After carefully reading through the advice and a new camera thanks to Black Friday, I headed out to Luke to try again. What do you think?
Looking better Tom.... You are headed in the right direction
The airplanes are sharp and the exposure is spot on. Well done. One minor comment about the composition of the second shot. When you have a tight crop like that it is better to have more space between the nose of the airplane and the edge of the frame than between the tail of the airplane and the edge of the frame to create a feeling that the plane has room to fly. That is not always easy to do when you are panning with a moving target. I tend to shoot with more room around the plane so I can adjust the crop in post processing.