Tag Archives: california

Orbital TriStar

Another opportunity that Richard organized for us while at Mojave was the chance to shoot Orbital Science’s Lockheed L-1011 TriStar. This is an airframe that was modified to provide the launch platform for their Pegasus orbital launch vehicle. The underside of the fuselage is modified to mount the Pegasus which is then taken to altitude and dropped before the booster ignites. The TriStar is a type that disappeared from service far faster than its rival, the DC-10, so seeing one in great condition was pretty cool.

Old Frigate

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Alongside the clipper on the waterfront in San Diego is an even old sailing ship. This had the look more of a frigate from the times of Nelson. The shape of the hull is broad to provide a platform for the men and weapons and the gun ports on the side allowed the cannons to fire at any enemy. The boat looked exactly as you would expect for that vintage and, in keeping with the fashion of the day, an intricately carved figurehead was mounted on the bow.

Having grown up on the south coast of the UK, ships of this type were not unknown. HMS Victory was a ship I visited on a number of occasions and it was a big ship compared to this one but the lines are unmistakably similar. The idea of traveling around the world in something like this is fascinating (and terrifying) to me. Doing that and then getting shot at by some pretty unpleasant weaponry with access to minimal medical help if you got hurt is even more scary!

DH Dove

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A few years ago, my friend, Richard, had arranged a visit for a number of us to Mojave Airport. This airport does not have a reputation for being photographer friendly but Richard had made the necessary contacts to get us some time out on the field near the taxiways and runways. One of the operators at Mojave is the National Test Pilot School. NTPS operate a wide variety of types on various flight test training activities and some of them were up and about early on this particular morning.

One type that really caught our eye was the deHavilland Dove. An old piston small transport type, the Dove is not something you see around very often these days. This one is kept in excellent condition and appears to have some modifications for flight test purposes and to assist the training of test pilots and flight test engineers. It took off on a runway that brought it towards us nicely. When it returned, it used another runway so we got to see it from several angles.

Blackhawk Automotive Museum

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A short distance north of us is a shopping development that also includes a car museum. The Blackhawk Automotive Museum is something I have been talking about checking out for a long time. Initially, I didn’t assume that it would be terribly impressive so marked it down as something to do when I had a day with nothing much happening. Then I ended up chatting to a colleague about it one day and he told me it was a great collection so Nancy and I decided to take a look. As it happens, the place is outstanding.

The collection of vintage cars is extensive. They are a number of types that I will give their own posts in due course. The location itself is very nice with everything laid out in a very elegant fashion. We spent a ton of time looking around. What amazed me was the number of people that came and went while we were there. There are obviously lots of visitors. However, given how much there is to see, they don’t seem to spend much time looking at all it has to see.

For now, I shall share some shots showing the whole collection as well as a few of the individual cars. There will be more to come focusing on some of the manufacturers that are well represented.

Big Boys at LAX

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I was in Los Angeles a little while back and managed to get a few shots of things at LAX between other activities. This is a quick picture post. The new international terminal has been opened and the big jets are often arrayed along it at the right time of day. The thing that I find funny about this shot is that the small fin in the middle is a Lufthansa Boeing 747-8. This is not a small plane but the Airbus A380 fins make it look tiny!

Just Fishing

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This guy was having a very quiet time fishing while at Del Valle. I liked the look of him seeming so far away from everything else just contemplating the possibility of catching something.

Clipper

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A long weekend away was on the cards so we decided to head down the coast to San Diego. Just over an hour on the plane and you are there so it is a pretty easy trip for us to do. San Diego is a city with a lot of things to offer so you won’t be surprised to see a bunch of different posts showing up in the coming days that are from there. Far too much to put into one or even a couple of posts.

One afternoon we had a bit of spare time between things we had planned so we took a walk along the waterfront. This is an area designed to appeal to tourists (which, after all, we were) and it has a number of attractions playing on San Diego’s nautical heritage. One that caught Nancy’s attention was an old clipper style of ship. These were the speed demons of their age moving goods around the globe (at a pace that would now be considered impossibly slow). They were big square riggers and it was the rigging that was what impressed Nancy. The complexity of the ropes is quite something. In order to hold the high loads using the ropes of the era, they are multipled up on a pulley type of arrangement to provide the strength required. From a distance they look impossibly complex and even up close, they are still something to see.

