As their concerts are always eye-candy, taking some photos for the family album is high on everyone’s list. If you go to concerts you know there are usually “no photography” rules and taking the cameras to the concert is forbidden. This rule however stays put most of the time only for the DSLR cameras while compact cameras are usually allowed. After all today’s smartphones make really great photos and it’s hard to forbid such devices at the venues like this. I had to argue a bit with a security guy at the entrance to allow me entering with my old compact camera, but I convinced him that everyone’s gonna take higher resolution photos than I will. So you are probably wondering what kind of camera I had with me?

It’s an 8 or 9 years old Olympus C-750uz compact camera I rarely used ever since I bought my first Nikon D70s. It is true that it only has a 4Mpx sensor but what it lacks in Mpx it gains in optics – with its 10x optical zoom (380mm SLR equivalent) it provides the photographer to be there on the stage so to speak, if not too far from it of course. The good thing about it is also the ability to manually set aperture and shutter speed as well as ISO.

However digital photography technology has advanced a lot in the past 10 years since this camera was first introduced. Just 4Mpx won’t let you make posters. ISO goes up to only 400 and the noise level at that setting is similar to ISO3200 on my Nikon D300. Powered by 4 AA-type batteries it is also quite energy consuming (hardly managed to make 100 photos in an hour and a half long concert). But still, as you can see from the photos attached to this post, even after so many years, it is still able to make decent photos in quite demanding lightning conditions.

Till’s appearance during the first song was drag-queen outrageous!

Monk or a bassist?

In the spotlight!

Sparks!

Tapping the bass

Feuer!

Flake on a conveyor belt – the guy actually walks most of the concert up there… unless sodomized or getting slaughtered by Till

Some creative guitar playing

Till making a nice Flake stew – during the amazing song Mein Teil

Sinister

Paul and Till in action

Mr. Kruspe shooting flames out of his guitar!

For adults only – S&M ain’t a taboo for Rammstein.

Benzin

Ollie

Atmospheric piano version of Mein Herz Brent

Till riding a giant penis spraying the fans with foamy “sperm” during their highly controversial song Pussy

Grande finale – a mix of foam and paper flakes for the night we’ll hardly forget.

BAe Harrier Gr.3 – Harrier’s were unique as being the first operational aircraft that could land and take off vertically and even hover in flight as helicopters. Gr.3 version operated by RAF was extensively used in 1982 during the Falklands war supporting the British ground forces from makeshift beach FOBs.

Lysander as an interesting looking aircraft for sure. During WW2 it was mainly used for clandenstine operations, infiltrating the Luftwaffe fighter cover and landing on fields in occupied France, picking up downed pilots and infiltrating spies and special ops.

Anyway as this and the following photo show, this part of the museum is HUUUUUGE. You can see on of the Concorde prototypes on the left, flanked by TSR-2 on the right.

Dambusting Lancaster earned its place here as well. The cylindrical object seen below the engine is actually the infamous dam busting bouncing bomb. In the background Vulcan and Sunderland bombers can be seen among others.

Legendary Canberra bomber took first flight in 1949 and served in RAF until 2006. It was exported to many countries and produced under license in US as B-57 – Two of them are still used by NASA for high altitude meterological research tests.

BAC TSR-2 was a British strike and reconnaissance fighter that was way ahead of its time. Unfortunately due to the rising costs and mostly due to politics, the project was cancelled after only a few were completed in mid-60s.

Comet was the first jet airliner in the world. Unfortunately several crashed during its early BOAC career though lessons learned from those crashes made air traveling a lot safer.

Strikemaster was initially a jet trainer but some of the export users like Saudi Arabia and New Zealand used them as attack aircraft as well.

Handley Page Hastings came into RAF service just after World War 2 as a troop and cargo carrier and was extensively used during the Berlin airlift. It remained in transport service until being replaced by Lockheed Hercules in the ’60s after it continued career as weather aircraft and later as radar trainer until the mid ’70s.

