[Leica] CJ6 NAN CHANG PLANE... leica M7 & LEICANON in one breath?

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Hi Crew,

"So what kind of a day did you have Mr. Grant?"

Well I flew a CJ6 NAN CHANG plane for the first time. :-).. Do we have any 
NAN CHANG  flyers out there in Leica LUG land?

"So how come you have two kinds of cameras with you today ? I see one is 
film, the other digital?"  A confession! A weird sense of deja vue came over 
me.... "this is not the time for a screw-up!" Besides the digi has been so 
incredible that if one were meant to get your ass kicked it was going to be 
on this kind of a shoot !

It's like this... first of all it was going to be a ride in a neat little 2 
seater plane, the Nan Chang referred to as a "War Bird " as I was told, 
shoot some pictures and just have a jolly good day all round. :-) But a 
sense of "camera foreboding" came over me last evening , so a trusty Leica 
went along for insurance.

Loaded an M7 ----- 100 Ektachrome VS ----, it's a light broken overcast kind 
of day needs a touch of snap added to the frames. An M7 with the 15mm lens 
as there's no point in using anything longer sitting in this small plane. 
Put a 2 GIG card in the 20D with the 10-22 lens, again for same reason, not 
much space and I wanted to try and keep part of the plane in the frame for 
perspective.... in aerial shooting it's usually the opposite way, you do not 
want any part of the plane in the frame.

Away we go into the wild blue yonder cameras at the ready and me excited as 
all get out as I'd been told I'd get a shot at flying it !:-) A pleasant 
surprise. :-) Well you betcha I'd like to have a run at it for a bit. Can't 
go wrong anyway as the owner pilot is a 747 jockey in his "day job!" And a 
cool hand Luke pilot.

Shoot some digi stuff along the way, showing pilot, well the back of his 
head in the front seat and plane to ground relationship. Then digi wont fire 
:-( and I see flashing on the screen.... "err 99" Well hell eh?  I don't 
remember the first error let alone 99 more?

Right there, a lesson "do read the manual on occasion!" :-) Or better still 
take your trusty M7 LEICA  just in case!

You see in general terms, a Leica is loaded and working or empty and still 
working! But it doesn't show you little messages about error's! ;-( So there 
I was clicking away in digi, well for the start and finished the picture 
part of the ride with the M7. Some days it's gotta be film to the rescue! 
;-)

Then I flew 'er! :-) Well that means, I drove it around in the largest 
parking lot in the world! ;-) The sky, heck what could go wrong and I had a 
wonderful time doing a few moves this way and that way, a little up's and 
down's! Just a little training flight for May 27th in the P51 Mustang. And 
yes I do know what "err 99" is now and will be prepared in May. :-)

The really stupid thing was? Forgot to shoot a picture of myself while in 
the air using the 15mm lens and my ape length arms holding it way out in 
front of me pointed in my direction. Damn and I've got all kinds of those 
from various situations. Well another flight is around the corner so I'll 
make sure we get one next time.

I know we got lots of leica luggers, just wondered if there were any birdmen 
who've flown this easy as pie flying machine?

ted