While having done air to air sorties before, this certainly has been the absolute highlight of my photography 'career'. It took many months of hard work but I was extremely happy that when the day came, everything collaborated. The people at the 310th FS and 56th FW were marvelous and at the last minute we also received permission to fly over the main tourist spots in Arizona at lower altitude (Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Red Rocks). Especially GC can be restrictive due to the many civilian fixed wing and helicopter tourism flights in the area.
The 310th FS jet is flown by Lt. Col. Jon "Press" Wheeler, the 310th CO and our F-16D was flown by Lt. Col. Matt "Tooma" Liljenstolpe, the 56th TRS CO.
This flight almost did not happen as the we had a "Redball HUD" (aircraft malfunction) on start-up - leaving us without a HUD an thus a usable plane. As this sortie happened during the midst of the training cycle, we did not have the option to switch to a spare F-16D at short notice. Thanks to the awesome Viper crew chief, our jet was fully up and running in minutes again!
