Another run back to Seafair from 2024. While I did get some good opportunities to photograph the team in the air, I also got to get a close up look at them while they were taxiing around at Boeing Field. The formation taxiing of display teams might not get much attention, but it is requiring a fair bit of concentration from the crews. Here is a combination of shots from different times during the course of the show weekend.
For someone that is a keen aviation enthusiast, it is very strange that I have only been to the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden once and that was a quiet weekend day in the late 80s. I have never been to a show until now. They were holding their Military Air Show, and I wanted to be there. I had heard that the flying could be good with a display line that is close to the crowd and an interesting variety of planes taking part. I headed up there on the Saturday morning and was a little disappointed that there was an accident closing the A-1 so I had a slightly cross-country route to get there. However, this didn’t really cause a problematic delay.
When I got there, I parked up and was pleasantly surprised how easy the walk was to the main area of the show. Not only was it not a long walk but it was alongside the main runway, so I got to watch some movements as I headed in. It was like the show had already started before I even got there. It is true that this meant my walk took longer than it should have done but this was good for me.
When I was young, my interest was all about modern aviation so the types of planes that were at this show would not have been my thing. Now I am interested in a far wider range of subjects. However, that doesn’t mean I am very knowledgeable about them. First World War aviation is a bit of a mystery to me. This show got me familiar with types that I might have heard about but could never have previously picked out.
While it was a show with a military focus, there were other types taking part. Sometimes there might be a slightly tangential reference to their role in developing other planes as was the case when the de Havilland Comet took part, but I appreciated the variety. There were planes I knew nothing about in the flying display – some of which were unique examples. With so many shows including displays by types I have seen many times, this was a definite plus.
The conditions were pretty good for the show with good light throughout most of the day. We did get a period when the clouds got a little heavier and some of the dark paint on those older planes can really suck in the light. The bigger concern was the wind. It was a rather gusty day on occasions. This had me a little concerned. There were actually two flying displays. The afternoon display and an evening show. If the wind would play ball, this might be the time that the Edwardian aircraft could come out. More of that on another day’s post.
Between the afternoon and evening displays, I finally took time to walk around the grounds. I hadn’t paid to go and see the house and I shall probably do that at some point in the future. However, I did now go and look through the aircraft parked up on the flight line and the infield. There are also the hangars for the collection. This had grown substantially from what I saw when I was last there in the 80s! The collection would definitely fit the term eclectic!
It was funny watching a flying display when the Spitfires would be considered the modern aircraft. A recalibration of what constitutes an old aircraft for sure. The evening light did work out pretty well. For some of the later displays, the sun had crept under the cloud layer to make for some nice photography conditions. With it being summer, the flying could last late into the evening. It meant it was well into the night by the time I got home. It was well worth doing. Thanks also to Chris and his friends for providing good company throughout the day.
The shot I always think about wanting to get is looking straight down on a plane in flight. Long ago, I discussed doing this with the WHF team at Waukegan, but we never made it work out. The next best version is the shot from beneath straight up. This is not so good because the fuselage shape is disrupted by the wing and a blank sky is never as interesting as the ground beneath. However, I do still like to shoot this sometimes. In this case, it was a Condor A330neo coming into SEA. This one is in the sand colours that they have. Probably not the contrast I would have liked but so be it.
I recently took an EasyJet flight from Glasgow to Southampton at the end of a work trip. I boarded from the front of the plane and, as we lined up on the steps, I found myself staring into the inlet of the CFM56 engine on this A320. The blade designs on this older generation of engine are not as complex as the newer LEAP engines but they are still interesting to me. The fan blades still have snubbers on this design and the textures of the metals and the inlet look cool.
Last year, when a group of us made the trip to Sproat Lake to see the Martin Mars one last time at their home base, we did get lucky and saw Hawaii Mars fly. While we were on the ground (or the water), some others were up above us ready to get some air-to-air shots of this mighty aircraft. They were using a Shorts Skyvan as their photo platform because it provides a good rear ramp from which to get some great shots.
