Category Archives: aircraft

Some O’Hare Arrivals

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A bit more time stuck indoors than I would ideally have liked had meant that I was beginning to climb the walls a bit.  Some good weather had been about but I had been unable to get outside to enjoy it.  However, I did get a Sunday when I was able to get out and the weather showed signs of clearing up.  (It had been pretty murky early in the day but the forecast said it would get better and it wasn’t wrong!)

I decided to head to O’Hare to watch some European arrivals.  A strong westerly wind meant the arrival direction would be reliable as far as sun angle was concerned and the low temperatures should hopefully avoid too much heat distortion.  Apart from that, an afternoon out shooting the arrivals is better than plenty of other options even if it isn’t something new and unique.

As it was, there were a fair few interesting aircraft coming in along with the regular O’Hare types of traffic.  I was able to keep close to the car which meant I could hop back out of the chilly wind between interesting targets and listen out on LiveATC’s app on my phone to know when something was coming my way.  Flightaware also allows a bit of planning ahead.

It was a fun afternoon and some good results showed up.  Some new bits to add to the catalog along with some of the familiar stuff and some that will soon no longer be familiar and need to be remembered before they are gone.  Here is a small selection of the day.

Thornton Quarry Part 2

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I mentioned before what the lift at the quarry involved.  However, I thought it was worth talking a little bit more about the work of the guys on the ground.  There was a good team spirit needed for this job and the guys worked hard throughout the day to get everything done.  With the many rolls of netting to put in place, there was plenty to do!  These were long rolls.  The later rolls were over 300′ long and they were hanging from 150′ of lifting line!  Also, it could be breezy and keeping the net under control was interesting!

There was one group of guys at the top of the quarry who were responsible for hooking up the nets.  They would put the roll into place and unroll it along the roadway.  When the helicopter came in, it had a special fixture on the end of the line.  This was a spreader bar with hooks for the net.  The bar was attached at the bottom but a ring was placed into a hook to turn it up the other way.  This meant that the hooks would be the right way up to hold the net.  When the release was triggered on the hook, the spreader bar would flip over and the net would fall free.  Then the whole thing could be repeated.

The other guys were on the top of the rock face ready to attach the net.  A wire line was rigged across the top of the rocks.  When the net came in, they guys had to grab the net, bring it into place and start wiring it to the line.  Two guys would be in harnesses and they would head over the edge as the net was lowered to ensure that it was aligned correctly and were it needed to be.  Joining each net down the rock face would follow another day.

The guys worked well together handling the nets into place and making sure they weren’t aligned incorrectly.  If the wind twisted the net, they had some good techniques for getting them back around the right way.  The was vital since the release would not work if it was facing the wrong way!  Jim was flying during all of this with a very long load so he did a great job to stay focused.

Thornton Quarry Part 1

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The main job of the day was at a quarry.  This was a more unusual job than the ones I have normally seen with Midwest.  For a start, it was a long job.  This was actually the second day of this job and a third would be required before it was finished.  The task is to place wire netting on rock faces to stop and falling rocks from flying freely at anything below.  The nets hold any debris against the rock face.

You will have seen things like this before.  However, if you are like me, you hadn’t really given any thought to how they are put there.  Today I am going to focus on the flying aspect of the job.  The work of the guys on the ground was a separate issue and I am going to give them their own posting to follow this one.

The rolls of net are laid out on the ground and picked up by the helicopter.  Then Jim had to fly this very long roll across to where it was supposed to be placed.  The guys on the ground would attach it and then Jim would lower the net down so the bottom became the top and the top ended up at the bottom.  There are over a hundred of these rolls and each one takes several minutes to place.  Consequently, it was necessary to land several times during the day.  One need was for fuel but another was for a break.  This is a long time to be hovering a helicopter!

The weather was really nice for the majority of the day and I was able to get around the site and see the work from many different locations.  I also got to have a break during the day which most people didn’t so it was easier for me.  Even so, I was bushed at the end of it all.  At least I got to fly back to base and not deal with the traffic!

McCook Lift

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As I hinted previously, my day with Midwest involved a couple of lifts.  The first was a relatively straightforward job.  In common with a lot of jobs it was cooling systems for the roof of a building that was being constructed.  The equipment was laid out on the ground near the building and the guys were ready to roll when we landed.

