Tag Archives: airliners

SeaTac Departures Over Boeing Field

AU0E5753.jpgBoeing Field is closely aligned with the extended centreline from SeaTac.  If you approach SeaTac from the north and sit on the left side of the plane, you can look almost straight down on the field.  Similarly, if the departures are heading northerly, it routes nearly over Boeing Field.  For most flights, they are already high enough that they are not a good photo target.  The heavies provide some interest though.

AU0E5505.jpgFirst, they are bigger so a slightly easier thing to fill the frame with.  More importantly, they tend to be a bit more leisurely in their climb rate so are a bit closer in as they pass over.  While I won’t bother to shoot the majority of the passing traffic, the heavies will often get my attention – provided nothing else is happening in front of me.  Here are some of the recent passers-by.

 

Midway Traffic

C59F4668.jpgI have put together a number of posts about fun things I saw at Midway on a recent visit. There were others but they didn’t warrant their own posts. Instead, here is a collection of the rest.

USAirways is Going

wpid12865-QB5Y2504.jpgThe merger of American Airlines and USAirways is now getting close to the point where the two airlines become one. A lot of the USAirways aircraft and undergoing the repainting process to the colors of the combined airline. It won’t be too long before they have all gone and another airline’s colors will be consigned to history. Given that there is enthusiasm for retro schemes, some will remain. However, I thought I would have a little retrospective of some USAirways planes.

wpid12887-AU0E7805.jpgThere are two liveries that dominate the shots I have. I flew on USAirways in the 90s but don’t have much to show of the colors that they had then (or the US Air name!). They have a big fleet so the transition won’t be instant but it will suddenly occur to me that the old colors aren’t showing up any more. In advance of that time, here are some samples of the old colors.

Passing Airliners

wpid7447-AU0E0226.jpgMore on the looking out of the window of airliners theme today.  This time the subject is other airliners.  If you don’t stare out of the window much, you might not be aware just how much other traffic is out there.  Actually, there is quite a lot.  At various times you might see other jets passing in the opposite direction, pacing you at a distance and crossing your path.  Sometimes they seem very close.  With some of the apps that are available now, if you have wifi on-board, you can even be prepared for some of them showing up.

wpid7445-AU0E9875.jpgHere I shall highlight a quality warning.  The attached shots are not great.  They illustrate a point but nothing more.  There have been quite a few occasions when we passed very close to another aircraft.  However, those were not times I had a camera handy.  even if I had, the chances of getting a good shot are not great.  Even when you are close, you are really not that close.  It just seems a lot closer than normal – which it is.  However, you are still well separated.  Therefore, to get a shot, you need a medium length lens at least.

wpid7443-AU0E9863.jpgSadly, aircraft windows are not designed for optical perfection.  Moreover, since they are pressurized and scratches are a source of fatigue which you certainly do not want, the manufacturers put a nice perspex sheet between you and the window.  They certainly are not optically perfect.  Now you are shooting with quite a long lens through two layers of less than perfect material.  This is not a good recipe for quality shots.  There we go.  I have made plenty of excuses.

wpid7455-AU0E0314.jpgYou are now going to get a small aircraft if you are lucky and a small blur if you are not.  If it is pulling a contrail, you might do better since they can make some nice shapes.  However, chances are you won’t get much at all.

wpid7449-AU0E0251.jpg

Some O’Hare Arrivals

A bit more time stuck indoors than I would ideally have liked had meant that I was beginning to climb the walls a bit.  Some good weather had been about but I had been unable to get outside to enjoy it.  However, I did get a Sunday when I was able to get out and the weather showed signs of clearing up.  (It had been pretty murky early in the day but the forecast said it would get better and it wasn’t wrong!)

I decided to head to O’Hare to watch some European arrivals.  A strong westerly wind meant the arrival direction would be reliable as far as sun angle was concerned and the low temperatures should hopefully avoid too much heat distortion.  Apart from that, an afternoon out shooting the arrivals is better than plenty of other options even if it isn’t something new and unique.

