Category Archives: civil

Time Lapse into National

This is some older footage I took a while back when I was making a work trip to DC. I have done a bunch of these over the years. The phone allows you to get a good time lapse video (or I should say hyperlapse since it is a bit different) of the approach to landing. The countryside zips by in this type of video and you get the rapid changes in aircraft configuration along with the taxi in and shut down at the end of the flight. For those of you familiar with the northern Virginia area, you might well recognise some places. I did the same on the return leg into SEA as the day was ending.

More Variations on the Theme of a Tug

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I have posted previously about the tugs that get used at airports to push back the jets when they are departing. The big tugs with a tow bar are common in the US. You also get the ones that pick up the nose gear and push from there. While sitting at Heathrow waiting for a flight, I watched their latest approach. These are remotely controlled devices.

They also grab the whole nose-wheel and have a capture device that wraps around the tyres to hold tight. By the looks of them, they are electrically powered so will be recharged when docked somewhere presumably. The operator walks alongside them as they move across the ramp and when moving the planes. It doesn’t seem that fast compared to a normal tug and clearly it still has an operator. However, it looks like a cheaper unit to buy and operate along with lower emissions compared to a large tug. I assume that is why they make sense. Here is some video of them dispatching a jet.

Cargolux Turns on to the Approach

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The joy of the 200-800 lens is the ability to get some really distant shots of something when a spontaneous opportunity presents itself. I was in Seattle at the locks in Ballard when I saw the familiar shape of a 747 approaching. Since passenger 747s are few and far between these days, I figured it would be a freighter and, sure enough, the Cargolux colours were on this example. It came close overhead as it headed for the approach path to SEA.

It was well beyond our location when it started to turn south on the approach but, courtesy of the long reach of this lens, I was able to get a decent shot of it as the topside came into view during the turn. It was a bit of a gloomy winter day, so the conditions weren’t ideal. However, no big heat haze issues to reduce image quality too much – although you aren’t getting great clarity at that range. How nice it is to see a 747 these days.

A Quick Evening Stop at Heathrow

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I made a visit to Kemble for a Buccaneer event that will get a separate post. As the day went on, the weather got nicer and nicer. I took a look at the weather at Heathrow and saw that they were operating on easterlies. I figured that, since I had very limited time photographing at Heathrow and that there would be the chance to shoot from Feltham Park which I had never tried before, I would make a brief stop off there before heading home.

It was a bit late in the day which has its pluses and minuses. The light was a bit lower and would be on the jets that were turning south after getting airborne. However, I had missed the busier time for the long haul departures. However, this is Heathrow so there are always going to be some long-haul flights heading out.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I managed to catch in a relatively short period. I did just miss an Emirates A380, but I got Saudia, Cathay, American and Royal Jordanian along with the local BA and Virgin traffic. I did focus more on the widebodies but there was a Lufthansa neo and my first Air France A220-300. I needed to get home so this was a quick stop off for me but it was fun to try a new place to me, even if it is one that has been used by so many.

Chichester Miles Leopard

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The late 80s and early 90s was a time when a lot of unusual planes were being developed and, much like the later time when VLJs were the trend and now with the EVTOL craze, most of them never made it past the test phase and in to service. One such plane was the Chichester Miles Leopard. I originally saw this plane at a Farnborough air show when it was displayed by their test pilot – a guy that also flew our Jetstream when I was on my Cranfield flight testing course as part of my degree.

Even at the time, I thought the thing looked ridiculous. It had this angular fuselage shape and was a tiny thing. The prototype was powered by a little turbojet by a company called Penny and Giles. I had never heard of them before, and I imagine the engine came from some sort of missile or other. Supposedly the plan was for it to be replaced by some (slightly) larger turbofan which would have improved performance, reduced fuel consumption and the noise! I don’t think that ever came about.

The Bournemouth Aviation Museum has an airframe on display. Looking at it closer up than I was able to at Farnborough showed just what a strange concept it was. I remember it looking spindly when I saw it previously but now it looks so fragile as to be hard to believe. The fuselage is stripped out, but it doesn’t look like it would have made for a comfortable ride. I will have to do some reading on how the testing went. All I can ponder when I see this is that someone thought it was worth spending a ton of their own money on. I wonder how those around them felt about it.

Caught Off Guard by an A340 Overhead

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A walk in the New Forest one weekend was a very pleasant way to spend a day. This was not supposed to be an aviation related time but, as we walked across some open grassland, I noticed something large and four engined coming towards us at pretty low level. It was clearly an Airbus A340-600. European Cargo picked up a few of these jets and is using them from the nearby Bournemouth Airport for freight runs to China. I don’t believe they are a full cargo conversion but instead load the cargo through the normal passenger doors.

I only had the 24-105 on the camera so was a little limited in what I could get. However, when I went to the Bournemouth Aviation Museum a week later, I could see a couple of their jets on the ground at the airport. One was being loaded for another flight while an all-white jet with a registration that might be Maltese, seemed to be stored. Another time, I did try getting a shot of one departing, but conditions were far from ideal, and the location is not great for photography, so things were a bit compromised. Even so, it is cool to see some A340s still in use aside from the Lufthansa examples that have been my only other recent examples.

The Ride to the Next Phase

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This is just another British Airways Boeing 787-10 so maybe not something too exciting. However, this was the plane that was going to take me and Nancy to the UK as we wrapped up our time in the US. The plane was just another plane making another trip but, for us, it was the transition from one phase of our lives to the next. I have occasionally wondered about the journeys people are making when I see a plane coming from a long way away. It could just be a work trip or a vacation but sometimes it is a really significant transformation. This flight was that for us. Onwards!

A Bit of a Royal Flypast

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I was walking in the fields near our house once evening when I heard the sound of a helicopter above me. I searched the skies for it and picked up what appeared to be a dark AW139. I didn’t think it would be a military unit since the UK doesn’t have military 139s. I grabbed a bunch of shots from a distance. Lighting wasn’t ideal but, you don’t always get to chose the conditions you get. I think pulled up FR24 to see if it showed up and, sure enough, it did. It belongs to the King’s Flight and was heading to London from Culdrose in Cornwall. I guess the dark colours I was seeing were the maroon colours used by the royal helicopters. No idea if he was onboard or not.

Nice Retro Paint Job

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I am not very good when it comes to identifying some of the older light aircraft types. I have some friends that will be despairing of me if they are reading this because they can tell any of these different types at a glance. Sorry about that guys. This plane took off from Paine Field one sunny evening and the old military style paint job looked lovely in that light. It looked like a Cub but I looked it up when I got home. Apparently it is an L4X and listed as Experimental. It isn’t listed as a Piper so maybe it is a home built of some sort. Whatever its origin, it did look nice with the sun on it.

Head on For GlobalX

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The GlobalX operations at Boeing Field had become a pretty regular thing so were not necessarily enough to pique my interest. However, I was passing the field when one was getting ready to depart and, since it was a cold, winter day, I figured that heat haze was not going to be too bad. As a result, I decided to go to the street at the departure end of the runway to try a head on shot. I knew they would rotate a long way from me but decided to see what the result might be.

I was quite pleased with the results with the haze being limited and, while I was shooting through a fence, there was not a significant reduction in image quality. This A320 is one that GlobalX took on after it departed the Alaska Airlines fleet. The majority of the airframe is plane white but the rudder has to be balanced after painting, so it was clearly easier to leave it with the remnants of the Alaska livery to save time and money. Not sure who was on this flight, but I imagine they were probably not there by choice.