Doug Matthews and his crew at Classic Fighters of America recently completed a yearslong restoration of an F86 Sabre fighter jet in Central FL, one of the most iconic military aircraft in history. The aircraft served in the U.S. Air Force initially, before being reconditioned for service in Argentina. It joined the Argentine Air Force as ‘C119’ in November, 1960, and flew with that nation until being withdrawn from use in 1986. Around 1989 it was reimported back to the USA, passing through a number of owners before being acquired by Matthews in 2013.

Being an aviation aerial photographer, we decided to time our shoot for the window of a rocket launch on March 1, 2022, as a ULA Atlas V rocket was slated to launch NOAA's latest weather satellite GOEST from Cape Canaveral. With mostly clear skies and an all GO forecast given 30 minutes before launch, we hopped in the jets & took off, hoping the launch wouldn't delay since we only had gas for about 45 minutes.

The launch went off at the opening of its window, with us at the edge of the restricted air space flying 11,000 ft at 250 knots.

A huge thanks to Doug Matthews and my friend and pilot Scott Farnsworth, aerial aviation photography is a true team effort, everyone needs to do their part or the whole thing falls apart.

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More information on Doug Matthews

https://classicfighters.org/matthews

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