It's not that I'm a great photographer, it's just that clouds and sunsets are so neat that any decent picture can be awesome. Below are some of my sunset and cloud pictures, most of which were only possible because I was flying at the time. They're all different (unless it's perfectly clear), so I have to make sure I don't miss one...

March 10, 2010, in southern Tennessee. The description for this flight is very similar to the one below, just a few weeks apart is all. It's amazing how much this looks like waves coming in on the beach...

The day I took this was cold, dreary, overcast, windy, and rainy. The ceilings lifted a bit late in the day and the sun started peeking out west of town, so I decided I'd go fly a little. I went to the hangar, messed around with a few things hoping the 90 degree crosswind would die down a bit... then checked outside and the wind was still blowing, still cold, and simply no fun at all. So I decided I'd just fly another day. I drove about three miles down the road and thought "why not...it'll be good practice, at least". So I drove back, rolled the plane out, and took off. I got on top of the cloud deck at 5000' and what a magical sight. All blue sky, and the sensation of speed at 180 mph just above the clouds is amazing. The tops of the clouds were painted orange, and it was as if I were flying low over the ocean. The screws you see on my cowling are in the center of the airplane, so I was in a 45 degree bank or so when I took this.

Dreary as it was, it was one of the best times I've had flying in a while...

Not exactly a sunset, but a nice view of the light snow they got recently up near Suwannee Tennessee at the end of January.

Fall of 2009 over the Appalachian foothills in eastern Tennessee.

This is a sunrise over Lake Michigan, as I was flying south from Oshkosh 2009, maybe half way to Chicago. I was at 10,500' so I could fly over Chicago's Class B airspace without having to talk to ATC. The sun is way up at the top and almost white, so the orange you see is a reflection off the waters of the lake, through fog extending over the lake.

Taken over middle Tennessee June 16, 2009, loitering along at 139 mph true airspeed sipping fuel at the rate of 3.05 gph (that's 46 mpg), waiting for the perfect sunset picture. Of course I had to take 300 more to get this one. I knew it was going to be a good day for sunsets...it was hazy with just a few clouds. The convenient thing about taking sunset pictures from the air is that you have a lot of flexibility in how you "arrange" the clouds!

April 11th, 2009, over southern Tennessee. It was cloudy with 1000' ceilings and high winds all day, but things started clearing just before sunset, so I did a little flying.

North of Fayetteville, Tennessee - April 4th, 2009

March 7, 2009, over Hazel Green, Alabama

This is the hills of southern Tennessee just before sunset, January of 2009.

Taken just south of Huntsville "Jetport" looking east toward Wheeler Dam, which is covered by clouds over the river. November 1, 2008 from 10,500', just after sunrise. My wife loves this one.

October 15, 2008 - This one is my favorite of them all, so far. I can stare at this picture and keep seeing things going on in there. This one's my screen saver on all my computers, and is hanging on the wall in my living room...

I took this over Nashville, late in the day, at about 7500'.

It's just another dumb cloud picture, but I took this one on the way back from my father's farm one Sunday afternoon. I took it just above the scud layer at about 9500', which made the clouds look a little like icebergs. I like to fly up there because it's smooth, cool, clear, and I can glide a long way. I may fly a cheap little homebuilt, but as a camera plaform, it works pretty well.

I really didn't feel like flying the day I took this, but by the time I landed, I was just fine!

I took this on the way to Sun n Fun 2008, roughly over eastern Alabama. It was early morning, but you can see the ominous buildup of three thunderheads in the right side of the picture.

I took this picture in April of 2007 in Perth, Australia. That's the Indian Ocean, in case you're wondering.

This plume of vapor coming up through the overcast is a powerplant, which produces hotter vapor than the clouds, so it punches through the overcast in the shape of this plume. OK, it's not a sunset, but much closer to a sunrise.

This looks like something out of a science fiction movie.

This is the beginning of a thunderhead. I watched this form for over an hour, from hundreds of miles away. I was at 12,000' when I took this picture, and had just learned a valuable lesson about flying in clouds. Clouds can outclimb an airplane in the summer, and you can end up stuck inside one that way!

Here you can see how easy it is to dodge rain while flying. Just dodge the black and gray stuff, and go the other way when you see lightning!

A nuclear powerplant, I think.

These swiggles of vapor are caused by a gentle breeze blowing them downwind. If you were to see this smokestack from the side, the vapor would all be horizontal, because it rose to an inversion layer which was warmer than the vapor, so the vapor couldn't rise anymore and was forced to go downwind without climbing. This was early in the morning, headed to Sun N Fun from my father's grass strip, somewhere over southwest Georgia.

This is one of those enchanted days where you just have to be amazed at how cool flying can be. This is over the Tennessee river at the bridge on US231, just south of Huntsville, looking west toward Decatur.

The bright spot that you might think is the sun is actually a reflection of the sun off the bottom of the clouds. The sun had set about 20 minutes earlier. This is where a camera with an ISO rating of 800 comes in handy, as well as some smooth flying air. I took this on downwind while landing at Hazel Green. It truly was a lucky "snapshot", but I'll confess at having deliberately waited for the opportunity before I landed.

Lake Guntersville, Alabama, just off the end of the runway.

This is a phenomenon that only pilots and mountain climbers get to see. It's the opposite of one of those sunsets with the rays going everywhere. These rays appear to converge on the ground, but in reality it's just a case of the same kind of parallax you see in sunsets, but you are looking at them as they pass, sort of like looking down railroad tracks. The small choppy clouds is what makes this possible. In the other direction (toward the sun) there were more of the clouds, which left a few holes for sunlight, which produced the shafts of light that appeared to converge on the ground.

The I-65 bridge over the Tennessee River, just east of Decatur, Alabama. I've driven over that bridge many times, and I can tell you the view isn't nearly as good from the bridge!

Another nice picture of Guntersville Lake in NE Alabama, maybe 20 NM from Huntsville. The Guntersville airport is in the last place you'd expect to see it in this picture...the thin strip of land you see in the foreground, slightly to the right of center. I took this picture after an hour of riding the KR hard, doing one of those those tree-top level 160 mph tours of the Tennessee River. It was a very "satisfying" flight...

A quick late-day trip to Tullahoma, December of 2007. I took over 250 pictures during the 30 minutes of flying. Yes, I might have a little problem with photography...I have to take a few "extras" to get a good one!

I took this over Hazel Green airport in north Alabama. I was hanging lights in my hangar and noticed the orange sky. The plane was already outside and pointed in the direction of the runway, so I trotted out with the camera, climbed up to 4000', and took this picture.

Rain over Decatur and the Tennessee River.

This was about a half hour after sunset, with a thunderstorm about 3 miles to the south.

Contact Mark Langford (if you must) at N56ML "at" hiwaay.net (replace the "at" with @)

Return to www.N56ML.com.