Category Archives: photo

High Peak

The top of a mountain is always going to tempt me. I love high points with unobstructed views in all directions. Taking the aerial tram to the top of High Peak from Squaw Valley put us in a great place to survey all around us. It was a bit hazy so the distant views were not too great but you could see Lake Tahoe off in one direction and the summits of other mountains around us. The surface was pretty easy going so we wandered around a lot. You did notice the altitude of course so we didn’t overdo it.

The resort buildings at the summit included a pool and hot tub (which was open while we were there) and some catering places, most of which had given up with the end of the ski season. A steady stream of people was making their way up. We had gone early in the day when it was very quiet. By the time we headed down, the numbers arriving were a lot larger and things were getting a lot busier. Still, you only had to walk a short distance to find yourself a lot more alone if you wanted to.

Breaking the Old Jets

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Boneyards can be interesting place to explore. Old stuff and things from odd locations abound. On one side of Tucson International Airport is a place filled with old airliners. Some are being worked on and will fly again. Others are being stripped for the useful parts that they have. I didn’t get to go inside but instead wandered along the fence line seeing what was going on. Interestingly, having seen one of the last flights of the Texas 737 for Southwest, I was surprised to find it here a few days later. It was being broken down already. Other 737s were looking short of key parts and a few MD-80s were looking unlikely to move any time soon. A couple of A320s were there and they did look like they might be on the move at some point. One was being repainted which I imagine means it has a future.

Donner Party Memorial

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Of course, Donner Pass and Donner Lake are named for the Donner Party. If you are not familiar with American history, this was a group heading west that got trapped in the pass in winter and many did not make it out alive. Those that survived had to do some harsh things to make it. The tale is a sad one and there is a memorial to the party near one end of the lake at the location in which they camped. There is a visitors’ center and a number of trails. The focal point is a large memorial. The base of the memorial is as high as the snow was reportedly deep that winter. It is a lot of snow! On top is a group of hardy travelers. When you think what people went through to get across the country in those days, they were truly hardy types.

Vampires Out in Daylight

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Tucson International is a place I was expecting to shoot F-16s of various nations. I had not expected to see any Super Hornets. However, the Navy had other plans. A couple of VX-9 Vampires jets were detached and carrying out missions with some of the based test aircraft. One of them was the color jet too! This was a very pleasant surprise. They took off in the morning for a mission and we got to see them head off. They returned ahead of my expectations and I wasn’t in the right place to get them on approach. Even so, a great addition to the day. I was flying home later that day and, while looking out of the window at the gate, they taxied by again so I guess they were getting a lot of flying in.

Donner Lake

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I posted photos of Donner Lake a while back as I was traversing the Sierras en route to Reno. This time we got a lot longer to look around. We did stop at the overlook on the interstate but then we dropped down the hill to the lake itself. There was a nice beach at one end which had a few people visiting even though it was rather early in the year. Some of the houses built along the lake looked pretty nice too. I imagine they would be very pleasant places to spend some relaxing time.

French Gazelle

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Chino is full of surprises. There are many hangars and many unusual things contained in them. A friend showed me a shot of a Jaguar T4 that was in one of them – I was disappointed to not see that myself. As I was walking back towards the parking with a fellow shooter, we came across a hangar with a Gazelle in it. The guy cleaning out the hangar floor invited us in. It was a French Army Gazelle, still equipped with many electronic boxes from its military role and showing the mounting point on the side of the fuselage where HOT anti-tank missiles were once mounted. He flies it regularly and says it has been immaculately maintained over its service life. It certainly looks great.

Squaw Creek in Full Flow

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Squaw Valley has a river running through it. This river goes by the name of Squaw Creek – you wouldn’t have guessed would you? It is a short walk from the center of the resort to get to a series of falls that the creek goes over. A trail winds its way up into the hills a lot further if you are feeling energetic taking you to a lake (if it is early enough in the year for it not to have dried up). We didn’t explore all of this. It was the falls that were of interest.

The water was flowing quite nicely with the meltwater run off from the mountains. It would split around obstacles and take various paths down the hill but ending up together again as it descended. The falls were in some nice tree cover so it was a cool temperature as you climbed up the trail.

Rolls’ Testbed Flies While I Am There – Twice!

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On my previous visit to Tucson, I saw the Rolls Royce owned Boeing 747 engine testbed. This was converted for the Boeing 787 Trent engine development program (hence the registration N787RR). The Number Two engine was removed and replaced with the test engine. The other three Rolls RB211s are unchanged. At various times the testbed has been reported to be without an engine in the test location but there was something there when I was last here – it’s just they didn’t fly. This time was different.

I saw the testbed when I left the airport after my flight landed. The following morning, I headed out to see what F-16 traffic there was and saw online that a flight plan had been filed for the testbed. I only had a certain amount of time before I was due to be at Hawgsmoke but it was supposed to fly long before that. Of course, test flying is not usually something that happens to a tight schedule and the takeoff time came and went. We were beginning to think we might miss it when the sound of some large engines spooling up reached us. A while later, out she came.

Engine testbeds require some careful control. Since one engine is significantly different in thrust from the others, there is a balancing act required to keep the thrust differential within the ability of the control surfaces to overcome. That means the max thrust is not always going to be used. Consequently, they use a good portion of the runway for takeoff rotating just passed our location. That meant I didn’t get the front quarter rotation shot I had in mind.

No matter, I still got to see it fly. The return was about six hours later and I was busy elsewhere at that time. I figured that was it for this trip. I was wrong. The morning of my departure, I had a little time to spare so went back to see what was happening. Amazingly, the testbed was already being crewed as I drove up. We got a repeat of the previous day and some similar shots. I guess I was compensating for not seeing it fly last time!

Squaw Valley Olympic Village

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Ski resorts are designed around the winter season and, come the summer, they can often be rather deserted. The weather was warm and sunny during our visit to Squaw Valley Olympic Village but the place was far from quiet. There was a festival underway so the center of the resort was filled with stalls from various vendors selling all sorts of things but mainly focused on art and craft type items. Meanwhile, bands were playing at a couple of stages.

The event was obviously very popular and large numbers of people were milling about. Some of the lifts up the mountains were also still in use. Obviously a lot has changed since the days of the Winter Olympics in the 60s but there are still signs around the town of the history of the games having been there. I imagine the winter games were a lot lower key in those days but I still imagine the valley was pretty busy at that time. It would have been quite an influx of people. I wonder what the evening entertainment was like then.

Departure of Solar Impulse

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Having been to Moffett Field for the arrival of Solar Impulse and then made another visit to the hangar while they were there, I wasn’t going to miss the departure. This might not seem like a difficult decision to make but if I tell you I had been away in Southern California for the weekend and having driven back on Sunday and then finding out that departure was scheduled for 5am on Monday and we would be required to get there at 2am and I would need to be up at 1am, you can see why this was a bit tougher to do.

However, I was committed at this point (or should have been) so I slept in the spare room so as to not disturb Nancy. Off for an early run. Traffic was no problem at that time as your might imagine. Once there it was back to the same issues as we had faced with the arrival. It was very dark. Hayman did the stills and I went for video but got some stills as well. Unfortunately, they chose not to back-track the aircraft as had been briefed so it took off from ahead of us and went away. We still got some good shots and, while it got airborne very quickly, it got to a certain distance when it seemed like it had stopped moving.

Then, it was time to go. We wrapped up and got on our way. I actually was back at home a little ahead of my normal time to get up so I did my normal routine and headed in to the office. It would be fair to say that I was not at my most perky that day!