Category Archives: military

Fifi Shows Up in Seattle

Since we have lived in the Northwest, we have had a visit from a B-29. That was Doc with Fifi’s previous visits having predated my arrival. I had seen Fifi elsewhere in the US but, when I heard that the CAF was bringing her up, I was looking forward to seeing her. She was due to arrive early in the week and then sit around until undertaking some rides at the end of the week. She was coming up from California and arriving at the end of the day, which meant I had a chance to be there.

A B-29 is not speedy so you can track her progress and know you have enough time. When they arrived, they did request an overhead break by ATC was unable to comply. When we saw her out on the approach, she seemed to be doing something odd. Apparently, they had got too close to the preceding aircraft (although it was a bizjet and she is a lot slower, so I am not sure how that happened). The result was that they broke off the approach and made an orbit before resuming the approach.

After that, things were pretty normal. She came down the approach with some nice evening light. The rumble of those engines as she came by was impressive and then she was flaring for landing. I was optimistic about trying a variety of angles the following weekend when she was due to undertake the rides. Directly under the approach path was one I had in mind. Sadly, one of the crew had to return home and they didn’t have enough for the rides to be carried out, so she sat on the ground for almost the entire visit.

Departure of the USAF F-35A Demo

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Being up the tower at BFI during Seafair was a fantastic opportunity. I have photographed a bunch of F-35A departures at Boeing Field in recent years, but an elevated location was hard to beat. The A and B jets were parked together on the far side of the field so a little distant for a clean shot but, as they taxied out, it was still worth a go. Passing the Golden Knights jumpship and all of the people watching from the ramp was also rather cool to see.

The takeoff is a brutal affair. The power of that engine is impressive and, as they got airborne and held it low, you knew that anyone at the north end of the field was in for a treat as they blasted across the airfield perimeter. Looking down on the jet was epic. I was taking a chance with some lower shutter speeds but letting the camera make up for my lack of skill by letting me have a lot of shots to choose from. What a moment of sensory overload!

Flares Aplenty

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The USAF has started using flares more in some of their displays recently. I have seen shots of the F-22 Raptor demo pumping out flares at the top of a loop to great effect. The willingness to use flares is dependent on where you are – no point starting a wildfire for a display. Seafair is over water so no risk at all there. Consequently, The F-35A demo this year incorporated flares too.

I was pleased to get some shots with the flares being dispensed. They were not thrown out in quick succession, which was a shame as a closer spacing would have made for a better shot. Even so, having some flare shots was a nice addition. Seafair’s display axis is a long way from the shoreline, so things were a bit distant, but they were still not too bad.

DM A-10s Are Gradually Going Away

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For the longest time, there have been efforts by the USAF to drawn down the A-10 force. Various things have held them back from doing this but now there is a pretty concerted effort to retire them. Units are closing down, and it does seem that the aircraft might no longer have a role in the order of battle. There are many fans of the A-10 including me and some will never accept it can be replaced while others will think its time has come. They were produced from the late 70s to the early 80s, so they are definitely old, even if parts of them are a lot newer like the wings.

What we like or think doesn’t matter. They seem to be going away. Consequently, when we were at Davis-Monthan during the Arizona trip, I was pleased to get to shoot a few of the jets working around the pattern there. I know my Harrier experiences this year have shown how wrong you can be about when you will ever see things again, but I figure the number of encounters I shall have with these jets will be limited. Even so, they are continuing to make new developments as Mark found on a follow up visit when he saw a new store mounted on one of the evaluation jets. The A-10 was a favorite of mine in my teens, and it will be a shame when they are all gone.

The Dolphin is Nice and Close

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The location I choose to go to for watching Seafair is very close to where the Coast Guard keeps their MH-65 Dolphin. They participate in the display, but I guess they can also be used if any emergencies occur. They park the helicopter on an area that juts out into the lake. It is normally a sparking lot but is closed off for their use during the show. There is fencing around the area to keep us out of the way. During the show I was slightly further north but had a good view of them as they crewed up and departed and then returned after their display.

One everything was over, I moved close to the location because I knew that they would be heading off for the overnight before returning for the following day’s display. This was a good opportunity to get a closer view of them as they crewed in, started up and took off. The fencing was a bit of a nuisance, but the uneven ground meant it was possible to find some gaps where the fence elements were not tight together.

It was nice that, unlike during the display itself, when they departed away from us towards the south end of Lake Washington, this time they turned around and head north along the lake shoreline. This gave us a great view of the helicopter as it climbed away.

S-2 Airframes Lined Up in the Evening Light

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Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson is well known as the storage location for hundreds/thousands of airframes that may either return to service or may provide spare parts for airframes still in service. Just outside the perimeter of the base are some privately owned facilities that also have a lot of old airframes. Whether they will provide parts to support operations somewhere or will ultimately just become scrap metal, I don’t know. One of these facilities has an extensive collection of S-2 airframes. They are lined up in rows and, as the evening light came in, they looked particularly interesting. A longer lens allowed some compression of the perspective for these aircraft and their bare metal picked up the light nicely. I imagine none of these will ever be flying again but I hope they survive for a long time.

