The Grand Canyon. Every picture tells a story. It was so cold, we didn’t want take our gear off. The Grand Canyon was truly spectacular.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This was 7.30 in the morning, the serious gambler’s were all still in bed. They’d probably been gambling all night.
Top Gun. Without any shadow of a doubt, the moment of the whole trip! Absolutely bloody spectacular! It was by any stretch of the imagination an absolutely unbelievable experience. We’d taken shots of the rock formations in Death Valley and then headed off towards a small town called Ridgecrest. As we went along, I decided to take some flyby shots of the other two. So I raced ahead, got off the bike and waited for them to come by. They went by and I got really good shots of them and then to my amazement I could see a fighter jet swinging round within the valley. I lifted up my iPhone, I thought I’m gonna shoot this and to my astonishment the pilot swung round and headed straight for me. This is when I first saw him. He went lower and lower, I just couldn’t believe it and he shot over just fractionally to the left of me. I had a helmet on and earplugs in, the noise was unbelievable. If I was Taliban, I’d have shit myself. The ground shook, my whole body vibrated and it felt like all the ribs in my rib cage rattled as he flew over. I wondered if the blast from the exhaust would blow me and the bike over. I seriously had to steady myself, it was a real blast but it was all ok. Then he banked left and swung around to my left, fantastic. I watched as it silhouetted against the sky and went back along the valley. Then, he banked to his left again and brought it round again! With the first pass, I felt incredibly lucky to be in the right place at the right time. With the second pass I knew, it was deliberate. There were no cars, no pickup trucks, no semiiii trucks, no telegraph poles. Nothing to stop this pilot having a bit of fun. The pilot must have seen me get off the bike and position myself to get a flyby shot of the other two bikes and thought; ‘I’ll give him a fly by’. We… had…our own…private….fly past! I learnt later that they often practice along Death Valley and apparently it’s one of the few places where they can actually break the speed of sound overland in the USA. Thank God he wasn’t doing that. The pilot brought it round and dropped lower and lower and lower. This time he positioned it exactly over the road and headed straight for me. In fact, if you look at the shot you’ll see there’s a slight ridge. He was so low that he actually had to come up to come over that ridge towards me. I just couldn’t believe it. I’m not exaggerating, the guy positioned this plane like he was driving a four-wheel-drive pickup truck and drove straight down the road at me. I was looking at him and he was looking at me. I was astonished, I couldn’t believe that he could get this thing so low, he was just a few feet off the ground, hardly any higher than the roof of a pickup truck. That low! You could see road dust getting blown into the air behind him. As he got near me, he pulled up a little higher and flew over the top of my head. I waved at him and shouted and hollered ‘like an American would’. The blast was even greater this time but I was more prepared for it and anyway, I was lost in the moment. I spun round and watched him go down the road over the next slight ridge and then dip out of sight. Gone! Apparently he went straight over Pedro and Laughing Boy and then he put the afterburners on just to finish things off. What a show! He must have chuckled to himself. Pedro said with the afterburners on, the noise was so incredible and he was just gone in a flash. Not only that, Pedro is pretty deaf. There was no missing it. I got on the bike and shot off to catch them up, they were just down the road. We were all so excited. In the excitement of the moment I used my fingers to zoom in and it must’ve cut the camera. I thought I had it all on camera but to my absolute dismay, I didn’t. To say I felt gutted in the evening when I played it back would be an understatement. I do have fractions of it on video but it was just the bits where the plane was a lot further away and with the wideness of the lens it makes it look like a microdot whereas with a naked eye you could see it quite easily. Nonetheless it was a privilege and I have to say something I would have thought could never possibly have happened in the UK, we don’t have the space. I know they do training missions up valleys but there is enough room within Death Valley for this guy to swing round and come by again. I’ve always loved motorbikes but I’ve always loved planes too. It was just an unbelievable experience that I will never ever forget for the rest of my life and I will be eternally grateful to the pilot.
The Grand Canyon shots are ‘awesome’ as the yanks would say. There’s a fair few ‘rednecky’ type environments in post #92 though, I hope they don’t turn you. You’ll be buying a Ford F150 and shipping it home next, probably full of Budweiser and hot dogs.
Depends how quick he is on getting them home and how quickly the UK will raise tarriffs in a retaliatory fashion.
I found the food in the US generally good quality, reasonably priced and overly large portions. But rarely anything with any zest or excitement. Sitting here thinking about my five years living in the States, I can't recall a single meal that was a full blown "ohmigod must eat that again" moment. Plenty of good meals but... Maybe Lox bagels in NYC, or Hot Pastrami & blue cheese subs in St Petes!
You’re right, that was it, a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, single seat fighter. Thanks v much. I looked it up, only $150 million a pop and upwards of 140 decibels it’s one of the loudest. Also, a mere $85000/hour to run. Apparently there aren’t that many of them because of the cost and in California they’re based at Edwards airforce base.
They stopped the F22 program because was basically decades ahead of it’s time, it can wipe out anything in the air before they even realised it was there and far too advanced to sell to any other nation. A really fortunate thing to get to see considering how few were actually built