RAF Tornado Gr.1 – swing-wing strike fighter co-developed by UK, Germany and Italy is always an impressive sight.

Lightning was the last British developed jet fighter. It’s interesting wings shape and two engines placed one above each make it stand out among other contemporary fighters.

Avro Vulcan was a British bomber, designed mainly for nuclear strike, but probably made its fame during the Falkland’s war when a single bomber flew a non-stop mission from England to Falklands bombing a runway at Port Stanley. The mission was more of a moral success as the damage done was minimal, but showed the Argentinians, RAF was able to hit Argentinian mainland if needs be.

Avro Shackleton was a RAF long range maritime patrol and anti-submarine aircraft that was in use since early ’50s until 1990. Later in its life it was also adapted to early airborne warning and search and rescue duties.

One of the Eurofighter Typhoon prototypes, which evolved into the British main fighter of the present day.

Handley Page Victor was the third of the British V-bombers (others being Valiant and Vulcan) and was of most unusual design. With the nuclear threat diminishing most were converted to the aerial refuelers, refueling pod clearly visible under the wing with a basket hanging out at the back.

Bristol Blenheim in the works.

Fairey Firefly arrived to Duxford from Sweden and is scheduled for airworthy restoration.

Legendary Texan (Harvard in British service) with later mark Spitfire in the background.

Beaufighter was an attack plane, this example serving in Pacific theater, probably with Royal Australian Air Force.

Razorback Thunderbolt under restoration.

Immaculate looking Curtiss Hawk

Beechcraft C-45 Expeditor

A perfect looking Grumman F6F Hellcat

Up close and personal with Curtiss P-40

Hangar 4

Thumbs up of a happy Hurricane pilot – probably after another succesful BoB mission

Bristol F.2 fighter first flew in 1916 but due to its rugged design stayed in service into 1930s and was used in many countries.

1:1 scale diorama based on real event during the Battle of Britain, with a crash-landed Messerschmitt Bf.109E.

Tail of the Heinkel He-111 bomber shot down during the Battle of Britain.

Avro 671 Rota I gyrocopter was used to calibrate radar stations during World War 2. For a short time, one was based at Duxford as well.

Infamous V-1 buzz bomb – one of the Hitler’s wonder-weapons that harrased Britain during the war.

RAF Phantoms were in use from late ’60s to early ’90s and the aircraft were equipped with Rolls-Royce Spey engines and British avionics.

Hawker Hunter has to be one of the most beautiful British jet fighters.

The majestic Gloster Javelin in test scheme of white and red. The wing measured a staggering 82.5 sq meters.

B-17G Flying Fortress “overlown” by C-47 Skytrain (military version of famous DC-3) in D-day markings (have you seen Band of Brothers series?)

Four leaf clover and Dugan – sounds too Irish not be true, right? B-24M Liberator – another WW2 heavy weight bomber in USAAF arsenal.

Boeing Stearman – another legend which produced a plethora of pilots over decades of its use around the world. A very popular warbird still today (had a chance of flying with her).

The mighty tankbuser, A-10A Thunderbolt II proved its worth at the time, when facing early retirement – in 1991 Operation Desert Storm in Iraq and Kuwait. And no, she’s not retired yet; only upgraded

F-111 Aardvark was one of the biggest attack fighters in USAF inventory and a swing-winger to boot.

Spad of LaFayette Escadrille. The later was an American volunteer Escadrille inside French Air Service and proved its worth during the harshest WW1 battles, making its debut at Verdun in 1916.

Yeah, you’re seeing it right – there’s a huge B-52D Stratofortress parked inside this hangar among other exhibits.

US Hangar would seem empty without a legendary F-4 Phantom – in this case US Navy -J version.

UH-1 Huey earned its fame in Vietnam war and is still in use in a number of countries all around the world.

F-100 Super Sabre, first USAF supersonic fighter in SEA camouflage distinct of Vietnam era.

Famous spyplane U-2 Dragonlady. Two USAF birds were shot down during its career, one over Cuba and the other over Soviet Union. Upgraded version is still in use today.

