N836D —

I love this photo. I think that photos of these big old prop birds in flight are best when you can see the props spinning. How did you do that? Did you take this digitally or on film? Did you use a light reducing filter to slow the exposure?
-RPH

Thank you Richard, I appreciate it. No special filter was used. I was aiming to get the props spinning as much as possible for the shot by shooting at a slow shutter speed while panning but you greatly risk having a blurry aircraft when you do that and I hate that when it happens. A couple of shots in the same takeoff sequence that I took were indeed blurry and unusable but this one came out just fine along with a few others. The shot is digital using a Nikon D300 with a Nikon 300mm f4 lens so the crop factor would be equivalent to 450mm.

The aircraft is currently (May 2014) at the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, NC USA.

one of the prettiest birds Eastern ever flew. Saw this at KTEB in person about 4 years ago. A real act of love in the restoration.

Great capture Don. Very hard to get it all together whilst the subject is crossing in front of the stationery shooter. Great lighting on the prop discs.

Not only is this picture amazing but I love the background info on the aircraft!!!
Very nice

Don great photo!!! What shutter speed did you use? What a beauty.

The days when folks dressed up to flight and were served with real dinner ware…I have pictures of my mum and dad dressed up just to fly…what a concept huh…Love this picture and brings back some good memories.

I usually cruise by Opa Locka field when visiting my MIL just to see what interesting aircraft are parked there. Can find some interesting specimens. Didn't know this was based there, however.

Oh, by the way, I've seen this a/c across the field from my work (USAirways-CLT) at our museum hangar.

There is a 9 minute video on YouTube of Sully and Jeff Skiles getting their 2nd in command type ratings for the DC-7. It is a very interesting video on how the engines have the exhaust reclaimers that give extra horse power and just other great stuff. If you get the time and are a fan of the DC-7, watch it. Just type in Sully, DC-7 and it will be the first video that comes up. It's 8:59. Very short video but interesting.

a wonderful capture

Great!! ;-)

Can't thank you enough for posting this. Is this out of OPF? That place is a plane spotter dream! There must be 70 years of aviation history there. As a kid, my mom (a travel agent) and I used to get bumped up to 1st class between Chicago (MDW) and Charlotte on Eastern. Four and one-half hours of pure joy (later reduced to one and a half in a semi-elevator ride-still loved it!). How does a kid remember "prop adjust?"-one on sensory overload, that's who. How does one put into words the thrill of the run-up on the DC-7, plus the Connies and Super-Connies? My heart still skips a beat when I hear a large reciprocal engine overhead, especially if it's multi-engine. Again, thanks for the "blast from the past!" Propman46

DC-7B N836D (c/n 45345) was delivered to Eastern Air Lines on January 23, 1958
SUPER THANK YOU! to everyone who help keep these Ol birds flying. Nice resto
nice pic

这架飞机虽然已经很老，但还很精神