Once the Mars was airborne, it headed off to do some local flying. Meanwhile, we saw the Skyvan off in the distance as it flew around awaiting the Mars to join up. Sadly, the Skyvan never came too close to us. My only shots of it were from afar. I think it is the same airframe that the group had used for the show at Abbotsford in the preceding days.
The first flight a Boeing 737 makes will usually take it from Renton where it was assembled to Boeing Field – a short distance away – where the flight test facility is located. Here the jets will undergo production flight testing and acceptance testing before delivery to the customers. Given the rate of production, that means there will always be a lot of jets parked on Boeing’s ramp.
Last summer, when I was up the tower at Boeing Field, I had a good view straight along the flight line. Further up the ramp were the active jets while the spot closer to the tower (where there used to be a viewing area before Max problems meant Boeing needed to park jets wherever it could find space) tends to be used for jets that are likely to be stored for longer – planes that were going to a customer that went bust for example.
China Airlines has a livery which is fine but not terribly exciting. When they started taking delivery of their Airbus A350s, they had one delivered in a special scheme that had a blue carbon fibre style of design, similar to that which Airbus has painted on one of the development aircraft. This plane had been elusive to me. I had wanted to photograph it for a long time.
My frustration mounted further when I had been in LA for work. I was walking from the hotel to the airport to return home when I looked to my right and saw the jet on short final just a little way north of me. I had my camera with me (in the bag!) and, if I had paid attention, I could easily have got a shot. Instead, I was caught off guard and missed the opportunity.
All of this led to me being really pleased when I was waiting in Heathrow’s Terminal 5 for a flight for work and I saw the plane was on approach. Shooting through windows is never ideal but I wasn’t going to miss the chance this time. The light was nice, and the plane was easy to catch so I finally managed to get a few shots of this cool looking jet.
A previous post had looked at what was, at that time, a development feature in Photoshop that removed reflections from images. Adobe puts development items in Photoshop first to get user experience with them before rolling them out to the software suite. Since Camera Raw and Lightroom’s develop module are basically the same, once it becomes a production item, it also makes it into Lightroom. Such is the case with the reflection removal tool.
I have used it a few times on shots, and it does work pretty well. It isn’t perfect but can be effective. I tried it out on a Typhoon that was refuelling from a Voyager. Shooting through the windows of the Voyager can be a bit tricky and the reflection removal tool can really help. I gave it a go, and the reflection was swiftly taken out. However, when I checked the rest of the image, I saw that a lot of detail in the shot was gone. It was at this point that I realised that the tool has three settings. I was on Preview. I switched to Best and, while the processing took a lot longer, lo and behold the detail was restored.
I have the overall photo above with the before and after versions for a comparison. Beneath I have two crops of the larger image with the Preview and Best settings. I won’t say which is which, but I think it should be pretty obvious. The tool defaults to Preview when you use it so, if you give it a try, don’t be put off if the initial results are disappointing. Make sure to experiment with the settings.
When I visited The Buccaneer Aviation Group’s event at Kemble, the second airframe was in the process of being prepared for repainting. That is well advanced at the time of writing but, on this day, the airframe had been rubbed back to prepare it. The resulting finish gave a mottled look to the jet, and I thought it could have made a cool idea for a camouflage scheme of its own. I found the patterns it made really appealing.
The jet no longer looks like this so it will be in a historically accurate scheme when next I see it. However, some of these details of the paint are definitely worth remembering.
Okay, maybe it should be Cecilia, and you aren’t really breaking my heart, but I just liked the thought of the song. I had never heard of the airline called Amelia. It is a small French airline that does a bunch of charter and government work as well as operating some wet lease services. They had an A320 parked up on a gate a couple down from my departing flight from Lyon. I know someone whose daughter is called Amelia, and he is quite partial to aircraft. Surely, he didn’t name her after an airline? At least he didn’t name her EasyJet!
