Tag Archives: california

NAS North Island

The north end of Coronado Island is the home of the US Navy’s NAS North Island. Home to a lot of helicopters as well as an overhaul facility for F/A-18 Hornets, it also seems to have a lot of transient traffic. We were on vacation so I was not going hunting for airplanes. I even managed to not have the camera to hand as we walked along the water when an MH-60 came heading towards us. I have had some crummy luck when trying to shoot at North Island in the past anyway.

However, when we were up at Cabrillo National Monument, we had a great elevated view of Coronado with the station laid out in the foreground – relatively speaking. Shooting long range is not going to get great shots but the haze was relatively controlled and the light at that time of day was starting to be on your side. I got a few shots of the base as a whole which give you an idea of how it is laid out.

Botanic Garden

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The Botanic Garden in Balboa Park is apparently one of the most popular visitor locations in the city. It isn’t hard to see why since it is densely packed with all manner of vegetation, much of which is beautiful to look at. From tiny plants and delicate orchids to great ferns and palms, there is plenty for the visitor to see. And, there are plenty of visitors! The place has never been quiet whenever I have been there and this visit was certainly no exception.

Not only is it a popular place for people, the local wildlife also seems to like what it has to offer. Birds are flying around at the entrance all the time. I also saw a pretty cool looking caterpillar on a plant just outside the door. I don’t know whether it considered the plant life inside to be tastier and couldn’t get in or whether it was happy munching on what it had. It certainly seemed to be well fed, though.

The garden is not huge so, with everyone squeezed in, it feels pretty busy. Some people are looking at everything, others seem to be just enjoying the overall ambience. For many of the children it seemed to be a chance to see how many of the signs they could ignore by standing on things that weren’t to be stood on or touching things that were not supposed to be touched! I enjoyed the shape and style of the building as much as the plants. It calls out for playing with either a really wide angle lens or a longer lens to compress features. I had to make do with what I had with me.

Wind and Kite Surfing

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It was a pretty windy day when I was at Coyote Point. This had brought out anybody in the Bay Area with either a windsurfing board or kite-boarding gear. They had to work pretty hard because the wind was certainly not making the conditions good for novices. A couple of time, I saw people create a slightly larger cloud of spray than normal as they plowed in. However, on the whole, they seemed to know what they were up to.

From my vantage point on the headland, I could see them well and the long lens allowed things to get a bit compressed. Even so, on some occasions it did appear that they were trying hard to all get in my shot at once. Thanks for the effort guys!

Biggest Sailing Boat

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From where we were staying on Coronado, we could see some boats moored up on the San Diego side of the bay. One of them appeared to have a very large mast. When we took the ferry across to go for dinner, we ended up coming in past this boat. It was a huge vessel with a phenomenal mast. I only had the phone but compiled this pano from a couple of shots from the ferry. There was no way to get the mast in the shot too. I looked the boat up afterwards. It is apparently the largest single-masted sailing boat ever built. (It appears to have been built not far from where I grew up!) It used to be available for charter operations but now seems to be privately owned. It is called M5 and you can see more about it here if you are interested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirabella_V

Planes of Fame Review

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After a period of relative inactivity, I have been a bit busier recently on getting material together for GAR. After a piece on the tenth anniversary of the first flight of the A380 and a review of Dream Machines at Half Moon Bay, I had my first real show of the year. I took a trip down to Chino for the Planes of Fame show. This was the first time I had been to this show, despite the fact it is one of the highlights of the airshow calendar.

The piece went live on GAR recently and can be found at this link. http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2015/05/12/airshow-review…e-airshow-2015/. Meanwhile, here are a few shots that I liked from the event. I will say how much I enjoyed the access you had at this place and it was a very pleasant change not to be herded out as soon as the flying stopped. It was also a lot of fun to hang with Mark, Kev and Jim. Their company made a good weekend great and also meant I didn’t miss the sunset show! Cheers guys.

Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery

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One spot I had never been to while in San Diego was the Cabrillo National Monument up on the northwest end of the bay. The drive to the point takes you through a lot of older naval installations. It also takes you right through the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. On our way back from the headland, we stopped at the cemetery to take a look around. It sits on both sides of the road and extends a long way in each direction.

Military cemeteries, wherever they are, are always thought provoking places. The uniformity of the layout and the headstones combines with their scale to be quite overwhelming. While many of those buried there died in service, a lot of the headstones were far more recently dated as they were the resting places of veterans of long ago that had more recently died. Many of these also included the spouse of the person.

The location up on the ridge overlooking the water in both directions is a beautiful spot and, as last resting places go, I suspect it ranks pretty highly. We certainly weren’t alone in visiting the cemetery. If you find yourself in that area and have some time, I would recommend going.

Heavy Departures Over the Beach

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LAX is undergoing a multi-year program of rebuilding their runways. They have to make some federally mandated upgrades and they are taking the chance to relocate runway and taxiway alignments to accommodate the A380 more efficiently. This means that one of the four runways is going to be out of use for a long time. At the moment, it is one of the runways on the south side of the field which is the part most easily seen from Imperial Hill. Therefore, I decided to try something new for me which was shooting from the beach.

Most departures head out over the beach from LAS unless the winds are doing something unusual. For aircraft heading off the northerly runways, this is the only place to get a good view and, since those runways are located further west, the jets are lower as they come out. The hills along the shore used to be a series of streets which provided a perfect location for watching the jets. However, this whole area has now been closed off and is inaccessible. It is designated a nature reserve although I bet a few security issues helped with the process.

I hadn’t been down this way before so didn’t know exactly where to go. The combination of the hill and fencing makes the view a little restrictive. However, you can get some interesting angles on the jets as they take off. If the weather is nice, you also get some lovely evening light here although my visit coincided with a fair bit of cloud! I was also constantly guessing the flightpath to avoid the places with palm trees and fences – not always successfully. I include one shot through the fence to show you what you see, even if it isn’t good for getting a shot.

I saw a few of the big jets head out which was quite a bit of fun. If I find myself back, I will have a bit of further exploration down here to see what better spots (and weather hopefully) I can find.

Interesting Landing Technique

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This guy landed at Half Moon Bay while we were there. I have to admit I thought I was taking pictures for the accident investigation at first. However, he maintained this pose all along the runway until he turned off and apparently had done it earlier. I guess he had a lot of elevator authority. However, whether it is a good idea is a very different question.

Submarines

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There weren’t just sailing ships along the harbor front. A couple of submarines were also there. One was an old Russian sub while the other was far smaller but was a research submarine. The Russian sub is a Foxtrot class diesel-electric sub and it is moored a further out on a pier away from the shore. The USS Dolphin was a test and research sub for the US Navy and was involved in much deep diving research and test programs to support the fleet subs. She has a very simple hull shape compared to operational subs. She was only retired in the last ten years and was the longest serving sub in the Navy.

Dream Machines Article

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While it isn’t actually an airshow, Dream Machines at Half Moon Bay was my first aircraft event of the year. Hayman and I headed over there to see what would show up. I was also planning on writing it up for GAR again this year. That piece has now gone live at http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/05/05/aviation-event-review-dream-machines-half-moon-bay/ so you can head over the GAR to see the finished version.

The piece focuses more on the aviation side of things than the cars since it is an aviation site. However, the cars were really cool. Here are a couple of cars along with a plane to give you a hint. I might add some more at a later stage!