Category Archives: aircraft

Checking Out Hawaii Mars on the Water – We’re Not Alone!

The retirement of the Martin Mars firefighting aircraft of Coulson took place about eight years ago and the two remaining aircraft have been in storage at Sproat Lake on Vancouver Island ever since. I have previously swung by when en route to Tofino to take a look at them but I had never seen them in the water. Recently it was announced that they were both moving to their final resting places. Hawaii Mars was to go to the British Columbia Aviation Museum in Victoria with Philippine Mars heading to Pima. The flight of Hawaii Mars was to include a bunch of flybys at significant locations in the area before ending up at Victoria.

This got a ton of attention in the aviation world, but it was just as big a deal for the local population. It was interesting to discover just how important these planes were to the people in the area as everyone I met was interested in them and had something to say about them. A bunch of us decided to head up the weekend that the move was supposed to take place. The original plan was to go on the Saturday which had been suggested as the move date. As things got closer, it became clear the move would be on the Sunday instead.

In the week before, the plane had been out on the lake doing taxi trials and then getting some flying time in. It became apparent that another flight would probably occur on the Saturday for some photo work. We had settled on a plan to head to Sproat Lake and rent a boat to go and see it in the water. The potential for some flying was a nice bonus.

When we rented the boat, the guy at the rental facility suggested to us that we should check out the flying boat while we were there. We explained that was the only reason we were there at all! It wasn’t far from the dock to Hawaii Mars at its mooring buoy. We were not the only ones interested. The plane was surrounded by boats, kayaks, paddle boarders and even some people swimming up to it from whatever they had come up on. As we worked our way around the plane to get images, it was a constant effort to be aware of who else was nearby and coming in or out of the shot. Some boats were going under the wings which took them perilously close to the props but, thankfully, nothing went wrong. We were still hoping for a flight, of course, but more to come on that.

IL-78s to Support the Rafales

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A little while ago, I posted some images of the Indian Air Force Rafales that transited through JBLM on their way to Alaska. They didn’t come alone, though. They had some support aircraft with them including some tanking resources. I’ve seen the occasional IL-78 in the past, so this wasn’t a first for me, but they are still a relatively rare occurrence so catching this was a nice result and the light showed up enough to make the images a bit nicer.

Floatplanes in Nanaimo Harbour

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Vancouver and Vancouver Island are busy with floatplane activity. It should have occurred to me that, when we were staying in Nanaimo, that there would be floatplanes to see. It didn’t, though. When we took a walk along the waterfront, I had only taken a camera with a short lens attached. This was not ideal for getting images of the planes in motion but it worked out just fine when they came in close. We walked along one of the breakwaters surrounding the harbour and, when one of the planes taxied in, it came right by the end of this breakwater. Sometimes a short lens will do the trick!

Top Aces F-16s

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Luke AFB has some contractor operated jets that we were hoping to get a chance to shoot. The ATAC Mirage F1s did launch while we were there but, despite waiting for quite some time, they never returned. However, Top Aces launched their F-16A aircraft and we were more lucky with these guys. They did do as requested and recovered before we left. Contractor operations are usually with old jets of previous generations so it is hard for me to accept that early model F-16s are now sufficiently old to fit that model. How can that be? These ex-Israeli aircraft are still in their desert colors and it was nice to get a chance to shoot them.

Canso Details

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For the benefit of my Canadian friends, I will get this out of the way first. Despite what the operators say and what is written on their signage, this plane is a Canso, not a PBY Catalina. Okay, with that out of the way, the plane came to the Olympic Air Show in Olympia. It looked excellent in its dark grey painting and had plenty of people around it on the ramp before it flew its display. As with many planes of its vintage, it has lots of lumps and bumps. I decided to spend a little time looking at some of the details rather than the whole plane.

Of course, you have to get some larger shots of the plane. You can’t just stare at the rivets. Also, I knew it would be flying and I would aim to get some shots of it then but that can be another post at some point. For this, the bulbous curves of the nose area and the details of the bits that make it a flying boat were the focus.

The Kingfisher is Flying but not a Demo Yet

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The introduction of the Kingfisher to Canadian Air Force service has been a bit drawn out and is not yet complete. This version of the Airbus C295 has some customization which has yet to be fully worked out. However, there are a number of the aircraft delivered including at Comox AFB on Vancouver Island. For the air show, there was one on the ramp and another was up and flying in the morning. It was not performing a demo, but it flew a lot of patterns before the show got underway. Therefore, I had my first exposure to a flying Kingfisher. They should be a more regular sight in the Pacific Northwest in due course.

Practicing Angles Before the Westwind Arrives

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A previous post covered a recent Westwind arrival at SEA one weekend. As I mentioned in that post, I was shooting from a new location for me. Having not shot there before, I didn’t want to make the Westwind the first thing I photographed. I used some of the preceding airliners to try a couple of spots to see what the angles were like and how much the surrounding trees obscured things. These shots are from the experimenting.

Canadian Air Force 100th Anniversary Hornet

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The Comox AFB air show was the first public display of the special anniversary painted CF-188A Hornet for the Canadian Air Force’s 100^th birthday. There had been some photo sorties undertaken in the weeks before the show to support some upcoming appearances, but this was its first public outing. They pulled the jet out to the center of the crowd line for crewing and start up and it returned there after its display was complete.

The paint scheme is really impressive, and I hope the aging jet can stay serviceable throughout the season, so air show attendees get to see it in the air. It does look very good. The RCAF does seem to have a good history of painting demo jets really well and they must be very pleased with this one. The light was a bit variable while it flew but I was happy with some of the shots I got of it. One the ground it also looked great, particularly close up.

Korean Air’s Unusual Dreamliner

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A Boeing 787-8 showed up at Boeing Field a while back. It is listed as operated by Korean Air, but it is not in their markings, and it is identified as being used as a corporate transport. I don’t know the details about it, but I doubt I will ever be needing to charter it, so it probably isn’t an issue. I went over by the terminal to see it arrive in the morning. I hadn’t anticipated where it would park but it did need to clear customs first and they parked it at one of the larger ramp areas near the customs pad. This meant it taxied back to where I was which was handy. Plenty of people were on hand to handle it when it taxied in. I don’t know how long it stayed for.

Singaporean F-16s

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While Luke AFB is now predominantly an F-35 base, there are still some F-16s based there. The Singaporean Air Force has its US based jets at Luke, and we were glad that they were active on the day we were there. Their two seat jets have the enlarged spine and so stand out compared to US aircraft. They also have some special paint jets on base, and we did get a look at these. One of the jets did a low approach followed by a go-around which resulted in it passing by low with the gear up, which was a welcome piece of action.

The light was bright and harsh, which isn’t ideal for photographing dark jets, but you go with what you have. Trying to get the most of the markings of the jets meant playing with the images in post quite a bit. If the high clouds make for a bad backdrop, nothing much you can do about that.