I had the chance to go flying with some friends and bring my camera along this past weekend. I've gone flying with these guys before, it's always a blast. I got sick and almost puked while flying over downtown. I do fine in commuter planes, but in these little Cessna's with the constant moving in the wind and sharp turns...my stomach gets all goofy. I didn't throw up though, but I had a barf bag just in case. You can see all the photographs and the full story at my website www.queencitydisco.com

 

Here are some of my favorites:

-Gabe, his dad Isaac, and my buddy Bill check the oil before we take off from Blue Ash airport.

 

We took off from Blue Ash, I wasn't sick yet.

-Large houses with goofy man made lake next to them. These wouldn't be the nicest houses we saw from the air though...more on that later.

 

-Photo by Bill, houses with the blue tarps still have damage from when the remnants of Hurricane Ivan blew through in September.

 

Gabe, Bill, and I all met through www.kicentral.com, a KI fan site we contribute photos to and do work for (it's now owned by Cox publishing and sometimes stuff gets published). So our main goal in the flight was to photograph Kings Island which is constructing a new roller coaster: Diamondback. This 22 million dollar behemoth will stand 230 feet tall. So it was North to KI first:

 

-Bill photographing Kings Island.

 

Not wanting to waste time switching lenses I decided to arm myself with two cameras: My Canon 40d and My Olympus E500 (had to use it one last time before I sell it). The Canon was equipped with a 200mm f/2.8 lens and the Olympus with a 14-44mm f/3.5 lens. This made switching from wide to tight very easy.

 

-Kings Island's Eifel Tower and the Son of Beast roller coaster. The tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster on earth!

 

Fun Fact: The Son of Beast is 218 ft. tall, I've climbed to the top of it twice, my legs have never been so sore.

 

-Eifel Tower and Diamondback under construction.

 

-The Racer roller coaster.

 

After four circles around the park we moved on and the first wave of "tummy dragons" set in a.k.a. grab the barf bag, breathe slowly and pray for the best.

 

We did a fly by over the pilot's friends house who lives in a "Gated Airport Community." Yes, this man has a large house, a garage for his cars, and a garage for his airplane. Yes, his airplane. And it all leads up to a private grass runway. We flew over his house, he waved to us, then radioed up to us and told us to meet him for lunch at the Clermont airport. That happened to be where we were headed next, Clermont County.

 

In Batavia, Ohio there is a plant called Clermont Steel Fabrications. This company manufactures all the track for the roller coaster design firm: B&M. B&M just so happens to be building Kings Island's Diamondback roller coaster. So we flew over head to see if any track was laying around the plant:

 

-Some track at CSF waiting to be shipped, laying on a flat bed.

 

-East Fork Lake near Batavia.

 

We landed at Clermont County's airport for lunch, meeting the gentleman whose house we flew over.

 

Fun Fact: At Clermont County Airport they provide free hot dogs for pilots and their guests.

 

 

We ate lunch and watched some T-6 Texan ww2 era planes take off and land. For any aviation nuts out there, these planes will be flying in formation over the Veterans Day parade in Mt. Healthy on Tuesday.

 

And in case you were wondering: I ate three free hot dogs. Yeah, I know, not the best idea for the guy who gets sick in airplanes, but they were FREE HOT DOGS!

 

Ok, I promise, now on to Cincinnati:

 

We got back in the plane and headed for downtown Cincinnati. After getting clearance from Lunken Airport we entered Cincinnati's Class D airspace:

 

-Passing over Lunken.

 

-Ohio River and suburbs on the way towards Cincinnati.

 

-Over Mt. Adams

 

-The Banks making little progress.

 

-The Center City

 

-Queen City of the Midwest!

 

-Queen City Square under construction.

 

 

 

 

-Clifton and UC.

 

-Suburban Sprawl and the one little glimpse of the sun we got.

 

We headed North out of the city and landed back at Blue Ash. No puke, good times, and the best photos I've taken from the air. I lost my aerial photos from 2006 and my photos from last year were low quality.

 

Hope you enjoyed these. If you'd like to see more or want to read about the problems I had with the hot dogs and flying over Cincy check out the latest update at www.queencitydisco.com

 

P.S. Since posting these on other sites I've had a few people asking me about buying prints. If anyone is interested in purchasing a print of a photograph contact me at [email protected]. I'm still at school for awhile until break and able to use resources through my program to make high quality affordable prints.

 

 

 

Cool.  I havent been to KI in a decade.

Your aerial tours of Cincinnati are always appreciated. Great set Gordon.

 

Queencitydisco just got added to my favorites as well.

Awesome set!  KI's Diamondback looks like it will be a blast...

You owe me a new pair of pants.

The East Fork Lake shot is gorgeous.  Thanks.

Great shots! Sounds like seicer made up for your not puking, only in the other direction. :laugh:

Very nice shots of OTR and the UC area!

Nicely done! I like the shot of the river with the highrises in the foreground, and Walnut Hills in the background

Fantastic shtos (of KI)!

Did they take out Le Taxis?  After they took out the Flying Eagles, I had no use for Kings Island and haven't been there since maybe 95 or 96. 

Thanks for the comments everyone (and Seicer sorry about the pair of pants). I agree, Diamondback is going to be one amazing ride.

 

jmecklenborg, unfortunately the Les Taxis gave their final rides in 2004. Which sucks, because the taxis were one of the nicest areas of the park but they had only been running one side since about 1997. In the winter of 2004 the Les Taxis and Flying Eagles were removed to make room for the Italian Job: Stunt Track, a highly themed family roller coaster based on the film the Italian Job. It's a neat little ride but the special effects never really worked right and the taxis sure were better. The eagles were moved to Carowinds down on the NC/SC border where they operate today as Danny Phantom's Phantom Flyers.

AWESOME shot! I hope you're feeling better now too!

fantastic shots.

these are so cool. very ironman of you to get them when even tho you were feeling sick up there!  :clap:

Oh, fantastic!  I haven't been here for a while, but wow, what a great thread to come back to!  Lord, I love this city - and your shots are stunning!