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Photo By John Rossino

By Jeff Rhodes Posted 16 April 2015

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Code One Magazine

The photos that follow are thirty-one of Lockheed Martin photojournalist John Rossino’s favorite photos—one for, not necessarily from, each of his years as the company public relations photographer—and his thoughts on why these images were special to him.31. Marietta, Georgia, 2014: “This shot of a Tunisian C-130J getting ready to launch was the last major set up shot I did for Lockheed Martin. This took a lot of time to set up and required a lot of coordination. I wanted the stars streaking to show movement of the earth to indicate there’s a Herk airborne somewhere in the world every minute of the day.”

30. Marietta, Georgia, 2012: “This is actually thirty-two images of the F-22 layered together. We had to put this shoot together quickly and didn’t have enough lighting. So, we lit the walls separately and took pictures; then we lit under the aircraft; then the top of the aircraft. We put all the images together at the end.”

29. Greenville, South Carolina, 2012: “Jeff Patnaude, my lighting guy, had an app on his iPad that told him where the sun was going to set. We had the crew park the P-3 where the app said to put it. I wasn’t so sure, particularly when a storm rolled through. When the sky cleared and the sun went down, the sun was right behind the aircraft.”

28. Marietta, Georgia, 2010: This was the last time all the final assembly positions for the F-22 Raptor were filled. I used a fisheye lens and I just like the way the whole line wraps around.”

27. Andøya, Norway, 2012: “I wanted a different kind of takeoff shot, so I moved away from the side of the runway. I got the grass around the runway in the foreground and mountain range in the background. This is just a pretty shot.”

26. Marietta, Georgia, 1997: “This was the first fit check in the F-22 Radar Cross Section Verification building. It’s actually the full-scale F-22 paint model. In the RCS building, the aircraft is mounted on pylons and hung from the ceiling by a very big Kevlar rope. It’s spun around on a forty-four foot diameter turntable and the radar returns are measured from every angle.”

25. Over the Gulf of Mexico, 2010: “There are not a lot of P-3 formation shots, and probably even fewer of two US Customs and Border Protection Orions together.” This formation, known as a Double Eagle, shows a Dome, or Airborne Early Warning aircraft, along with a Slick, or Long Range Tracker, P-3.”

24. Over Arizona, 2007: “This was for a Code One feature. It was one of the first MV-22 Osprey drags across the country. We flew in a KC-130J from MCAS Miramar, California, to Cherry Point, North Carolina, but had to stay below 19,000 feet the whole trip because the Ospreys aren’t pressurized. We flew a zig-zag route across the country trying to avoid weather. A flight that should have taken several hours pretty much took all day.”

23. Dobbins ARB, Georgia, 2008: “This is Maj. ‘Max’ Moga, the F-22 Demonstration Team pilot, showing what the Raptor can do at an airshow. I like this shot because you can see the aircraft in afterburner, the glint off the canopy, and the condensation forming on the Raptor’s wings during a vertical climb.”

22. Dover AFB, Delaware, 2009: “This was the delivery of the first operational C-5M Super Galaxy to Dover AFB, Delaware. We had big spotlights set up in the hangar, but even they couldn’t overpower Mother Nature. In this case, the ceremony was second to the aircraft itself, so it’s kind of appropriate that the aircraft is in focus and the people are in silhouette.”

21. Caracas, Venezuela, 1998: “During the C-130J World Tour, the team made multiple flights per day, showing off the C-130J to government and military officials. This was natural light just before the first launch of the day.”

20. Over the Gulf of Mexico, 2011: “We were weathered out, so our flight with US Customs and Border Patrol out of Corpus Christi, Texas, got delayed until late in the day. As it turned out, the delay worked out, because this image was natural light at sunset. Really.”

19. Near Tucson, Arizona, 2009: “This was for another Code One feature. We were in Tucson, Arizona, for the annual MAFFS [Modular Airborne Firefighting System] training. We were in the mountains looking down at the drop zone and looking over our shoulders because we had been told there were mountain lions in the area.”

18. Marietta, Georgia, 2003: “It always struck me as odd that the high-tech F-22 was painted [Editor’s note: coated, actually] by hand. There are eleven people in this photo and it looks like they all work for Earl Scheibe.”

17. Over North Carolina, 1994: “This was a good day at work. We rented a Learjet with a permanent camera mount and shot our JPATS [Joint Primary Aircraft Training System] competitor, the Aermacchi MB-339, over the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina. We flew over to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, landed, and had lunch by the beach. Then we took photos of the MB-339 over the ocean and flew home. We got photos at sunrise and at sunset that day.”

