Tag Archives: california

Pacific Aerospace P-750

An oft quoted idiom in aviation is that if it looks right it flies right. I’m not sure whether that was deep in the minds of Pacific Aerospace Ltd when they designed the P-750 or not but this is an aircraft that is functional and useful but I doubt too many people will consider it pretty. It is a workhorse. Some sections of fuselage which minimize the use of double curvatures to make production simpler and cheaper. Add to that the reliable PT-6 seemingly bolted on the nose and a wing with a thick section and some simple dihedral at the tips and you have a plane. If you want to take a decent load of skydivers up to altitude quickly and get back down just as quickly for the next load, this is your sort of plane.

This example showed up at Salinas while I was there. It parked on the ramp for a while before heading back off. It has a rear door suited to skydiving and the name on the bottom suggests that is what it does. I first saw one of these at East Troy in Wisconsin where it was also carrying skydivers. The diving approaches both examples used show just how quickly this plan can get back on the ground. The first time you see it, you may think something is wrong but it is just the most efficient way to get to the next paying customers.

Baker Beach

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The Bay Area is not short of photogenic locations. Probably the most famous is the Golden Gate Bridge. I have certainly photographed it many times from different places. One that I have not shot from before, though, is Baker Beach. Located on the outside of bridge on the south shore, it provides a nice angle on things. I had seen plenty of shots from there before but my previous effort at visiting had occurred on a day when visibility on the shore was just good enough to see your hand in front of your face.

Nancy and I decided to check it out as a fall back when something else we had planned proved to be so busy we couldn’t find anywhere to park. We headed to the beach and strolled along the sand avoiding (most of the time) the waves rolling up on the shore. The view of the bridge was much as expected. As we wandered around, a number of container ships came into view heading for the bay. I was curious to see just how large they looked when compared to the bridge. We loitered until one of them went under the bridge. It suddenly looked a lot less impressive, even though it reached a good distance towards the bridge deck.

Solar Impulse and Shooting at Midnight

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The round the world trip of Solar Impulse, the solar powered aircraft conceived of by Bertrand Piccard and built/flown by him and Andre Borschberg, resumed its journey after an enforced stay in Hawaii while they dealt with some overheating issues with the batteries. By the time the batteries were fixed, it was too late in the year to continue. The aircraft charges its batteries during the day and uses them at night. If the day is shorter and the night longer, the flight is not sustainable. The arrival of spring meant they could resume the trip.

Originally the leg from Hawaii to the continental US was supposed to go to Phoenix. The break meant they came up with a revised route which included a stop in the Bay Area at Moffett Field in Mountain View. This meant I could cover it for Global Aviation Resource. There are two articles I prepared which you can see here and here.

The arrival was scheduled for about midnight. Late landings and early departures are scheduled to provide the calmest conditions. The very high aspect ratio, lightweight airframe is sensitive to turbulence. It also is easier to schedule a very slow aircraft in to the air traffic patterns during the night. While the time moved around a bit, it ended up being pretty much as expected. This brought the issue of how to shoot an aircraft at midnight.

I took a second shooter with me in the person of Hayman Tam. I wanted stills and video for the story and can’t get both at once so we worked on it together. He would focus on stills and I would get video. I would also get some stills too. The plane is sufficiently slow that you can get both for most situations apart from the landing itself. It didn’t hurt that Hayman had just taken delivery of his D500 which should be a lot better in low light.

I was mounting my camera and the 100-400 on a gimbal mount to steady it for video. This was also helpful for getting stills. Not ideal but better than nothing. I was at the max ISO for my camera of 12,800 (excluding the extended ranges) with -1 to -2 in exposure compensation. Even so, it was still a very slow shutter speed. Some bursts of shooting were necessary to get a reasonable shot. Fortunately the aircraft has a lot of lights of its own otherwise there wouldn’t be much to see. It’s a shame my new bodies hadn’t arrived at the time as they might have been able to get better results. Even so, I was quite pleased with what I got considering that I was shooting in the darkest conditions I have ever tried for a plane.

