How do you describe your aviation hobby ?

I can't disagree with Daren, at all. (pause for gasps to subside)

The modern camera can ease the (sometimes painful) process of getting the exposure about right. This is probably it's strongest suit, the rest of the functions are bells and whistles.

If you subsequently 'tweak', or fine tune the nuances of exposure (my EOS normally over exposes by 1/3rd stop to me), and contrast (ditto). It rarely gets the White Balance right, as evidenced when you choose a 'white' or neutral grey colour with a picker in software. Sometimes it can be quite a bit off - this is because it takes a best guess at the scene, especially when there is little white in it. With post-process, you can zoom into the white, and go from there. In-built command software doesn't always get it right (ask Boeing!). Thus, I don't use AWB and correct WB in post process.

The real difficult bit is composition. Generally with Aeroplanes, you can't move them (or someone else is...) and you have little control over light and shooting location. All these combine to make it very difficult to produce that 'magic' shot. For example, at Duxford, and many others, you'll be at the North side of the airfield looking into the prevailing light source. Unhelpful!

As for equipment, I think it matters little for ground/static shots, as standard lenses can cope generally well, and cropping loses little detail (studiously avoiding the RAW/JPEG route!), however, a long lens is certainly desirable for ground to air (for obvious reasons), using APS-C gives other advantages by needing a shorter lens for the same effect, and subsequently giving an increase pixel count for the same resultant area, and requiring less sharpening to compensate with the resultant edge flare).

Some of you may have noticed (on visits) that I rarely take pictures of whole aircraft, and focus on detail - that's just me! In the end a good picture is a good picture, but in a competitive photography situation the criteria should be on the image, not the intended use. In other words, is it good to look at? / does it have impact? / is there a story?, etc. Not about whether it will go in a magazine/advert/brochure, but would I put it on the wall?

Way back in my photographic life, with Kowa 35N / Zenit 3M / Praktica V days, it was generally reckoned by Professionals (at the Bailey level) that 4-6 'usable' images from a 36 exposure roll was doing well. Bailey was once tasked to cover an event (don't remember which) with an Olympus PEN compact and came back with 13-16 'usable' images from a roll. As Daren says, it's the 6" behind the camera that counts, just like the nut on the Steering Wheel of a car.

That hasn't changed, really, modern assistance or not.

I wonder whether we should also be considering filters - manipulation at the first level - not the final one, whether this is graduated, UV or the Polarising (with care). Cokin were (and still are) used at certain levels, and perhaps we've forgotten that some of the 'classic' images taken in black and white were created with dextrous use of coloured filters to give us wonderful images in camera (see Ansel Adams, Charles E Brown, etc.), with just the darkroom to finish them off.

Perhaps another discussion is whether we should tweak the EXIF data? Another contentious area for some (and probably abused by some political activities, I suspect!)

I think this could run and run.....