Japanese Zero - Very Rare WWII Plane

I was at the Omaka Aviation Museum in Blenheim last Saturday, which I am yet to blog about with the photos of the exhibits and a bit of a funny story. However with the Wanaka Air Show on, and the high media interest in the very rare Japanese Zero plane, I thought I would just post up some photographs that I managed to get, as one did a fly-by over the Museum while I was there.

I'm pretty pleased with my Canon 7D, AI Servo mode with fast shutter speed. To get these photos I just pointed the camera, panned it, and kept the shutter button down. I hoped to get at least one shot that might come out well. The first ones are slightly out of focus, but they got sharper as the plane got closer.

Number 1 shot - not that good, and number 2 and 3 I deleted as I only got the wing, not any of the plane!!

Number 4 shot - I was now able to pan it.  This plane was flying quite fast and this wasn't easy.

Number 5 shot - Almost can see the pilot, and now flying over the building.

Number 6 shot - flying over the building.  I wonder if the pilot waved?

Number 7 shot, managed to lift the lens up a bit and get the building out of the way.

Number 8 shot - you can see the pilot quite clearly now.  I was amazed that the propeller looks like it's not even turning, the shutter was so fast it simply froze it.

Number 9 shot - disappearing over the building and that was the last that I could take.  Note the Canon 7D does 8 frames per second, so this was probably just 1.5 seconds worth of images.

A little bit of information of the plane.  There are only 3 of these planes left that are able to fly in the world, so these photos are pretty special.  There were 11,000 made altogether.  They are famous for the devastation they caused at Pearl Harbour.  The aircraft were only built to be able to fly for 100 hours, then to be lost, either in combat or a crash.  (Don't the Japanese build cars like that too?)

Up to 1943, the Air Force had no equal, which is why they were so hard to shoot down.  The planes were ahead of their time, at the time.

This particular plane was found in Indonesia riddled with bullet holes, where it was patched up and taken to the USA where it has stayed ever since, before coming down here to take part in the Wanaka Air Show.

I was just lucky enough that it flew over the museum at the time I was there.  Talk about being at the right place at the right time for a change!!

Camera data for those that want it-

No. 1:  1/2000 sec at f14.0 300mm  ISO 800
No 4:   1/2000 sec at f16.0 300mm  ISO 800
No 5:   1/2000 sec at f16.0 300mm  ISO 800
No 6:   1/2000 sec at f13.0 300mm  ISO 800
No 7:   1/2000 sec at f14.0 300mm  ISO 800
No 8:   1/1600 sec at f14.0 300mm  ISO 800
No 9:   1/2000 sec at f16.0 300mm  ISO 800