And perhaps even more famous spyplane – SR-71 Blackbird. Blackbird was the fastest operational aircraft in the world, exceeding speeds of Mach 3 in cruise flight.

“When I orbited the Earth in a spaceship, I saw for the first time how beautiful our planet is. Mankind, let us preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it!”
Yuri Gagarin

Moscow’s Cosmonaut museum certianly cannot be compared to what visitors experience and see while visiting Kennedy’s Space Center at Cape Canaveral. But if you are even remotly interested in space exploration and you happen to find yourself in Moscow, this is THE place to visit. Just a few steps from VDNKh metro station, it’s easily accessible though you should check the opening times. You really cannot miss the museum because of the monument ‘To the Conquerors of Space’ placed above it. Mounted on a granite pedestal titanium spire holds a silver rocket 100 meters high representing Sputnik’s launch.

“The future of space exploration has no boundaries, and its possibilities are as limitless as the Universe itself.”

Cut-away model of the Sputnik-2 satellite, which carried a world famous dog to the space. Laika was the first Earth-born creature that entered the space, launched into orbit on 3rd November, 1957. Unfortunately after some 5 hours, the dog died from stress and overheating of the capsule.

But Laika was not the only dog that was sent to space. Strelka and Belka were sent (along with a rabit, two rats, a bunch of mice, flies and some plants and fungie) to orbit on 19th August 1960 aboard Sputnik 5, seen above, and safely returned back to Earth the next day. This way they became the first Earth creatures that made a space flight and returned alive back to home planet. Later Strelka had puppies and one of them, Pushinka (‘Fluffy’) was given to Kennedy’s daughter Caroline by Nikita Kruschev in 1961. She had puppies as well (JFK used to call them pupniks, jokingly referencing them to Sputnik).

Some of Yuri Gagarin’s personal belongings, including the Order of Lenin and Soviet highest decoration Hero of the Soviet Union.

A model of Luna-9. Luna-9 became famous when it softly landed on the Moon and send photos to the Earth on 3rd February, 1966. Thus it became the first man-made object that softly landed on other planetary object than Earth. The photographs provided a panoramic view of the nearby lunar surface. The pictures included views of nearby rocks and of the horizon. Perhaps the most important discovery of the mission was determining that a foreign object would not simply sink into the lunar dust, that is, that the ground could support a heavy lander.

Korolev’s office. Sergei Korolev was the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the Space race of ’50s and ’60s and viewed by many as Father of practical astronautics. Although Aircraft Designer by education he quickly became involved in rockets, examining captured German V-2 rockets, got involved in first intercontinental ballistic missiles and continued his work in ’50s and ’60s on Space Exploration programme until his early death in 1966.

Space Shuttle Buran with Energia stack. Unfortunately this amazing piece of engineering made only one flight into orbit in this configuration when the fall of Soviet Union cancelled further flights and marked the end of the Buran and Energia programmes.

A model of Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 connection. These two space craft were the first spacecraft to connect to eachother in space, which happened on 16th January 1969, a month and a half before the Apollo 9. The purpose of the mission was a connection of the two modules, transfer of both cosmonauts from S-5 to S-4 and safe return to the Earth aboard Soyuz-4. Since the transfer tunnel was not yet completed, both cosmonauts had to spacewalk to Soyuz-4. This attempt marked a significant step forward in Soviet Lunar programme.

Sokol-K space emergency suit worn by cosmonaut V.N. Kubasov. The suit was designed in 1973 for Soyuz crews and is still in use as of today. It is used during takeoffs and landings of spacecraft and is not intended for space walking. It’s main purpose would be to keep cosmonuat alive in the event of sudden depressurization.

Zvezda K-36RB – Buran variant of the famous K-36 ejection seat that is used in all modern Russian jet fighters and is regarded one of the best if not THE best ejection seat in the world. Unlike NASA’s Space Shuttle, which had a rescue hatch for emergency, Buran’s cosmonauts were equipped with ejection seats.

