MKopack

I caught the 'aviation bug' early in life, from my Dad, Mike Sr. My first airshow was at Hancock Field in 1970, at the age of two, standing under the wings of the "Boys from Syracuse's" F-86H's. The variety of aircraft through the 70's and 80's was incredible, during base visits I found myself on active flightlines with F-100's, F-101's, CF-104's, F-105's F-106's, EB-57's, RF-8, and just about every form of F-4 imaginable, even a CF-100 and an Argus (for those of you up north of the border...)



I moved into photography in 1980 as Dad passed his old Argus Cosina down to me. My first show was Andrews that year and as a twelve year old photographer I ended up following the SR-71's Crew Chief through his inspection, with JP-7 soaking through my shoes. The sky wasn't great, but the Vulcan put on an incredible display. I still have some photos from that day. All of those years up at London, and Dayton, and Hamilton, and Trenton, and... It doesn't get any better than that...



...or does it? I took my love for aviation to the Air Force after school - carrying the same Canon A-1 I use today. I became a Crew Chief on F-16's, based first at MacDill AFB in Tampa (where I had my first photos published, Koku-Fan, French Mirages on the way to Red Flag) and Torrejon AB, just outside of Madrid, Spain. While based in Spain I deployed with the 401TFW(P) / 614TFS "Lucky Devils" to Doha, Qatar during Operations Desert Shield and Storm, which gave me experience working the CF-18's and Mirage F.1EDA's. Just imagine 16 Vipers, 16 Hornets and 4 Mirages fully bombed up and armed to the teeth, lined up on the runway doing MITO launches - that's where we were in Doha. After the AF, I worked KC-10's, P-3's and C-130's for Lockheed Martin, but still miss my fighters...



I'm still a film dinosaur, using my tried and true A-1, which has never let me down from -30F to 130+F and thousands of rolls of film. Over the years I've had the opportunity to work shows and visit bases from Selfridge MI to Paris, France and from Brunswick, ME to Key West, FL and have had the privilege to work alongside many of the best aviation photographers in the world.