16. Marietta, Georgia, 2010: “This was the perfect storm. Everything just came together to make this formal portrait of an HC-130J happen. People from all parts of the plant came out at 5:00 a.m. because they wanted to help.”

15. Raven Skiway, Greenland, 2004: “For Code One, we flew to Greenland with the 109th Airlift Wing, the Ski-Herk Air Guard unit in New York. Raven Skiway is the training field for the LC-130 crews, and the abandoned Dye II DEW [Distant Early Warning] radar site is the only landmark. We were in the middle of nowhere. It felt like we were standing in the middle of the ocean.”

14. Over Georgia, 2012: “This was only the second time I ever got to fly chase on fighters. These were the last two Raptors built. They were piloted by Bret Luedke, our company pilot, and Lt. Col. "Trigger" Wallace, who was the government pilot in Marietta, and I had worked with both of them for several years, so that made it even more special.”

13. NAS Jacksonville, Florida, 2004: “This is a case of being in the exact right place at the exact right time. This P-3 crew was coming through the birdbath to wash the salt water off after a mission and I got this image. Our videographer was ten feet to my right and he never saw the rainbow.”

12. McChord AFB, Washington, 2007: “Another case of being in the right place at the right time. We had taken preflight and taxi shots of this C-5 from Travis AFB, California, during the Air Mobility Rodeo competition. We left the C-5 ramp and were heading back to Tent City, and heard the C-5 getting ready to take off. We found a perfect vantage point and pulled over. It was one of the few days during the week that Mount Rainier was visible.”

11. Holloman AFB, New Mexico, 2008: “When the F-117s left Holloman for the last time, I purposely set up behind the Nighthawk on display in the base airpark, hoping to get this shot. The aircraft flew over in exactly the right spot.”

10. Dover AFB, Delaware, 1999: “This photo required next to no work on my part. We were getting photos of the Dover flightline and one C-5 crew was doing touch-and-goes. The next thing we know, another C-5 landed and was taxiing in. All I had to do was stand there and trip the shutter. You can see the parked aircraft, the aircraft coming in, and the one taking off all in one frame.”

9. Off the Florida Coast, 2004: “Sometimes, photos just happen. We were flying out of NAS Jacksonville shooting air-to-air of this P-3 in the new paint scheme. Suddenly, we saw a submarine on the surface heading out to sea. The P-3 crew made a pass over the sub, I got the photo, and then we all went our separate ways. The funny thing is we saw another sub heading toward King’s Bay on the flight back to the air station.”

8. Over the Wright Brothers National Monument, Kill Devil Hill, North Carolina, 2003: “To celebrate the 100th anniversary of powered flight, we had a Coast Guard HC-130J fly over the Wright Brothers National Monument. We were only allowed three passes over the monument itself, so we practiced by flying over the nearby Cape Hatteras Lighthouse first. This was a neat shot for several reasons—Wayne Roberts, our company pilot who I worked with for years, was in the left seat along with a crew from Elizabeth City; it was aircraft 2003; and a Coast Guardsman took the famous photograph of the Wright Brothers first flight, so it was only appropriate.”

7. Hartsfield International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia, 2001: “Delta at one time had the world’s largest fleet of L-1011 TriStar airliners. This was the end of the last revenue flight a Delta L-1011 ever made and it was also the last flight for that pilot. At an airline-sponsored farewell party that night, everybody there got to sign the aircraft. It was flown to Victorville, California, the next day and retired.”

6. Tucson International Airport, Tucson, Arizona, 2009: “I was trying to show the heat waves coming off the ramp during the annual MAFFS [Modular Airborne Firefighting System] training and this roadrunner essentially photobombed me. He just ran into the frame and then ran off.”

5. Marietta, Georgia, 2010: “After the ceremony to mark the 200th C-130J delivery, everyone on the C-130J program gathered around this HC-130J personnel recovery tanker. I was up about eighty feet and this was the highest I’d ever been in a two-person scissor lift. [Editor’s note: John climbed a 120-foot-tall light pole to capture the arrival of the first C-130J to Ramstein AB, Germany in 2009.]

4. Over Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, 2005: “This was the last air-to-air photography ever done with of a C-141 StarLifter. It was the middle of December and the crew of the chase C-141 opened the petal doors in flight—the last time that happened—and we made several passes over the Air Force Museum to get the national insignia on the Hanoi Taxi’s wing to line up with the insignia painted on the museum building. We were in Dayton again in May for the last flight of this aircraft—and the last-ever flight of a C-141—when the Taxi was retired to the museum.”

3. Dobbins ARB, Marietta, Georgia, 2012: “Watching troops come home from war is always emotional. The look of joy and relief on both the service member and their family is really something to see. As much as possible, I always liked to include people in my shots. The aircraft are the vehicle, but the people tell the story.”

