Monthly Archives: February 2017

Breitling Jet Team

There are a number of jet display teams that are operated by militaries around the world.  Private jet demo teams also exist although there are a lot less of them.  The Aero Vodochody L39 Albatros is an airframe that has proved popular with private teams.  In the Midwest, the Hoppers used to display with four jets while out west the Patriots team are a regular fixture.  In Europe, the Breitling team has been around for a long time.  I saw them when we still lived in the U.K. at a couple of shows but they decided to bring the team to the US for a couple of seasons.

My first chance to see them was at San Francisco Fleet Week.  I didn’t have any expectations about how the show would be and I wasn’t super excited about seeing the team.  However, I was pleasantly surprised by the show that they put on.  The display was well planned and kept something going on in front of the crowd.  The Albatros is not a powerful jet so they need to manage the energy well to keep the display going and they did this effectively.  The backdrop of the bay was obviously a good addition to the display.  They did combine the individual jets with the formation jets well.  They also made good use of flares at one point during the vertical maneuvers.  That is something you don’t see enough these days.  Sadly, it doesn’t always translate as well on photos as it appeared when you are seeing the display.

I don’t know what the plan is for the team this year but I imagine they will need to go back to Europe at some point.  Two years away must have been an expensive proposition and means they will not have made any appearances over there.  Maybe they will be here again but I can’t count on it.  I think they are done.  Good job though.

Hobbo Tells a Tale

I made a visit to the Blackhawk Automotive Museum on a Sunday morning.  They had a speaker booked and this one was David Hobbs.  Hobbo has been announcing motorsports on US TV since the 70s and is part of the current NBCSN Formula One team.  His talk covered both his days as a racer and his time in TV and he was obviously a popular choice.  The place was packed out.  They were suggesting there were three times as many people as they had ever had before.

The initial seating was not enough.  They brought in flip out chair and then any chairs they could find to try and get a seat for everyone but some ended up standing throughout.  It was not short either as he has plenty of anecdotes to work with.  Timing was a bit “flexible” in the end.  Hobbo has a habit of saying stuff on air which might make the network a bit nervous and his public speaking is an extension of that.  I watched a few people flinch at some of the language he threw in but most people seemed to be lapping it up – me included.

After the talk and the Q&A, he posed with a GT40 based Mirage in the collection that he had raced at Le Mans.  Then he set up to sign autographs and memorabilia that the audience had.  A line formed that stretched across the foyer and beyond.  I imagine the museum did well out of the event and it was a great way to spend a Sunday morning.

The Old Tower is Stripped Out

The rebuilding of SFO has included building a new tower.  I wrote about the old versus the new a while back in this post.  The new tower has now been commissioned and is operational.  It is time for the old tower to be demolished.  Fortunately, the airport invited people to visit before demolition started.  The inside of the tower was looking a bit sad.  The equipment had all been ripped out.  I doubt much of it is getting reused since the new tower will already have been equipped with the latest generation of air traffic control gear.  However, the surrounds for the old gear were still there looking rather skeletal.

A week later the process of everything coming down would start.  Soon it will look a lot worse and then it will be gone forever.  We got a fleeting glimpse of its last days.  I hope someone takes some pictures as everything comes down to preserve the last days forever.

Sonoma County

Sonoma County is very pretty from the ground but it looks even better from the air.  The hills that roll across the county look great and, from above, you get to see way more than you can from the roads.  Not only do the hills look great but you also get to see some rather interesting properties that are tucked away in the hills and out of sight.  There are some very nice places up there.

LA Dodgers and Emirates Have a Thing

Emirates A380s are a regular feature at SFO.  They usually look pretty much the same with maybe the occasional graphic added for an event or other.  This one was a bit out of the ordinary though.  Apparently Emirates must have some sort of promotional tie in with the LA Dodgers.  The side of the jet was adorned with a large graphic about the team.  The side of an A380 is pretty sizeable so there is plenty of real estate to adorn with whatever you want to include.  In this case, they made good use of it.

The Highest Waterfalls and the Valleys of the Wet Side

The Big Island has dramatically different characteristics as you move across it.  As we took our trip on the helicopter to see the volcanic activity, we continued up the east side of the island which is considerably wetter than the west.  There are dramatic valleys and high cliffs.  The terrain looks impressive from the air but I imagine it looks even more amazing when you are on the ground.  Our pilot described hiking around some of these valleys.  Crossing one ridge is apparently a six hour hike and that is if you are not loaded down with too much gear!