Heat protection is essential and the lack of it can prove catastrophic as Space Shuttle Colubia’s accident proved. Soviets were also designing various foam materials helping to defeat extreme heat during reentry of the Buran.

A model of Phobos probe. In July 1988, Soviet Union launched two probes named Phobos-1 and Phobos-2 towards Mars, exploring its Phobos and Deimos moons. Contact was lost with Phobos-1 enroute to Mars while Phobos-2 reached the Mars orbit, sent several dozen photos back to the Earth but unfortunately contact was lost before it could deploy its Phobos lander. It is of interesting fact that Phobos programme was a cooperation with 14 other countries including many of the Western Europe ones and United States.

Krechet space suit was designed in 1967 for Soviet lunar cosmonuats. Primary life support was guaranteed for 10 hours after which the elements had to be resupplied. The shelf life of such suit was only 48 hours of space operations.

Luna-16 was the first robotic space craft that landed on the Moon and sent  a soil sample back to the Earth and was preceeded only by NASA’s Apollo 11 and 12 manned excursions. It was launched on 13th September 1970 and reached Lunar orbit on 17th. It landed on 20th and send back 101 grams of lunar soil the next day.

Lunokhod-1 was the first lunar rover that landed on Moon in 1970 delivered by Luna-17. It was 2.3 meters long and its main purpose was scientific studies of Moon’s soil with its advanced sensors (X-rays, lasers,…) It was powered by batteries which were filled by solar energy. During the night, radioactive heater unit was used to keep all the deviced at normal temperatures. It was supposed to work for 3 months, but it actually worked for 11! Some trivia – distance travelled: 10.540m, more than 20.000 photos made, more than 200 high resolution panoramas and 25 analysis with X-ray fluorescence spectrometer and penetrometer used at more than 500 locations.

ZIL-29061 – a monster screw powered vehicle that uses a jet engine from Yak-40 for the power. This kind of vehicles were used to locate cosmonauts that landed in the Kazakh steppes. There’s some cool youtube movies out there of this monster worth checking out.

A diorama depicting cosmonauts Volkov, Krikalyov and Polyakov after Soyuz-TM 7 landing in April 1989. The crew was aboard Mir Space Station from November 1988 and due to the launch delays, left Mir unmanned. It is an interesting fact that they carried with them a radio casette of Pink Floyd’s latest album Delicate Sound of Thunder and so Pink Floyd became first rock music played in space. David Gilmour also recorded Soyuz-TM 7 launch at Baykonur for possible use in future Pink Floyd project.

Cosmonauts survival kit including flare gun, medications, machette, morfine, compass, whistle,… It could take some time before the cosmonauts were found and all of this equipment was essential for survival.

Orlan-DMA Space Suit – this suit was first used in 1988 on Mir Station and was used till the end of operations in 1997. Modified versions are still in use today on International Space Station as well as in Chinese space programme under a name Haiying.

A cutaway of a Il-76 model. Il-76 is a heavy transport plane but this particular variant is used for zero-G training. The flight looks as follows – aircraft flies steady at 6.5km the initiates a steep climb that lasts 20 seconds. This was followed by a slight push on the controls to maintain 0G and while passing 9kms of altitude flight transforms to a dive and a at certain moment a pull on the controls takes the aircraft to the initial 6.5km of altitude. 0G time lasts 30 seconds through this manuever.

Zenit 3M camera – this camera was operated by cosmonaut Viktor Patsayev. He was a Soyuz-11 member and operated a space observatory Orion-1 aboard Salyut-1 space station and thus became the first person to operate a telescope outside Earth’s atmosphere. Unfortunately after re-entry all the crew members were found dead when the capsule was found. Apparently a valve was released just prior to leaving the orbit, releasing the capsules atmosphere into space and suffocating the crew. Patsayev’s hand was bruised leading to possibility he tried to shut the valve manually before loosing consciousness.

A statue dedicated to Konstatin Tsiolkovsky – a Russian/Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of astronauthic theory. He is considered one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics and his work greatly influenced Koroloev and Glushko, thus having a big impact on development of Soviet/Russian space programme.

