incredible photographer about his technique. “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast,” he said. Like a quick-draw marksman, the smoother the motion, the faster one can safely be on target. So it is with shooting planes.

"I always wanted to fly fast and upside down. Combining speed and airplanes was the Holy Grail for me. Just after high school I spent a week recording some music with a band I was in. While sitting in our room one morning, I came across some videos of Rob Holland and Skip Stewart whipping their planes through the sky. “Dude.” Rock and roll, fast planes, extreme flying. That’s when it really hit me."

It was something I thought I would never experience, being so close to a Phantom that you could feel the exhaust from the two J79s powering each of them and that unmistakable smell of Jet A1 that so many fellow aviation photographers and fans love