A work requirement needed some photos of a project in which we are involved. We provided he pictures but the team requiring them had an issue with the images we had an wanted something new. When we couldn’t find any more, the easiest thing was to take some. I was heading in the right direction one day so stopped off to take some shots of the Sound Transit Link light rail system. I figured I would share a little of them here too for the rail fans amongst you.
Until recently I had never heard of Miami Air International. Then I photographed this rather unpleasant yellow 737-800 that landed at Boeing Field. Only FlightAware (and a squint at the text on the fuselage) let me know who operated the jet. The Scimitar winglets hint at the previous owner since they clearly didn’t get repainted! A couple of days after this, another of their jets went off a runway in Florida and ended up in a river. Now I know who they are!
The weather while we were in Jackson was rather variable. Our first day was pretty sunny but it clouded over and the second day had clouds constantly moving through. You would get patches of sun showing up periodically but it was generally overcast. As you looked to the hillsides surrounding the valley, there was hardly a moment when things were constant. Light might pick out the terrain briefly and then a cloud would roll in and obscure the view completely. There was always something different to see. Even though the conditions were not great, it was still gorgeous to watch the constant evolution.
Boeing Field does occasionally get military transient traffic at weekend but recently it has had some heavies show up. I saw that a C-5 had been passing through which would have been really cool to see. I was heading down that way not long ago when I saw a KC-46 depart towards me as I drove shortly followed by a C-17. I was a bit disappointed to have missed both of them. I did not anticipate that the C-17 would return.
However, a while later, I heard something call up on final but it wasn’t showing up on FlightRadar24. I took a guess it might be military and moved to the arrival end and, sure enough, the C-17 was coming down the approach at a leisurely pace. It was a Travis jet. I was told that McChord is being resurfaced so that might explain why this jet ended up at Boeing Field rather than down there.
The title gives this one away to be honest. I was walking back along the shoreline of Victoria Harbour and the sun was setting behind me. I looked back to see the view and the sky was looking rather appealing so I was hardly going to avoid taking a couple of shots.
The grounding of the 737 Max fleet worldwide means that they have been coming off the production line and going in to storage. A few of them were scattered around the Boeing ramp at Paine Field. One was particularly interesting though. It seemed to have the front fuselage wrapped in something while the rear fuselage windows were not covered but had individual panels sealed across them. No idea what this was all about but it did look unusual.
The end of our wildlife spotting trip in Jackson took us around the back of the elk refuge. Alongside the road is a slope which is very popular with the Big Horn Sheep. It has steep sides and food for them to graze on. The terrain renders them safe from the predators that might otherwise bother them since they are the ones with the advantage on such a steep and craggy slope. There were families of sheep scattered along the slope.
They weren’t very far away from us but, seeing as they are not large, they didn’t fill the viewfinder. Our guide carried a spotting scope which gave us a really close view. It also allowed you to get a quite impressive photo using only your cellphone since you could hold it up against the eyepiece. I did shoot with the bigger camera too, though. Some of the sheep moved up on to the ridge line where they were silhouetted for me to photograph. It was fun to watch them move around as they were constantly walking to the next good food source all while they were perched on some pretty precarious spaces.
This HondaJet was on an FBO ramp at Paine Field. I have seen one close up at Oshkosh and a few at a distance while flying but this was the closest I had got to one in the wild. It is certainly a curious looking jet. The engine mounts are the focus of a lot of attention but I am also a little put off by the front fuselage shaping around the cockpit windows. Having only one product doesn’t seem like a sustainable approach but maybe Honda has ideas for more to come. If they do, we shall see if they continue with this design philosophy or go in a different direction.
Chicago was a stop off on a work trip. We were on final approach to O’Hare and I was looking out of the window at the industrial areas that surround the airport. There are rail tracks scattered throughout these areas so seeing trains is not a surprise. However, I was a little caught out by what appeared to be some old Metra commuter cars parked up in one space. They have clearly been out of use for a while. If anyone knows who they belong to, please let me know.
Sometimes you find the oddest things by the road. Just outside NAS Whidbey Island, there is a drop tank sitting by the road. I have no idea what it is doing there. It seems to be on someone’s yard. The shape was not something that looked like a Navy tank (which you might expect). I thought it looked like something from an F-111. Fortunately, It had a data plate which showed a serial that seems to suggest a Fort Worth General Dynamics product so I guess F-111 is probably it. Anyone know the story?