]]> http://vvsphotography.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/moscows-memorial-museum-of-space-exploration/feed/ 5 55.822888 37.639718 55.822888 37.639718 drtomcat 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 http://vvsphotography.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/zeltweg-aviation-museum/ http://vvsphotography.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/zeltweg-aviation-museum/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:21:33 +0000 Sebastijan Videc http://vvsphotography.wordpress.com/?p=2419 ]]>

We are greeted by Saab Safir trainer and Draken fighter at the front of the museum – there’s 5 Drakens there! And you can even sit in the cockpit of this one with little luck!

Passing the little gift shop at the entrance we are greeted with this view – didn’t even know Austrian AF used Yak-18s.

Texan – thousands of military pilots across the globe earned their wings on this legendary trainer.

A fairly recent addition to the museum as JetRangers were retired only a few years ago.

Saab J-29 Tunnan – the ‘Flying Barrel’ was fast and agile little fighter – besides Sweden, Austria was the only export operator of the type. Notice how similar the shape is to MiG-15 and F-86 – seems like they all copied their designs from someone

Austrocontrol Air Traffic Controllers position – the inscription says from 1999 till today, but I can safely say till 2013, as right these days, Austrocontrol is moving to a new place which will certainly have more modern workplace and stripless enviroment.

Another Draken! Futuristic shapes of this fighter jet set it apart from any other design of that era – hard to imagine it is a 1955 design!!!

Cessna O-1 Bird Dog was a light liasion and observation aircraft that served in various theaters around the globe, especially by the US Army in Vietnam. One even has a record of landing on US carrier USS Midway!

The end of Draken’s career in Austrian Air Force brought us these two special schemes.

H-13 Sioux – probably world known for its part in the M*A*S*H TV-series

A bit tight in space but defintely worth a visit with many interesting exhibits!

Police has special parking priviliges

The drink of ours and yours youth

WARNING – POISON!!!

Very reassuring warning post that Kalemegdan park is being sprayed with pesticides – a really healthy walk through park

Serbian love message – in translation “I love you, c*nt!”

I always enjoy watching interesting poses people make when taking photos

Bicycle parking – I don’t really recall seeing any in Belgrade

A mix of lanugages… and writings as well. Interesting though, tourist info center is in small cyrillic which I have trouble reading. Oh and is the signpost bent on purpose or an act of vandalism?

Night watch police station

Legendary Zastava 101

Serbian Indiana Jones

Belgrade (Beograd), capital of Serbia. It lies at the confluence of Sava and Danube rivers and is home to around 1.2 million people. Infamous from the recent history, the acting figures that started the wars over the territory of ex Yugoslavia, it has become a popular tourist destination now.

I’ve visited a lot of countries but I have never yet seen a jet aircraft (G-2 Galeb) mounted on a pole in the city center anywhere. There was also MiG-21 parked at the back of the building.

Stone mosaics on the wall of Belgrade ZOO. We all love Lemurs, don’t we?!

One of the entries to the mighty Kalemegdan fortress

Where Sava meets Danube

A view towards the newer part of the city across the Sava river.

Buildings inside the Kalemegdan fort

Statue of Victor (Pobednik) was erected in 1928 and stands inside the Kalemegdan complex.

There’s also quite a big open air exhibiton of old artillery and armour vehicles at the site, as well as War museum.

And as we could witness, a place is also very popular for weddings – while this couple was having a photo session, the next one was already waiting for its turn.

National Assembly (Parliament) building

Let me end this post at Skadarlija, a pedestrian-only street, full of bars and restaurants with live music.

The prices are cheap, the food is excellent (Serbs ARE BBQ champions of the world!) and the alcohol strong!

Winter is my favorite time of the year, and the more snow the merrier. Yesterday’s afternoon hike destination was Tamar glacier valley. We parked our car at Planica ski jumping parking and then proceeded by foot on a snow covered road to the Tamar mountain cabin. Here’s a few shots from the hike.