Tag Archives: california

Spruce Goose Then and Now

There is a fine line between being inspired by someone’s work and plagiarizing them. Today I shall tiptoe along that line. My friend Hayman Tam has recently posted some pictures of the Spruce Goose on his blog after a trip he had made to the Evergreen Air Museum in McMinnville OR. Go to Hayman’s blog at shutterspeedaero.wordpress.com to see that post and many others. In doing so, he reminded me of my own trip to the museum and photographing the Goose. However, that was not the first time I had seen it.

In 1990, during my first ever visit to the United States, I was in Long Beach with my Dad. We visited the Queen Mary and in those days, the Spruce Goose was inside the large dome that sits on the waterfront. I had my camera with me on that trip. It was my first Canon camera, an EOS600 (which was called the EOS630 in the US) and that camera got a lot of use over the years. I still have it. I didn’t take a huge number of pictures of the Spruce Goose but I did get a few.

Moffett Field Museum

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Paul’s visit also included a trip to Moffett Field. Neither of us had visited the museum there so we were both interested in having a look. To be honest, we had assumed it would be a relatively quick visit but the place was very interesting and a docent ended up chatting to us about lots of features in the museum and he was a great guy to talk to. He also took us outside to look at some of their more interesting aircraft.

There are a few preserved aircraft at Moffett. Some restoration work continues and their P-2 Neptune is currently across the field being worked on. A P-3 is a short walk away from the museum but they have a fenced off area with a few other exhibits. These include an F-104G Starfighter that NASA used to operate, an AH-1 Cobra from the US Army, a research wind tunnel model (Moffett has an interesting selection of wind tunnels even after the demolition of the biggest one a few years ago) and their centerpiece, a Lockheed U-2. It is currently awaiting reassembly so the wings are on supports alongside the aircraft awaiting reattachment. They have worked hard on restoring it and it looks really cool. The camera installation is inside the museum as well.

Moffett Field’s history as an airfield is an interesting one and they cover it well. Whether it is the early airship work and the huge hangars that are still on the field or the long presence the US Navy had, the current ANG rescue operations or the NASA research activity, they have it covered. Do pay them a visit and support the work that they are doing. They have a few cool aircraft that are on the other side of the field which are currently out of bounds to the public so I shall have to see if there is a way to get to see them at some point.

T-6s Doing Their Stuff

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A pair of locally based North American T-6 trainers were keeping busy while the Collings folks were in town. Shortly after I first arrived, they launched as a pair. The departure was very nice but was a little spoiled by a card error on my camera. (I had a card that had given me occasional trouble but this was the first time it really crapped out. It has now gone back to the manufacturer for a replacement.) The T-6s were not done and flew several times. This gave me a few more opportunities to get shots of them. Their returns to base would involve some nice breaks into the downwind which were well centered on our location. I will have to investigate these guys further since they flew very nicely.

Civil Planes at Livermore

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My visit to Livermore for the Collings Foundation visit also provided some other interesting aircraft to shoot. The field was quite busy on a sunny weekend day. The usual piston singles were out and about while a couple of aerobatic types were also getting some hours in. No great description here. Just a few shots to show you what I mean.

Marin Civic Center

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This post comes as a single piece but it is a combination of different shoots. Marin County’s offices are located in San Rafael and are an impressive structure designed by the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. We saw plenty of his work in Chicago and my sister is a bit of a fan of his work. When she was visiting, I thought a trip across would be just what she wanted. We had actually been there once before on a trip we all made several years ago. On that day, it was raining heavily and I didn’t know exactly where we could go so this time we combined some research with a sunny day. It helped that it was a weekend so the parking lots were mostly empty.

For those of you that have watched the Star Wars movies and more particularly this recent ones, the building may look rather familiar. George Lucas is a local resident and I think there is a fair chance that the building influenced him when creating Naboo. The building is a long structure in two parts with a domed area at the join with a gold colored spire. It is quite something. Photographing it is, however, rather tricky. There is not a good location to get the full effect in one shot since tree coverage tends to block the views of one part when the other is in shot. However, a good wander around will allow a number of cool views.

To bring this up to date, I was on a flight back to Oakland recently that ended up coming down over this part of Marin County. Out of my window appeared the Civic Center. Shooting directly downwards through a plane window is usually not something that works well since distortion can be bad. However, on this occasion, I got lucky and so now I have some more shots that show the whole building from an angle most people don’t get at all!

Coast Guard Bell 47

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I always seem to find something aviation related when I am out and about. San Ramon is the next town up from us and it was having its Art and Wind event. This combined a bunch of art stalls with some excellent kite flying displays and was an amusing play on the more common Art and Wine festivals that many towns around here have. As we wandered around, we came across a Bell 47 helicopter. They are not terribly rare but this one was a bit more interesting as it was in service with the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

I had no idea that Bell 47s were still in government service. The crew were standing by and talking to a selection of kids that came to have a look. Our timing couldn’t have been better because just after we arrived, they starting moving people away so that they could take off. It would have been rude to leave at this point so we sat down close by and watched them start up and depart the field after a brief moment turned towards us to say goodbye. Nice!