The location is quite close to Midway airport.  We talked to them as we came in and the traffic from the airport was close to where we were operating.  A couple of times, a low flying Boeing 737 from Southwest could sneak into my shot.  They were obviously well clear of us and there was no problem but it was quite fun to see something different in the background.

The job went off without too many issues and soon the aircraft was back on the ground and we could hop on to head to the next job.

Frosty Start

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The good team at Midwest Helicopter called me up recently to see if I wanted to go out on a job they had scheduled.  There were two jobs on the one day, one of which was going to be a long one.  Anyway, I need to get there first thing to be ready to head on out with the team.  I was going to ride in the aircraft so no messing around in Chicago traffic for me during the day.  Just sail across.

It had been a cold night so there was ice on the ground and frost on the aircraft.  I am not much use to the guys while they are getting ready.  Telling me what to do would probably take longer than doing it themselves and they would probably want to check whatever I had done anyway.  Therefore, I took the chance to get some shots on the ground of them getting ready and of the aircraft.

Normally I see the aircraft when it arrives at the job so getting it at rest was a nice change.  Also, the weather was great with lovely soft morning light so it was a great opportunity.  Here are some shots of the morning.  The jobs themselves will follow in the days to come.

Millennium Park and a Helicopter? Result!

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The good folks at Midwest Helicopters were recently undertaking another lift in downtown Chicago and invited me to come along.  This one required two goes since the date of the first attempt awoke to find cloud base down amongst the buildings – not ideal conditions for a flight of any sort let alone one that requires weaving between the buildings downtown.

The forecast for the second attempt was considerably better.  In the end it didn’t quite turn out that way with a slightly grey and overcast morning for the lift.  This was a mixed blessing really.  I was going to be facing east so would have had some awkward lighting angles if the sun had been strong.  However, cloudy skies are not a great backdrop.  This limits some of what you can get but, in this case that wasn’t too much of a problem.

Cloudy skies also soften the light in total which can avoid some of the harsher contrasts that you can get shooting aircraft.  Since Midwest’s fleet are painted orange and white, this contrast on the airframe alone can sometimes be a problem.  Moreover, I have a lot of pictures of their fleet.  Shots against a blue sky are not terribly new but something that brings in the different backgrounds in which the work is being done are a lot more interesting.

The location for the lift was a building directly across from Millennium Park.  This should be a photogenic location.  In advance of the job I was pondering where a good spot to shoot from would be.  Involving the Bean would be a good feature.  However, if I shot from near there, I would basically have one shot and miss the rest.  Getting a reflection in the Bean was another idea.  However, the shape of the Bean acts as a very wide angle viewer which means getting anything specific reflected in it – especially something not too large like a helicopter – is problematic.  The idea seems good but it is hard to make it happen.  If we had a second lift, I would certainly give it a go but I had to make this one count.

The roof was going to be the location of choice again.  This way I can get the aircraft with the park in the background, have it flying in front of other buildings, look down on it while it is low to the ground and also get some of what is happening on the roof as the load is set.  This was a little more tricky since I was actually operating mainly from a slightly lower section of roof than that on which the loads were being delivered.  I also had to make sure to keep myself out from underneath the path of the loads as they came up.

All in all, it went pretty well.  I got some good shots and most of what I was hoping for.  Sometimes you wish you could instruct the crew where to fly for the benefit of the shot but that isn’t why they are there!  However, it was funny at one point to look at the images and notice that Jim, the pilot, must have just spotted me as he brought a load up since he is briefly looking directly at me and grinning!  A couple of frames later and the grin is gone and he is back focused on the task – a task that requires quite a bit of concentration!

Dreamliner Introduction

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The development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner has been a protracted story filled with technical and programmatic challenges which have led to financial challenges as well.  However, while the program is not yet out of the woods, production aircraft are now making their way to service with customers and Boeing is undertaking a promotional tour for those who have been involved in the program or are potential customer.

One of those events was at Rockford, not far from me.  I covered the event for Global Aviation Resource and you can see the full piece at this link.