As it was, there were a fair few interesting aircraft coming in along with the regular O’Hare types of traffic.  I was able to keep close to the car which meant I could hop back out of the chilly wind between interesting targets and listen out on LiveATC’s app on my phone to know when something was coming my way.  Flightaware also allows a bit of planning ahead.

It was a fun afternoon and some good results showed up.  Some new bits to add to the catalog along with some of the familiar stuff and some that will soon no longer be familiar and need to be remembered before they are gone.  Here is a small selection of the day.

Airliners versus Jetphotos

I bounce backwards and forwards about whether I am interested in the two most prevalent of the online aircraft photograph databases, Airliners.Net and Jetphotos.Net.  I have pictures on both services and they have (very) occasionally brought some useful contacts my way.  Getting images on to their databases can be a frustrating process if you let it since they have very specific requirements about what they accept and what they want.

They own their websites and they can have what they want on there.  If I don’t like it, I am sure they won’t be losing sleep and recognizing this a while back made my life a lot less stressful!  Indeed, I stopped uploading to Airliners.Net and focused on Jetphotos for a while.  They became similar in their issues over time and I stopped bothering altogether.  It hadn’t done much for me so I didn’t see the need.

Every once in a while, I thought it might be useful to have something further there based on the occasional contacts I got.  Therefore, I would get back into the idea of creating edits of my images for the websites.  However, I now make the edits, submit the shots and, if they are accepted, fine.  If not, fine a well.  I am not chasing database statistics with these people.

I have recently come across a few shots of mine that I thought might be good for the sites so made the edits and uploaded to each site.  This was one of those moments when I wanted to compare them in their acceptance policy.  They have a desire for a high level of sharpening but don’t like things to be over-sharpened.  They also can have different views as to what over-processing is – something I like since they often reject for that when I have done very little processing at all!

I have now got the results back and it continues to amuse.  Both sites have accepted some and rejected others.  The fun comes from the fact that they have taken very different approaches to their analysis.  Airliners have rejected some things that were accepted by Jetphotos.  Similarly Jetphotos have rejected some that Airliners accepted.  Rejections were often for similar reasons but for different images.  Is there any rhyme or reason?  I don’t know.  I used to appeal shots that I thought they had been incorrect on.  Now I don’t bother.  Will this ever change?  Probably not.  Will I change my approach?  Probably not.  Does it matter?  Probably not.  The most important thing is to not get stressed about this stuff I guess.

Victorville Flyby

A while back, I found myself in Southern California with my buddy Pete.  Pete is a pilot with about 15,000 hours on multiple types but he always wants to try out something new.  He was renting a Cessna 172 for the day and getting checked out at a couple of interesting fields – Catalina Island and Big Bear.  I was along for the ride.

He asked if there was anything I wanted to do while we were out and I wanted to take a look at Victorville.  Victorville is the old George AFB and is now a place where a lot of airliners come for storage and often to be broken for spares.  I had seen a few pictures of the place and wanted to see what was there to be seen.  Pete had an added interest as there were some British Airways 747s parked up there – the type he currently flies for his day job!

I had been in the back for the first two legs of our trip a we had an instructor along checking Pete out.  For this leg, I took the right seat to be well positioned for the photos and also to get a bit of time in myself.  I had no idea how enthusiastic Victorville would be about passing light aircraft coming to take a look.  However, when we called up the tower, they were very happy for us to make a pass.  When we told them what we wanted, they even allowed us to break off from a low approach and turn north to pass the collection of stored airliners.

There was quite a selection of aircraft on the ground.  Some of them were obviously temporary residents but a few looked like they were only going to be leaving in bits some day.  Rather sad but it happens to us all eventually.  Anyway, a fun distraction on our route (a great trip as a whole by the way but maybe I will save that for another time) and some interesting things to see.

As an aside, Pete was back here before too long to pick up one of the BA jets to return it to service.