Collings Foundation

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The Collins Foundation carry out a tour throughout the country with their vintage aircraft showing them off to many communities, sharing a message about what people did in the Second World War and providing an opportunity to ride in some historic machinery. I have seen them in the past while we lived in Chicago. Their tour this year brought them through the Bay Area with stops at Moffett Field and Livermore. Since the latter is close to home, I went along to see them.

The part of the collection that they bring on tour includes a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, a Consolidated B-24 Liberator and a North American P-51 Mustang. I headed over to Livermore ahead of their planned arrival time and plenty of people had already gathered to see them come in. We all waited for a while and then the B-17 appeared over the hills. It made its approach and landed a short while before the B-24 showed up and followed suit. The P-51 was last of the three making a nice pass before landing. What I hadn’t anticipated was a B-25 Mitchell was also following them in. A quick turnaround and the three main players were soon launching off for flights with expectant passengers.

At this point I headed off as I had other things to do. Later in the day I came back and managed to catch an evening launch of the B-17. The following evening I had more free time so came back again. Another evening launch and recovery as the light got better and better. Then, as everyone packed up, the Collings team was kind enough to let me take some shots around the ramp. A local P-51 was parked up while the Collings P-51 had disappeared somewhere. As the sun set, I shot around the various aircraft and included a cracking 1937 Oldsmobile that one of the volunteers had brought along. With the light fading, the ramp lights came on which gave me a whole new bunch of opportunities to get some shots. I shot a lot until it was pretty late. At that point I headed home. The following day they also departed moving on to the next stop on their tour. If they come your way, make the effort to get out and see them. If you have the money, take a ride and support the continued operation of these great aircraft.

Flying Out of The Bay Area

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I have been traveling a reasonable amount recently and on one of my trips we took off from Oakland and flew out over San Francisco Bay, past the city and the Golden Gate and up to the north. The first time, I had my camera with me but it was in my bag in the overhead locker. My phone was still to hand of course so I grabbed a few pictures with that. They were passable but nothing special. I also was fighting some reflections given the time of day and the position of the sun.

When I came to make the same trip again, I planned ahead and did two things. One was to have my camera with me rather than in the overhead and the other was to bring the Lens Skirt to try and cut down on the reflection issues. My methodology for having the camera to hand involves yet another camera bag but I shall leave the description of that to another post.

I should point out that on the first outing, I got interesting pictures both out and back. The second time, the weather was not so cooperative. On the outbound leg, the Golden Gate was shrouded in fog with the bridge just poking out of the top of the clouds. On the return leg, most of the bay was shrouded in cloud so the views of Oakland that I had got with my phone were obscured. Here is a selection of the shots. I will be making this trip again no doubt so will probably try and get a better selection. Shooting out of airplane windows is problematic and not usually the source of great images but airliners do get you in places that have views that are unusual and worth recording, even if they are not going to be published.

SFO Night Approach Time Lapse

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Many moons ago (pun intended), my buddy Paul was visiting and we decided to have a go at night light trails at SFO. However, we had not come well equipped so headed to Best Buy to pick up cheap tripods. They were very cheap and performed as might be expected. However, with Paul coming back, we decided to have a second go at this and to prepare properly this time. We also scoped out some locations that might be suitable to get good angles on SFO.

Two things conspired against us this time. First, SFO is having runway upgrades installed so the pair of 28 runways are the only ones in use. This cuts down on the possible angles for a while. Second, the great weather forecast turned out to include some low cloud over the location we had scouted out. The aircraft rapidly disappeared from view as they climbed. (It later turned out that they were still in the clear but above the thin layer of cloud which we were under.)

We went with a plan B and found a location along the lake-shore that would provide an alternative. It was not as good but it did work. I had actually brought a spare tripod in case Paul didn’t have his so I set up two cameras. One was running long exposures that I intended to blend together to get light trails. The other I point out onto the approach which was quite busy at that point and take a lot of shorter exposures for creating a time lapse. The blend is above and the time lapse video is below. Let’s hope for better weather next time. I shall also remember that warm weather does not include after sunset and bring something a bit ticker to wear!

Coyote

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A drive along the Marin headlands was about to come to an end when we spotted something unexpected. I was about to turn off on the road back towards to freeway when we saw a coyote strolling along the side of the road. A quick reverse and turn onto the other piece of road and we followed him. Interestingly, he seemed totally uninterested in us. We followed him along the road and he went where he felt and did not seem to care about the car following him. Eventually, he hopped off the road and on to the grass. This gave me an opportunity to get alongside him and get some shots that weren’t through the windshield.

We watched him for a while and a few cars came up behind us. At first, you could see that they wondered why we were stopped until they saw the coyote at which point they, too, stopped what they were doing and watched him. We stayed for a short while and then decided to leave the guy in peace. I suspect that didn’t really work out since it only gave the people behind us an opportunity to pull up closer. I guess we did them a favor instead.