Texas One Retires (for now)

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I saw online this weekend that Southwest Airlines had retired Texas One, a jet painted up in Texas colors. Texas One is a 737-300 and Southwest is accelerating the withdrawal of the 300 Series jets. It flew out of Dallas to a facility that will break the jet for parts. By coincidence, I happened to shoot this very jet the day before when it arrived at SFO. I had no idea that it would be at the end of its career. Nice surprise. For those that like the colors, fear not. I hear that Southwest will be painting another jet in this scheme before too long.

Crosswind Training in the Citabria

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This Citabria was flying circuits at Hayward while I was there. The wind was pretty strong and coming across the runway so the pilot was taking the opportunity to practice their crosswind landings. A lot of wing was down into wind in order to compensate for the conditions and, while they occasionally struggled with some of the bigger gusts, they did seem to have good control of the aircraft. I guess awkward conditions are a reason a lot of flyers would stay on the ground but this one saw an opportunity to get some good practice in. Nicely done!

Pulling a Cloud With You

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Getting shots of vapor is a popular thing when shooting fast jets. An airliner on a damp day can also result in some clouds being formed. While shooting something special at Oakland, I was getting a few shots to make sure the light metering was working as planned. A Southwest 737 came in and, as it flared for landing, it had a nice cloud of moisture form over the wing. Normally these things pop up further out on the approach and don’t make for a good shot but this one was close at hand.

Surfs Up Again

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There was a decent swell coming in of the Pacific while we were in Santa Cruz. People were surfing at a number of locations. The majority were off the headland by the lighthouse. A lot of the waves were carrying the surfers a long distance but they weren’t getting a lot of action in during their runs. Every once in a while, though, someone was able to really get things moving. These are some of the shots I got during the day.

Coast Guard C-130 in its Final Days

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I wrote about the arrival of the C-27J Spartan in Coast Guard service. This means that the C-130s are going to be heading out. One the same day I saw a Spartan flying, one of the current C-130s took off. It was a nice illustration of what is now and what will be. I have seen the Coast Guard 130s around on a number of occasions but I guess they will soon be gone. Maybe I shall see them fighting fires somewhere.

Those That Sneaked In

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I learned something significant while shooting the airliners from above LAX. It is a lot harder to see an airliner from above than I thought. In the many years of flying, I am familiar with the importance of maintaining a good lookout and the difficulty of spotting other aircraft around you in the sky. From our locations over the airport, we were generally picking out the aircraft from a background of the city, not the sky. I had figured that we knew the approach paths and what was due in so we would not have trouble seeing the planes as they came in.

I was very wrong. First, they are not easy to find at all. Three sets of eyes were looking but we would find things at odd times, sometimes when they were very close. Also, with parallel operations to the 24 and 25 complexes, you can get distracted by activity on one side and miss out on something the other side. The result of this was that we did not see some of the jets until they were on the ground. Pete, who was with me, flies 777s so we were keen to get the BA jet when it came in. We knew the arrival time and still managed to miss it until it was on the ground. An Air France A380 also sneaked in past our “diligent” scan. An Aeroflot A330 was also successful in coming in untouched.

All of these were a little frustrating but not terrible. However, it did give me pause for thought about how I would plan the flight the next time in order to keep track of the things that I most wanted to get. This flight was my first time trying this so I was happy to have got so many shots that I like. The missed ones are not the end of the world. I did learn a lot though and will make sure I use that knowledge next time.

Funneling the Waves

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The headland at Santa Cruz includes a narrow inlet in the cliff face. As the waves come in, this inlet can concentrate the wave and result in some spraying up out of the top when the wave runs out of places to go. The wave action varies a lot so often there is nothing to see from above. However, as the waves grow, they can spray out a bit or, if the wave is really big, fire a plume of spray and debris up into the air and onto the top of the cliff. A little patience and some luck is required to get this to work for you but it is fun to see – particularly if people have got a bit too close during the quiet times and are not expecting the big one!