2. Dulles International Airport, Reston, Virginia, 1990: “The Lockheed mechanics in the white suits had worked on this particular aircraft for much of their careers. I wanted to capture them as much as the SR-71 after it set the transcontinental speed record and was retired to the Smithsonian. The mechanics were all kind of clumped together and I had the tug driver stop and I told them to spread out around the aircraft.”

1. Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 2001: “We were at Fort Bragg to capture Delta Force members jumping from a C-130. I got this shot probably right after the first airliner hit the World Trade Center on 9/11. We were watching the paratroopers come down when two Soldiers in a Humvee came screaming out to the drop zone to pick the general up. It was quicker to let him jump and then pick him up than it would have been for the C-130 crew to return to base. We were hustled off the base immediately and of course, we had no idea what was happening. We weren’t allowed to pick up our rental car until several hours later.”

John Rossino retired on 17 April 2015 after an eventful thirty-one year career as the company public relations photographer at the Lockheed Martin facility in Marietta, Georgia. During his time behind the company camera, he captured literally thousands of images of aircraft as they were being built; parked on the ramp; in the air on their first flight and on their last. Photo by John Rossino will be the credit on historic aircraft photographs for decades to come. He made frequent contributions to Code One, including providing front and back cover photographs and illustrating most of the air mobility and maritime patrol feature stories. He was essential to production of the magazine’s highly popular cockpit photo issue, which he considers one of his most memorable assignments.

A former executive at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company once said in all seriousness, “I want to be John Rossino.” He was envious of Rossino, the Marietta site public relations photojournalist, for his creative skills, his assignments and what he had gotten to do, and for the people he had met.

Rossino retired on 17 April 2015 after an eventful thirty-one year career. During his time behind the company camera, he captured literally thousands of images of aircraft as they were being built; parked on the ramp; in the air on their first flight and on their last. Photo by John Rossino will be the credit on historic aircraft photographs for decades to come.

He made frequent contributions to Code One, including providing front and back cover photographs and illustrating most of the air mobility and maritime patrol feature stories. He was essential to production of the magazine’s highly popular cockpit issue, which he considers one of his most memorable assignments.

While out on the assembly line or the flightline, Rossino photographed a vice president of the United States; the governor of Georgia; Secretaries of Defense (or Defence, depending on the country); senior executives; generals; captains; and beaming sergeants who received the ceremonial key to a brand-new aircraft they would soon maintain at a base halfway around the world.

With equal ease, Rossino also took keepsake photographs of line mechanics shaking hands with the site general manager when they received their thirty-year service pins.

He wasn’t born tripping camera shutters, but he found his life’s work pretty early. After graduation from the journalism school at the University of Missouri in 1976, he covered sports and general news at several newspapers in Iowa and Arkansas (where he met his TV news anchor wife, Jill) for several years before moving to the Marietta Daily Journal, located about a block from the aircraft factory. He started at the then-Lockheed-Georgia Company in 1984.

“I had the opportunity to do so many amazing things and have had so many memorable experiences,” the sixty-two year old Rossino noted. “I have stood on an ice sheet in Greenland that was 5,000 feet thick. I took photos of C-130 crews flying relief supplies into Africa while being guarded by the French Foreign Legion. I have shot air-to-air photographs while flying inverted in a Learjet and through the canopy of a T-37. I’ve been to forty-two states and twenty-seven countries with the company taking photos of aircraft. It’s hard to stack all those experiences up.”

He also kept up with the technology as photography went from film and chemical processing very quickly to digital photography with multi-megabyte files. In the film days, he would often come back from a trip and say with a glum face, “I didn’t get anything.” Of course, once out of the processing tank, most—but not all—of the images were perfect. He particularly liked the immediacy of seeing a spectacular digital image on the back of his camera—and being able to just as quickly discard the shots that weren’t up to his standards.

Although not always possible, Rossino liked to get people in his photos. Having a pilot or mechanic in a photo next to an airplane showed scale and gave the aluminum/titanium/composite aircraft a touch of humanity.

He also likes people. He made friends with everyone. He mentored young photographers. He also always knew the right person who could get him a scissor lift or the fire chief who could get a parking ramp hosed down. Rossino “had a guy” for whatever the need was.

Even in retirement, he’s not going to put his camera down. He plans on spending time volunteering and taking photos for CURE, the non-profit pediatric cancer research foundation in Atlanta. He also plans on spending a lot time at his cabin in the Georgia mountains or in a stream fly fishing.

It’s pretty safe to say we all want to be John Rossino.

Jeff Rhodes is the associate editor of Code One.

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