Tag Archives: jet

WestJet Air Show Takeoff!

The Abbotsford Air Show takes place on an airfield that is still open for business. At various times during the display, there will be a pause while a scheduled commercial flight arrives or departs. During the show a couple of years ago, WestJet had one of their 737-700s show up, drop off some passengers, pick up a new bunch and head out. I was thinking that a 700 would be off the ground pretty quickly so decided to get some shots of it.

I was mistaken. Instead of blasting up quickly and getting a nice shot with Mt Baker in the background, they appeared to use as much of the runway as they possibly could. Rotation was a long way down the field and the climb out seemed leisurely. Not so dramatic. I have been to a few shows over the years that have movements that break up the display and, while it is nice to get airliner shots from on the field, the amount of time it takes out of the display is probably not worth it.

Airliners Over Windsor

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Our day out in Windsor was not about photographing aircraft. However, the place is so close to the flightpath for Heathrow that I could hardly avoid the things. When in the town, we had a few pass very close by and it would have been churlish not to grab a shot or two. Later, as we walked through the Great Park, the jets on approach to Heathrow were visible above the castle as they were on final approach. Rather distant for a clear shot but still worth a pop.

Was That Engine Supposed to Fit in There?

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The JF-17 Thunder was one of the interesting aircraft to make it to RIAT in 2025. It had been before, but this was the first time I got to see it. The Pakistan Air Force brought a pair of them. I got to have a good look at one of them in the static park and something struck me about it. The engine installation. The plane is fitted with the Klimov RD93 engine which is a derivative of the engine for the MiG-29. The diameter of the nozzle for the engine seems to be very small compared to the rear fuselage size. Afterbody drag is a big deal on fighters and I wonder how bad the penalty is for this configuration. I understand that China is developing an engine to replace the RD93 and maybe the sizing of the fuselage is for this new engine. In the meantime, it does look like someone made do with the engine available.

Crossing of the Contrails

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Another of my early morning walks and I looked up at an aircraft contrailing across the sky above me. The low sun angle made the textures of the contrail look good, so I took a few shots. A short while later, I realised that its direction of travel was taking it towards another jet that was crossing its path. I was hoping for the relative positions of the two jets to look like a perfect cross from where I was standing but it wasn’t to be. Even so, they did look like they were crossing quite close.

Wimbledon Special Emirates Climbing Out of Manchester

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We were walking through the grounds of Tatton Park on a recent visit and I was carrying a long lens with me to be ready for the deer that roam the park. However, that was also handy given that the airliners climbing out of Manchester Airport came near us. The conditions were not good for plane photography to be honest. The clouds were often low enough that we never saw the planes but, at one point, I did get a good view of an Emirates A380 climbing overhead and turning in our direction. It had the new Emirates livery combined with special markings for Wimbledon’s tournament earlier this year. A bit of processing was necessary to get it to a reasonable shape.

Glasgow Airport Brings Some Variety (At Least for Me)

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I have had to make a few trips to Glasgow recently and, while some of them involved the train up, I did also fly on occasion. This meant I had some time at Glasgow Airport waiting for my flight home. British Airways and EasyJet are regular features at Glasgow so nothing new about them. However, you get some visitors from Europe and Loganair has a number of turboprops based there so this was a nice chance to see something different to the norm (although I get plenty of ATRs passing the house).

What’s on This Azerbaijan 777’s Fuselage?

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We had an excellent time walking through Windsor Great Park and, while I wasn’t there chasing aircraft, there were a few opportunities to get images of some of the arrivals into Heathrow in the distance. One of these was an Azerbaijan Boeing 777. I grabbed a couple of shots of it as it came over Windsor in the distance and then thought nothing further about it. However, when I started to look through my shots, I noticed some interesting lumps and bumps on the fuselage. My thoughts were immediately that they were some form of defensive countermeasures but if anyone has any other thoughts, I’d be interested to hear them.

VC-10 Time

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Our visit to the Brooklands Museum meant were were at the home of the Vickers VC-10. The museum has a complete example along with another fuselage and some test items related to the development of the aircraft that was undertaken here. The complete airframe belonged to the Sultan of Oman and it was flown into Weybridge in the late 80s before the runway was rendered unavailable. It was quite a luxurious configuration in its day but does have a rather basic look compared to what might be available today.

On the Voyager Line

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My Voyager ride with 101 Sqn ended back at Brize Norton and we pulled into the line with some other Voyagers. This included Vespina, the jet that is painted in national markings rather than the usual grey. We hung out on the ramp to get a group photo before heading back to the terminal. I got some shots of the Voyagers on the line while I was there (including the jet that we had just been in).

Sensors Versus Markings on the Gripen E

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I was editing my images from RIAT recently and culling those that were never going to see the light of day. As I was working through the images of the Gripen E demonstrations, I noticed an array of sensors on the fuselage of the aircraft. There were also a bunch of markings that looked quite similar. The sensors seemed to have a specific shaping to the fuselage to align them with where they needed to face whilst the markings just seemed painted on to both the fuselage and the pylons. My assumption was that these were tracking locations for stores separation tests, but they were different to what I have seen used for this previously. I can’t tell for sure whether one is designed to distract you from the other! I have no knowledge of the systems fitted to the Gripen and will have to do some research but once you see this array of sensors, you can’t help but notice them thereafter!