My Luck with the Snowbirds Continues to Go Downhill

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Last year, when I went to the Abbotsford Air Show, the Snowbirds were displaying with eight jets instead of nine. There had been an issue with one of the crew and they were completing the season down a jet. When I headed to Comox this year for the show, I was hoping to get a full display from the Snowbirds. That was not going to be the case. On arrival, my friend Mark advised me that one of the pilots had injured an arm in a non-aviation related accident. Oh well, I thought.

Then, when they started up for the display, one of the jets wouldn’t play ball. I thought they might run to a spare jet but, no, we were down another jet. This meant we would only have seven jets for the display. Surprisingly, this didn’t cause as many issues in my shots as I thought it might. The four ship cross was gone which was disappointing but, when shooting tightly on the formations, things actually seemed to look okay. In fact, sometimes it stopped me having to worry about getting the whole formation in shot since they had “cropped” for me.

It was a pretty good display and I enjoyed watching it. Here is a selection of shots from the day.

Great Access for the Takeoff and Recovery

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I didn’t get to see the F-15s when they did the flyover for the Huskies game, but the Sunday gave me a chance to head out and see what might be possible to shoot. I bumped into my friend, Jeff, at the spot I was hoping to try, and it was immediately clear it would not work because a bunch of spare 737s had been parked in the line of sight. With the weather being overcast, we both decided to head across to the terminal to see what our options were.

Then Jeff found out his friend, Clint, was working on the field that day and was happy to give us a ride. The F-15s had already fired up so we were a bit concerned whether we could meet up with him in time or not. However, it is always a long time between engine start and taxiing and Clint came and got us with plenty of time to spare. We stopped at one location to photograph the jets taxiing towards us but a bizjet pulled out in front of them, so we made tracks to the other side of the field.

We picked a spot which we thought would be good for them having already rotated and then waited. They were lined up behind the bizjet and it was waiting for its airways release so, eventually the tower had them taxi across the runway to make space for the F-15s to launch. They then lined up and were blasting past us. I hadn’t brought any hearing protection and things were a touch loud, but it was brief. I was a little foolish playing with some low shutter speeds but a few of the shots worked out well. The second jet kept things nice and low so the photographers further down the field would have been very happy.

Before they would return, Clint had some tasks to perform so he took us along while he sorted out what needed to be done. We kept the football commentary on the radio so we would know when the flyover had taken place. Then the jets came back into sight stopping across the lower end of the city before they lined up for landing. We picked a spot close to where we expected touchdown and, again, got lucky. The second jet even obliged with the speedbrake – a bit like their original arrival.

What a fantastic bit of luck and thanks to Clint and Jeff for allowing me to tag along. There is nothing quite like seeing these jets at close quarter.

An Aurora Is a Bit of a Rarity These Days

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For many years, the majority of maritime patrol operators have been using P-3 aircraft. However, with the advent of the P-8 Poseidon, the number of P-3s is rapidly reducing. Canada operates its own version of the family called the CP-140 Aurora. With their continued operation, that are now becoming a bit of a treat to see. I had hardly ever seen one in action before so, when they were displaying at the show at Comox, I was really pleased to get a chance to get some photos of one.

As with all military jets these days (or so it seems), grey is the order of the day. Not the most exciting paint job but a different version of grey is definitely good. They threw the plane around with plenty of energy in the display so the photo opportunities were good including a pass with the weapons bay open. The replacement of the Aurora is currently being pursued so they won’t be around for much longer so good to get them now while the opportunity presents itself. Funny how little I was interested in P-3s when I was younger and now I am hunting them down!

Super Fast Frame Rate

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One of the features that was added to the Canon EOS R3 via a firmware update was a ridiculously high frame rate mode. The fastest frame rate in normal shooting is 30fps (which is clearly ridiculous itself for anyone that has been photographing for a long time). The extra mode comes with limitations. Once you start shooting, autofocus and exposure monitoring are suspended so you get a lot of shots with the same settings. However, this does allow you to get 194fps!!! Yes, that is not a typo. It will only do this for a maximum of 50 frames but that is raw capture – not a jpeg. You get to select how many frames are taken which I have to admit I didn’t realize until recently. I was shooting with a limit of 10 frames for quite a while and wondering why. I’ve fixed that now.

There are relatively few times when this mode is actually useful. The viewfinder does black out when you use it so, if you are tracking something, a little bit of predictive guesswork is in order. If you were shooting a baseball pitch being hit, this could be pretty handy. I decided to use it on the Blue Angels pair crossing during Seafair to see how things work out. The answer is pretty good. I include a sequence of shots so you can see what even this frame rate gives you for two fast jets head on to each other. A limited tool but one that could be utilized. I have also been using it for very lower shutter speed experimentation but that will be another post.