Category Archives: photo

Ruslan Before Sunset

My wife is a trooper. We were coming back from a day out in the mountains and I saw an Antonov AN124 was coming in to Everett. It was due to land shortly before sunset and sounded like something I wouldn’t want to miss. We weren’t going to be able to get home in time to drop of Nancy so I could get back up to see it arrive. She agreed to make a diversion to see the plane come in. Not her thing but she was okay with being there.

The timing could not have been much better. The light was nice, low and soft so the plane looked great as it trundled down the approach. When it taxied back up to the north entrance to the Boeing ramp, the texture of the skin, which is normally lost in higher light, was a lot easier to see. In fact, the finish looked pretty rough. I guess the Volga Dnepr planes get a lot of use!

Tumwater Canyon

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Our trip across Stevens Pass ended just short of Leavenworth. We took a run along the river through Tumwater Canyon. Here the river sits in the bottom of the valley and the road runs alongside it. Plenty of nice views of the river as it winds its way downhill, some of which you can only see as you drive along the road because there is no space to stop. Other locations, though, do provide an area to allow you to pull off and wander around. Given how pretty it is, you are not alone in these places!

The river widens out in places and then narrows in to some rapids in others. On a sunny day with the fall foliage around, standing by the water and watching the swirling and tumbling flows is really relaxing. The noise of the water can drown out the traffic passing not far away and you can be quite mesmerized. If you don’t mind the close proximity to the traffic, you can also explore a little in each direction away from the parking and get some great new views of the river. You are either walking alongside the road or outside the barriers and close to the edge of the river so paying attention is a must!

One downside to the popularity of the place is that it is a bit tricky to avoid having lots of people in your shots. You can move away a little and have them out of sight. Alternatively, a little careful selection of your angles and shooting location and they can either be cropped out or cunningly concealed behind some other part of the scenery.

What Am I Supposed to do With This F-16 Ladder?

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The Open House at Portland International that the Redhawks held was not the only thing going on that morning. While we were checking out the F-15s, a bunch of ground crew were at work out on the ramp area. They were setting up spots on the ramp for some incoming planes. As soon as I saw the ladders being carried, I could see that they were not for F-15s. They looked a lot more like F-16 ladders. The crews carried them out in a variety of manners but this person seemed to have a more relaxed way of moving a ladder around.

Ah, An Esprit!

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Since I didn’t grow up in the US, a lot of the older cars in museums are not ones that I knew about as a kid. However, a Lotus Esprit is one right out of my childhood. I fell in love with this car as a result of The Spy Who Loved Me when Bond’s Esprit morphed into a submarine. From then on, I dreamed of owning this car. The America’s Car Museum has an example of the pre-turbo Esprit in its collection and, while it certainly is dated by the styling, I still think it is a great looking car. Just don’t pay attention to the switches and knobs pinched from the parts bins of the major car manufacturers of the time!

Big Tugs

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At the majority of airports I fly out, there are basic tugs used to push the airliners back. They are hooked on using a towbar and push the jet out. The tugs at Heathrow are a bit different from the ones I am used to seeing. They are the type of tug that actually picks up the noseleg to move the aircraft out. The leg is surrounded by the tug and elevated. The tug then drives wherever required with the leg coming along. They are pretty substantial beasts. Moving a widebody needs a big tug I guess. They can move a 747 or an A380 but in this case “only” a 787.

Iron Goat Caboose

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The old path of the railroad across Stevens Pass has been abandoned and replaced by a new route that is lower down and has tunneled through sections of the mountains to avoid the tricky climb that was previously required. This abandoned right of way has been turned into a trail called the Iron Goat Trail. Since it is a railroad trackbed, it is not a steep trail which means that a substantial portion of it is actually wheelchair accessible!

Our day out did not include time for hiking but the trail looks well worth exploring and, come the spring, we shall be making a specific trip to go hiking. We did stop at the parking lot to read the signs about the history of the pass. Also, an old caboose is kept at the entrance to the trail and I figured it deserved a shot!

Sunset on the Mountain Tops

The view from our hotel in Whistler towards the mountains was really pretty but never more so than when the sun was setting. A couple of evenings I thought I should get a shot but was either elsewhere or too slow. I did manage to get out there one time though, although I was still a little late. The shadows were creeping up the lower slopes of the mountains but I still had the nice color on the summits. The warm, evening light was really appealing and mountains look good at the best of times so this was a great scene to see.

Hello C-17s. Where Are Your Buddies?

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In this previous post, I mentioned the crews at Portland setting up for the arrival of some F-16s. They were coming in from Texas for a week of DACT training according to the word around the ramp. Sadly, the jets did not arrive prior to the end of the Open House. However, they weren’t the only planes coming in. The ground crews and support equipment arrived ahead of the jets courtesy of a pair of C-17s. These arrived a few minutes apart and taxied in to the adjacent section of the ramp. One jet was already unloading as the second taxied in. They were a nice compensation for the F-16s not arriving in time.

Sunspots

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It’s been a while since I posted my pictures from the eclipse. This is a post of a sun picture taken on that day but I took this before the eclipse got started. I was setting up the camera and the filters and I needed to get some shots to check everything was okay before things started to happen. At the time, I noticed the sunspots on the shot but I was distracted by other things after them and forgot. However, it was impressive to be able to see features on the surface of the sun as I was taking a shot.

Sabreliner Testbed

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The Sabreliner is a neat little jet under normal circumstances, combining as it does the wing of the Sabre with a fuselage for passengers. This example, that now lives in the Evergreen Aerospace Museum in McMinnville Oregon, is even better because it is a testbed. The nose has a new radome grafted into place to allow the testing of different radar. Meanwhile, pods can be mounted under the wings to test a variety of different sensors and electronics. Some of these different configurations are displayed alongside the airframe. Good to know that after years of specialized service, the aircraft will survive in the indoor comfort of the museum.