We flew in to some of the valleys to have a look around.  The ground towered above us on most sides and you really felt in awe of the geology around you.   Everything is so large, images don’t even start to represent what we saw.  We also came in to the highest falls on the island.  The largest of these drop over 3,000’ down the sides of the mountains.  We flew in to a corner where these falls were raining down.  The shots are not special but I include them to try and give an impression of what was there.  The scale is impossible to judge and I also had plenty of reflections from the cockpit glazing but here they are anyway.

We buzzed around a number of these valleys always surrounded by lush, steep slopes.  This is not an area for the faint of heart.  We then headed back towards the west up another valley climbing towards the ridge ahead of us.  As we popped over this ridge the green foliage was almost instantly replaced by the dry, brown landscape we had originally come from.  The transition was instant and rather surprising as, while climbing up, you had no idea what was ahead.  Then it was a straight run back to our base.

Guarding the Gate That Doesn’t Exist Anymore

Over the years, many military installations have been closed down.  In what form they get handed back to the local community varies.  Close to us is Alameda.  This was once a big base for the Navy with many ships based there and an airfield that was home to many operational aircraft.  The whole thing is now closed with the runway having garnered most attention as the location for many a stunt by the Mythbusters.  The layout of the base is still much as it was beforehand though.  The hangars are still there now being home to local businesses.

The aviation theme shows itself in some relics of the past.  Gate guardians are common at air bases and Alameda has a few.  Drive into the old base along one main road and you go around a grassy circle which has an A-7 mounted on a plinth in the middle.  It is loaded up and looks pretty dramatic.  Another gate near the water has an A-4 Skyhawk mounted just inside.  It has the name of some local dignitaries painted on the side.

Another Skyhawk is not far away.  This one is not on the base itself.  Instead it is mounted outside a local school.  The Jet is not as dramatically painted as the others but it is still a pretty cool thing to have outside your school if you are an aviation nut like me.  It actually looks like it could do with a repaint before too long.  It’s good to see that they are still on guard duty, even if the thing they were guarding is no more.

USS San Francisco Memorial

Walk around the headland from Sutro Baths and you come to a great view looking across towards the Golden Gate Bridge.  Here is located the memorial to the USS San Francisco.  The ship was engaged in a vicious battle during the Second World War at Guadalcanal in which her senior officers were killed.  The ship survived albeit heavily damaged.  When she was scrapped after the war, the wings from the bridge were kept and placed as part of the memorial.  They still bear the scars of the rounds that hit the ship during the engagement with the steel holed and twisted in many places.

Getting WOW in Better Light

My first encounter with a WOW A330 was towards the end of the day when the jet was a little backlit.  I hadn’t had another chance to shoot one since them and wanted to try and do a little better.  The deep color of the purple scheme should look more vibrant than the slightly washed out version I had managed before.  The timing of the flights is such that they depart in the late morning.  Since the jet is not too heavy, they go off the 01 runways which means they have a nice light on them during the lower winter sun.  Unfortunately, they seem to like using 01L rather than 01R which puts them a little further away and a little more susceptible to heat haze.  However, I got lucky this time and the conditions were okay.

Akaka Falls

I am like many tourists in that I am a sucker for waterfalls.  I suspect as I go through the many posts on this blog that I will find plenty of waterfall shots.  Today I shall be adding one more.  Akaka Falls on Big Island are a popular spot.  Tour parties seemed to be a feature the day we were there.  We saw so many people wearing badges defining which group they were in and you could see the group number change as you walked around and obviously came across a different part of their schedule.  However, they were not what we were there to see.

You can take a short walk to the falls from the parking lot.  What is nicer is to take the longer loop.  You actually get a view of some other falls early on in the loop although they are across a valley and so a little less dramatic.  The area is rain forest like in its conditions so you get to see plenty of cool plants and wildlife as you go, some of which has already made its way on to this blog.  Near the end of the loop, you come down a slope and the Akaka Falls are in front of you.

They are some pretty high falls.  The volume of water rushing over them was substantial and you could see smaller streams of water around the opening.  Sadly, the viewing area was such that it was hard to get a good view of the bottom of the falls and the surrounding water so everything felt a little isolated when trying to frame it.  I’m sure with more time and persistence, I might have found a better way to get some shots.  The blog is most suited to landscape format shots but these falls were stretching the wide angle nature of the lens I was using so portrait was often the best option.  They are snapshots of a tourist spot but they make me remember a really cool waterfall.