Listening to feedback, the first one was for advanced and the second for beginners with a team of experienced photographers (and me) to give assistance when needed.
The key words with any night photography session, no matter how experienced you have, are "trial, "error" and "experiment."
Seeing that my guy (one to one, as there was only one mirrorless camera user) was up and running by the end of the session, I took the opportunity to get some practice of my own...
The dazzle painted Jet Provost from Dumfries in the process of being repainted. I used a Median Stack technique, a group of about ten to twenty photos at 1/2 second ISO 25600. Sensor noise being random is removed using this technique. I also cleaned up the background by removing the tall lighting stands and some of the colour cast from the sky by desaturation. Oh and cloned out two cones. Why I didn't think on moving them at the time is beyond me.
XP557 Jet Provost, Kinloss by Wallace Shackleton, on FlickrThe Nimrod memorial was lit with a purple light, you can see traces in the shadows. Another median stack with the purple tint being removed by a simple white balance adjustment.
XV239 Nimrod memorial, Kinloss by Wallace Shackleton, on FlickrThe Phantom. Another median stack removing some red lights and lighting stands from the background.
XV586 Phantom, Kinloss by Wallace Shackleton, on FlickrThe other Phantom photo and the most edited. A straight shot at 12800 ISO at 1/4 second, the noise being removed in Lightroom, fantastic results but entailed drinking a lot of tea while the PC done the processing. The tail pipe lights were yellow in colour, so I changed this in Photoshop, which led to a happy accident of converting large parts to black and white, so I desaturated the rest, mainly the trees and the street lights for effect. Like all night shots colour works well in the right places, especially the green nav light. Thanks for that tip Jim!
XV586 Phantom, Kinloss by Wallace Shackleton, on Flickr