Some Ski Plane Video

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In the previous post I talked about the trip to Oshkosh for the ski plane fly-in.  While I was mainly taking stills on this trip, I did also take the GoPro with me for the occasional bit of video.  Unfortunately, the bar clamp I took was a little larger than the ideal place to mount it.  Instead I hand held it which makes for some fun bouncing around when on the ground!  However, it isn’t too disastrous so I am prepared to let some of the footage make it out in public.  Hardly broadcast quality work though!  Still, I hope you enjoy it.

Skiing to Success!

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As I wrote before, I was hoping to make a trip to the ski plane fly-in at Oshkosh this year.  The weather had not looked good long in advance but then some snow fell and it looked promising.  Oshkosh still had patches of the runway without snow so it wasn’t clear until the day before.  Then a storm came through on the Friday.  In Chicago we got quite a good fall.  In Oshkosh, it was only 2-3″ but that was enough to cover the gaps.  The next question was with the storm clearing out, was the weather good enough to fly?

The answer was yes.  I was riding up with some of the people from Poplar Grove.  I drove out to Union IL to meet up with some of the guys.  As I left Chicago, the weather was not great with some snow still falling.  I was not optimistic.  However, as I reached Union, I came out into clear skies (and falling temperatures) and suddenly things looked a lot better.

I met Lee, Buck and Jim at Union as they were getting the aircraft ready to go.  I was riding up with Drew who was coming across from Poplar Grove to pick me up.  It was 8F as we got our stuff together.  The Champ and the Cub were prepped and started up just as Drew arrived.  They headed out as I loaded up and we followed on.  Drew has a Piper Clipper so we had a speed advantage to catch up.

The first leg was to Palmyra in Wisconsin.  Here the whole group had agreed to meet up for breakfast.  The good folks at Palmyra had held off from plowing half the runway and one of the taxiways so we had no problem operating on skis.  We all met up and trekked across to the restaurant who did a great job of feeding a raucous bunch!  It was a very friendly group just confirming me previous good experience at Poplar Grove.

From Palmyra we all headed north to Oshkosh.  We departed near the back again and caught up with some of the group.  We managed to get some nice formations going en route and I could grab a few shots.  Shooting through the windows was a little tricky but the results were not too bad.  It was far too cold to consider sliding the windows open!  At Palmyra we had reviewed the arrival procedures for Oshkosh.  Since Pioneer field is not part of the main airport, we have to arrive low on a special route.

This sounds straightforward when reviewing the brief.  However, the arrival height is about 500′ above ground level.  At that height, it is not so easy to make out exactly where everything is.  However, with two pairs of eyes checking it all out, we managed to pick out all of the appropriate waypoints and find the field.  Even doing it right is quite interesting since you have to head straight at the cab of the main tower and then turn final.  You feel like you are doing something wrong even though you aren’t.  Drew made light work of it all.

Once on the field there was time to take a look at all of the other aircraft that had made it – and see the arrivals of those we had left behind.  Chatting with the other crews was a lot of fun and also talking to some of the other visitors made it all the more interesting.  There was a briefing about the departure as well.  Since the wind was calm, departures were in the opposite direction.  This made for great viewing from our location in the parking area with planes taxiing right past us and then turning to depart back past again!

We watched a fair few go.  Our group was nearly last to head out and, again, we waited to be towards the back of the group.  We got airborne and caught up with one of the Cubs which we found had a ski out of alignment.  There are safety wires that limit the travel but a bungee holds the ski in optimal position.  This had dislodged.  They decided it was easiest to land and fix it so found an open field and dropped it in.  They were back up in no time.  A few more pictures of the group and then we left them to it.

They were planning making a few touch and goes at various spots but we were on our way home.  Only in the last section of the trip did a low cloud base come in.  This wasn’t a problem from our perspective other than that the lack of sun meant the cabin suddenly felt a bit colder!  It obviously wasn’t a deterrent to some hot air balloonists we passed on the way back.  They must have been chilly when the burner wasn’t going!

Drew dropped me back at Union and then headed home to Poplar Grove.  It was a great trip and I had a whole lot of fun.  I hope Drew’s passengers on his 767s have as much fun as I did.  Thanks to everyone involved.  It was great and I hope to spend a bunch more time with everyone in the future.