Haneda introduced me to a new airline. Air Do. They had a lot of traffic coming through Haneda, both narrowbody and widebody. In fact, one of their 767s took off in great light as I was walking to the viewing terrace which was a touch frustrating. It was a long time before another one took off but at least the evening light improved so the wait was worthwhile. Meanwhile, the 737s were busy and some 767s taxied past after landing so I got to see a few of them in action.
This 777 pulled onto the gate in front of my while I was at Haneda. The radome seems to have taken a bit of punishment. It looks a bit like some of those shots you see of jets that have gone through a hail storm. I don’t know whether that is the case for this one and it has, no doubt, been checked and found to be airworthy but it certainly looked out of keeping.
I nearly missed this one. A JAL 737 was taxiing in at Haneda and the guy next to me seemed very interested in it. He was shooting it when it was still a long way off and I didn’t know why. As it got closer, I could see two Japanese flags flying from the cockpit windows. I figured it must be something so grabbed a few shots. As soon as it was gone, he packed up and left. Talking to someone the following day, he told me that JAL currently has the royal transportation contract and that includes some flights on the narrow body fleet. I guess someone royal was on this flight.
Paine Field is about fifteen minutes from the office. I wouldn’t normally nip out at lunchtime to photograph something but, when I saw that an Avanti was coming in, I figured that was worth my time. They are not too common around here so grabbing my lunch and heading up was worth it. At least I knew exactly how far out it was and when it was due so I could be there just in time and get the shots before heading back to the office. It beats eating your lunch at the desk!
While waiting for a few vintage types to arrive at Paine Field for Skyfair the following day we got an interesting bonus. A Kodiak showed up on approach. Not only was it equipped with floats but it was also painted in a tiger stripe livery that was pretty striking. Not a type that might normally get too much attention but, fitted out like this, it certainly did.
ANA painted three jets in special schemes in association with Star Wars. They have an R2-D2 scheme on a 787-9 and a BB-8 scheme on a 777-300ER and I have shot both of them in the US. They have appeared on the blog here and here. The third jet was a C-3PO scheme that was on a jet that was used in the Asia regional flights so I did not anticipate seeing it. However, it showed up at Haneda while I was there. Consequently, I got to shoot it at last. Sadly, it departed off the other runway so I only got a distant backlit shot.
There was another 767 that also showed up with some Star Wars markings on it. It wasn’t a complex scheme like the first three but it was a Star Wars scheme. I guess I must have got all of them by now unless anyone knows of another one that is out there?
In the late 80s and early 90s, NOTAR was a big deal. McDonnell Douglas Helicopters (as it then was) had come up with the concept of NO TAil Rotor and was pushing it hard. It was seen as a safer approach, quieter and potentially more efficient. The last one may not have been the case as, given how long the concept has been around, the successor company has continued to build helicopters with tail rotors as has just about everyone else (unless you count a Fenestron as not a tail rotor). This example came in to BFI right over my head. He had called up on the radio so I should have known but the quiet aspect of the aircraft was proven as I had no idea he was there until he passed directly over me.
I was killing some time at Boeing Field and the light was dropping fast. There was a variety of traffic inbound but nothing that counted as terribly unusual and not, therefore, something I desperately cared about getting a good shot with. As a result, I decided to play around with low shutter speeds to see how it changed the look of the shots at a familiar location, to see how the sharpness varied across the airframe and to see just how badly may panning skills have degraded. Needless to say, the results were pretty mixed. The worst of the lot will clearly never see the light of day but here you can see some of the shots that I was okay with. The conclusion from the output is that I should go a bit lower in shutter speed to increase the sense of speed.
I got a little distracted while I was at Lyons Air Museum. Out on the ramp were some SF-260s belonging to a company called Combat Air. The company shared space with the museum and, while I was walking around, a couple of customers rolled up for their flights. They were going off in a two ship sortie. I don’t know what they had planned. They may have been heading out to do some aeros or maybe they were going to try and see which one was the dogfighting star.
The 260 is a cracking little plane. From a young age, this was a plane I wanted – something that has some serious performance that is enough for some militaries but is also available for anyone to buy (provided you have a fair bit of spare cash). In piston form it is pretty good stuff but I also believe that you can get them with a turboprop which I imagine goes like stink. Anyhow, the two customers were suited up, strapped in and they taxied out together. We were advised that they would probably come our way on departure so I hung around for a while. They had a fair taxi to the departure end and then needed to hold for a while but eventually they came into view and turned in formation over the top of the hangar. I went back to looking around the museum so I hope they had a fun flight.
UPS is buying a bunch of 747 freighters at the moment. I have shot a few of them including examples here and here. The route back to Paine Field takes them across our area when the pattern being flown is a northerly. I grabbed the camera to see this primer example heading over. As the plane flew by, there was a lot more noise than would be normal for a jet on the approach and it had a vibrational element which made me think the RAT might be deployed. Sure enough, when I checked the shots, the RAT could be seen under the wing route. This is a normal flight test requirement so nothing to be concerned about but this was the first time I had heard a jet at speed with the RAT out and I was surprised how loud it was.
