Take a quick look at the Great American Eclipse flight from beginning to end
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#WhereisExtreme
Back with an easy one. At least everyone should be able to get the aircraft.
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9 hours ago
🕛 A Look Back
I came across this shot taken back in 2006 with an old Canon Powershot somewhere over the middle of Afghanistan. I noticed it while sifting through all the old photos on my hard drive. Someone had asked me if the strange probe thing off the cockpit was a mirror or a sensor of some sort. Well it is most assuredly a mirror. It gives a kind of crappy view back to see if you're producing contrails (being in a turn helps). Depending on the conflict, that might be some important information. The big hump is a datalink.
But the real reason I have my old hard drives out is that I'm trying to find and catalogue all my old photos up the present. This is the first step in me writing my first photo book. It's still a ways off but it's something I want to work on over the next year. I want it to be a mix of some of my best photos, and some of my best stories about flying the U-2 and being a pilot in the USAF for 20 years. It's something that I've looked forward to for awhile and now I'm taking the first steps to making it happen.
So I want to hear from you. What sorts of things do you think should be in an Extreme Ross photo book? What it's like to fly it? To suit up? To get your ass chewed for going skiing in Dubai (true story)? Let me know.
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1 week ago
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#whereisextreme
Aircraft and location, Go!
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1 month ago
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#whereisextreme
A change of pace for sure. Guess the location and aircraft
BTW, I'll end up posting the answers to all of these in the comments from now on, after people have had a chance to vote.
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1 month ago
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#whereisextreme
So the last #whereisextreme was tough. A lot of good guesses and some were narrowing in on it. A lot of you guessed it was taken from the first officer position of a United 737. Usually I provide the clues in the replies to comments so keep an eye out. Somewhere in the western hemisphere, south of the US, that United 737's fly, right near the coast. Also a clue I gave someone is that the country is home to lots of US expats.
Soooo....The last picture was taken while turning final into Liberia, Costa Rica. Not a bad place to go.
This week's picture shifts gears to another part of the world. Can you guess it? Aircraft and location.
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2 months ago
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#whereisextreme
So the last #whereisextreme was pretty easy. Everyone and their mother told me it was Mt St Helens. Some knew it was shot from the north with Hood and Jefferson in the background. It was also from a T-38A although there weren't any clues that pointed to that.
So this one will be much trickier and require some internet sleuthing. Here are some clues:
It's not in the USA
It's turning final approach to land
Most likely, you haven't been here
Some of the answers to your questions exist in other places on my website extremeross.com or on my Instagram/Facebook pages
Good luck. Guess the place, the aircraft and airline
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2 months ago
❔❔🌎#whereisextreme
(in)famous mountain
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2 months ago
❔❔🌍#whereisextreme
So just to give a taste of the other end of the spectrum. The first #whereisextreme was really easy. This one, I think will get some head scratching but I'm sure some will get it. We'll see who reads prior comments and replies
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3 months ago
#whereisextreme
For as long as I've shown people my photos, a common reaction has always been for people to guess what they are looking at in the photo. Sometimes I could tell them and sometimes not. So I'm starting a regular feature called #whereisextreme. These won't come with any lengthy explanations (except maybe later in the comments). They could be from a U-2, T-38, 737, or even other surprise aircraft. There will be some kind of distinguishing features in the photo (not a photo of clouds over the ocean). Also, these will always be a location I can freely divulge. Guessing correctly will award you fame and adoration. Maybe I'll keep track and award real prizes sometime in the future.
Starting off, I'm giving an easy one (they won't all be like this). Guess the location and aircraft for bonus points.
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3 months ago
Synergy! It's a stupid buzz word the Air Force loved to throw around throughout my 20 years there (plus 4 bonus years at the Air Force Academy). It was something that organizations were supposed to strive for. Just get ABC organization to work with XYZ and you'll create synergy. That is, you'll create effects that the two of you working independently would never be able to achieve. A "greater than the sum of the parts" kind of idea.
But it was always something that was just somehow supposed to arise on an organizational level. One of my frequent complaints while active was that people would often hide decisions behind the organization. "We can't do that request because the CAOC denied it." No, there's some dude or dudette there, that I may or may not know who decided that, probably without all the facts. Let's have an honest conversation with the people responsible.
But get some people talking from distant organizations, sharing ideas, and that's when you see the real magic. There was a group in the U-2 who knew our sensors, the pilots, and all of the vast groups of people processing and exploiting the data could be used in ways not yet dreamed of. Not senior leaders but individuals, experts in their fields, came together, honestly sharing ideas, worked out the details, and suddenly a 60 year old airplane outfitted with state of the art equipment, is being used in ways nobody intended. This is one of the primary reasons why the U-2 is still relevant today.
There is a tiny black dot in the center of this photo. That is another U-2, a few thousand feet lower and about a mile away, flying over a nice deserty area in the east. So why are two U-2 flying so close together on mission???
Well...that's synergy
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3 months ago
🌎⚡⛈️ (Attempting a repost since it failed the first time) A little St. Elmo's Fire. I thought this was cool. This was last month cruising through the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) just north of Ecuador on my way from Quito to Houston in a 737. It's an area where the trade winds meet all the heat and humidity of the tropics cause lots of continuous convective storms.
We were going through a gap between two large thunderstorm cells when we started getting this St. Elmo's fire. Its plasma that forms due to the jet flying through electrically charged clouds. Although it can be concerning when you first see it, it's not really dangerous. Notice the crackling noise it makes as well. Definitely wasn't something I experienced back in the U-2, when I spent my time looking down on clouds and thunderstorms.
3 months ago
11 years ago, at the end of Mustache March. I was going for my very best Robin Olds impression. I was also nearing the end of my year as the Black Cat Assistant Director of Operations in Korea. It was a damn long year with lots of surprises by Kim Jong Il to make sure we never had a holiday to rest.
The old Dear Leader may have prevented fun but he couldn't stop mustache growth (much to my wife's dismay). Here's to all my Black Cats and all deployed folks sticking their neck out during these trying times. Cheers.
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5 months ago