Author Archives: Rob

Canadian Hornets at Janesville

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There was an airshow in the Midwest that everyone used to say was a great event.  It was held at Janesville and I finally got around to going to it shortly before it ceased to be.  I promise it wasn’t my fault that it ended.  I was there for the arrivals as well as the show and a pair of Hornets came in from Canada.  The nice thing about this arrival was that they seemed to have a little extra fuel.  Consequently, there was time for a few approaches and overshoots.

The light was a bit subdued that evening but it still had a slightly warm feel to it.  Besides, pick your white balance and you can adjust just how warm things actually looked!  I was shooting with the long lens from my location when they arrived so everything was taken at 500mm.  Sometimes that was way too much lens for the distance between us but it was just an opportunity for a tight crop – let’s say that was an artistic decision!

The Hornet gear tucks up in a complex way and I got a few shots of them cleaning up as they powered away in to the pattern.  A few times they pulled downwind pretty quickly and it felt like you were looking over their shoulder into the cockpit.  I can even crop in and see the displays on the panel (later in the day means the ambient light isn’t too much making the cockpit a deep shadow.  This was one of the high points of the evening.  Shame I never got to see other shows at this venue.

777X Over the Top

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Having shot the 777X test aircraft a bunch of times, I was looking for something a little different.  I figured I could head out to the north end of Boeing Field and be under the jet as it was on short final.  I shot something similar at LAX a number of years ago and liked the results so decided to have a go.  This was not as simple as I had hoped for.  First, the plane is out of sight for most of the approach with buildings and power lines in the way.

Second, I didn’t have lots of big jets to pay with.  It was my first opportunity so I didn’t have time to get the hang of it.  As it was, I didn’t do as good a job as I would have liked.  I was shooting with a wide lens and tracking the airframe to fill the frame was trickier than expected.  In the early shots, it was too far to one side of the frame and I ended up with the nose closer to the middle than ideal with the result that many shots lack a back end of the airframe.  I will try it again with these issues in mind and I shall skip the long lens shots first.  Making a quick switch meant I was not as well prepared as I could have been.  I did grab a shot through the fence of the jet heading for touchdown with Mt Rainier in the background too.

How To Spook Geese

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I was riding along the Sammammish River Trail back in to Woodinville one weekend when the noise of geese suddenly filled the air.  On the other side of the river from the trail are fields which often are filled with geese feeding.  A large flock was gathered there on this day but their grazing had been interrupted by the arrival of a bald eagle.  It flew across the area and barely changed course as it did so but it certainly startled the geese and they all took to the air.

They flew around in circles for a while waiting for the eagle to get safely out of the area.  Then they gradually calmed down and more and more of them settled back in to the fields to resume eating.  However, this was a slow process as they had clearly been spooked and weren’t going to relax easily.  This was all starting as I cycled up but I did manage to pull my phone out and get a bit of video of this happening so here is the brief burst of excitement before things settled down again.

KLM Vickers Viscount

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First up, a disclaimer.  This is one of the few (only?) photos on the blog that I didn’t take.  When you look at it, that should be pretty clear.  I have been working through a scanning job of old negatives and slides that my parents took.  A few shots I took too with their cameras but that is off topic.  In the process of scanning these shots, I came across a few aviation shots.  (Thanks Mum for taking some shots of RAF Hawks at Chivenor in the camo days while she was traveling passed there!). My parent made a trip to the Netherlands long before I was born and they flew there on a KLM Vickers Viscount.  My Dad kindly thought to take a picture of the plane knowing that, decades later, I would be delighted to find it.  Nice job!

Anacortes Castle

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Driving through the back roads in Anacortes, I came across Anacortes Castle.  I think it is actually just a house but it is certainly one that has been styled to look like a castle.  You probably couldn’t defend it from marauders very easily and the turret seemed to have a lot of open space inside but it is still an interesting looking building.  It sits on a normal residential street so is quite out of keeping with the rest of the houses.  Still, it is a talking point, I am sure!

Blue Air Max

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I had not heard of Blue Air prior to seeing this Max on test.  It is a nice thing about living near Boeing’s production facilities that you see jets that will be heading somewhere you don’t go.  In this case, I read not long afterwards that this jet was the first delivery of a Max to Blue Air and that they are a low cost carrier in Romania.  I guess I now know about another airline that I previously was unaware of.  Looked quite nice in these colors (when you consider how bland airline colors can be there days).

McNeil Island – Not For Us

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Just as I arrived at Steilacoom, a small passenger ferry boat was heading in to the docks.  I had no idea what it was for at the time.  While I was waiting around, I looked across and saw a large building on the island across from where I was standing.  Wandering down to the docks, there was a sign for the McNeil Island Commitment Center.  I had no idea what this was but figured I could look it up later.

Turns out this island used to be a prison.  For a long time, it was a federal prison.  The feds then turned it over to the state which continued to operate it as a prison for a while longer before its high cost of operations meant they closed it down.  However, the state has maintained a facility for offenders that are considered to remain a risk to the community after their sentence is complete and this is the Commitment Center.  Only people visiting or associated with this place have a need to go to the island so I guess it is not somewhere I shall be visiting – at least I hope not!

Jet Ranger X (Experimental)

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The Bell 206 JetRanger was an immensely successful single turbine helicopter and was ubiquitous for decades.  However, the type was dated and more modern helicopters had come along and taken market share.  Bell needed to come up with a solution and that was the Bell 505 which has since become branded as the Jet Ranger X.  The project was not as smooth as intended but it has now entered more widespread service.

That didn’t mean I had actually seen one, though, until recently when I got to photograph one at Boeing Field.  At this point, trouble has reached the program again with fatigue failures in the controls for the right seat meaning you aren’t supposed to fly one solo from that seat until a redesigned control is fitted.  This will get addressed, of course, but it is another issue for the type.  The example I saw was marked as Experimental so I wonder what purpose it was being used for.  According to the FAA, it is registered to Bell but what it is doing is anybody’s guess.  Putting aside its technical issues, my biggest problem with the 505 is that I think it doesn’t look very good.  It reminds me of a tadpole and seems to have a slight feel of a toy design compared to the other types in this class (or the original JetRanger).  That is not going to make or break it of course – just a personal observation.

Watching You Watching Me

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When out looking for wildlife, it pays to keep your head swiveling.  There are the things you are expecting to see but also the odd one you weren’t.  It was close to high tide as I walked far out on the boardwalk at Nisqually but the tide had turned and the water was starting to flow out.  As I glanced across, I saw three shapes in the water.  Some seals were drifting out with the tide.  Two of them were swimming along but one had stopped close to me and was staring directly at me.  Consequently, he got photographed.  We stared at each other for about a minute and then he disappeared under the surface and I didn’t see him again.  The other two were long gone so I assume he was chasing to catch up with them.