Del Valle Regional Park

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Head south from Livermore and you get into some hilly territory beyond the vineyards. Climb over one of the ridges and you drop down into a valley flooded by a reservoir. The water is surrounded by a park that has lots of options for hiking, biking, boating and just hanging out. This is Del Valle Regional Park. We were keen to try and get some hiking in before the temperatures got too high so planned out a route that would take us up around the hills and back down to the lake.

While the park is very popular and a lot of people were along the water having picnics and swimming, it didn’t take long to get well away from everyone. To be fair, it wasn’t hard to see why. The route we took involved a very steep climb to start things off. Without having warmed up much, we were both suddenly very aware of how quickly (or not) we were going up. However, once we had reached the high point, we then had a far more relaxing path to take along the ridge. The view was fantastic and we were almost totally alone for the entire route.

Finally we dropped down to the water and had a gentle stroll back to our starting point. Meanwhile, plenty of people were enjoying the water. Kayaks and powered boats were all over the water. The edge of the water had a lot of people fishing. All in all, it seemed the image of relaxed sunny day.

USS Midway

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I was watching something on TV recently and there was some footage of the harbor in San Diego. The camera panned across the waterfront and right across the USS Midway. The Midway was a long lasting ship. She was originally built immediately after the end of WWII. A variety of upgrades and rebuilds meant that she served for nearly fifty years. She was a big ship but not as big as the Nimitz class ships in service today or Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes. Consequently, she could not operate F-14s and was the last carrier to operate Phantoms which were replaced by F/A-18s when the Phantoms were retired.

Upon retirement, she became a museum in San Diego where you can visit her today. I took a look around a few years ago when ISAP was holding it symposium in San Diego. I got there a day early to have a look around and a bunch of us went down to see the Midway.

The collection of aircraft on board is pretty cool. There are some unusual types on display and they are arranged about the ship. The deck and hangar space provides plenty of options for the displays given the size of the air wing she used to accommodate. The deck has been used for other events including launching Kirby Chambliss during the Red Bull Air Races one year and hosting a college basketball game.

One frustrating memory of my visit relates to something not on the Midway. I had been talking with my friends about how I wanted to shoot LCACs – the hovercraft the Marines use for coming ashore. While I was up on the deck, what should I hear but an LCAC. Unfortunately, I was at the wrong end of a long flight deck so only got a passing look at the LCAC as it went by. I did get a quick shot but not one that will ever win any awards!

Should you find yourself in San Diego and you have some free time, I heartily recommend a visit to the Midway. San Diego has a lot to offer but the ship is impressive enough on its own and the collection of aircraft onboard is an added bonus.

Gear Down and Locked

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There are some shots that it is just hard to get. They are possible but it depends on what you have available. One idea that I have been trying to come up with a solution for is getting good shots of airliners as they lower their gear. The sequence for lowering the gear is pretty cool and the outline of the plane when it has flaps deployed but no gear is of interest to me too. However, to get a shot like that, you need to be high up further out on the approach. Unless you are in another aircraft, that is tricky to do.

From the normal locations on the ground, the aircraft is just too far away to get a decent shot. Not only is it in the distance and, therefore, small but you also have to cope with atmospheric disturbances like heat haze and dust in the air. It doesn’t make for a compelling shot! Instead, I decided to try something different. I would shoot the sequence of shots of the approach and then animate them. This would mean that the reduced quality of an individual shot would be lost as the sequence would require a certain amount of motion blur anyway.

What I didn’t realize until I tried this on an A380 was that this jet has an unusual gear sequence. I was looking at trying a 747 or an A380 since they are large and have interesting wing configurations when approaching to land. As it turns out, the A380 lowers the outer two gear legs first before the two center body legs come down. I had not appreciated this before trying this shot. Animating the sequence really put the computer under some pressure. Creating a file with over 100 layers and then adjusting each layer to align properly took some time and really made the machine work hard. Ultimately, I got the sequence you can see above.