While other photographers have experienced photo missions from the back seat of the Viper, Reyno’s experiences have come from the back of the T-Bird. (Canada still maintains a fleet of twenty-seven
T-33s.)

“At a Canadian NORAD region exercise over northern Labrador, another photographer and I had to flip for the back seat of the T-Bird. I won the toss and he had to ride the jump seat in a Challenger. (CF-18s, B-1s, B-52s, T-Birds and Challengers, and CC-137 tanker aircraft were also taking part in the exercise.) Before we could photograph any of the other aircraft, we had to simulate an in-bound cruise missile ‘launched’ off the wing of a Challenger that was simulating a Bear bomber.

“We go in tight under the wing of the Challenger at 25,000 feet, which then called for the launch. We go negative g and head for the deck. As we descend rapidly, I lose communication with my pilot. No one told me what I should do if I couldn’t speak to him. Do I shake the stick? Wave in the mirrors? So, I do the funky chicken, waving in the mirror to let him know I lost comms but that I’m okay. Seeing this, the pilot thinks I’ve gone hypoxic and declares an airborne emergency. He heads back to Goose Bay. As we near the base, the pilot can finally hear me cursing in the back as I look up and see all of the jet streams joining formation at the rendezvous point for the photo shoot. ‘I thought you went hypoxic,’ he said. ‘You should have passed me a note.’ We didn’t have enough gas to catch up, so we had to land. I missed the perfect opportunity to shoot all these USAF aircraft with Canadian aircraft all in one place. I may have won the toss, but I lost the photo to the guy in the Challenger.”