San Francisco’s annual Fleet Week air show wouldn’t be the same without Sean Tucker, a living legend in the airshow and aerobatic flying communities. He’s been flying airshows worldwide since the mid 1970’s, has won numerous aerobatic competitions, and has flown more than 1,275 performances at more than 525 airshows in front of more than 135 million fans (and counting).
I’ve been honored to work with Sean and Team Oracle on a few occasions over the years, including for Fleet Week, and for the 2016 show he wanted us to fly a late afternoon solo shoot, taking advantage of the golden light as the sun set west of the city.
SF is known for fog, half the time the show can’t even fly because the visibility is too low, but the day of our shoot (and really the whole week) the weather cooperated beautifully, so off we went.
“I like to think that I bring the fans’ dreams of flying into the plane with me and there’s nowhere I’d rather be than in the cockpit,” says Tucker.
Below, take a behind the scenes look at what a photo flight with Sean is like.
[youtube id=”qVfedOkrNYA” width=”800″ height=”454″ position=”left”]
Watch for the Breitling Jet team to photobomb us over the Golden Gate Bridge.
Tucker is an honorary Blue Angel and one of the Living Legends of Flight, an elite group of aviators and astronauts that includes General Jimmy Doolittle, General “Chuck” Yeager, and John Glenn.
Check out the full photo gallery HERE.
.
– Follow Mike Killian on Instagram and Facebook, @MikeKillianPhotography
.
