Tag Archives: moisture

Lots of Approach Vapor for Video

Seattle is a place where you can get a fair bit of humidity at certain times of day.  Earlier in the day, there might be a lot of cloud but it will burn off as the day goes on and you have some sunny afternoons and evenings.  Watching the planes on approach to SEA on days like this can make for some rapidly changing conditions.  I was watching a bunch of jets heading towards SEA as they came through the clouds and into clear air.  They would be leaving trails in the cloud base behind them as they went but would be trailing their own little vapor fields behind them.

The conditions didn’t last long and soon the clouds were almost gone and the amount of vapor that they were pulling was minimizing.  The vapor was clearly aligned with the flaps on the wings so you could see where the air was being worked the hardest.  I did get some shots of them for this which I shall share later but the way in which the vapor puffs and dissipates is best seen in video, so I shot a bunch of that.  Most planes were coming directly over me but a couple of the wide-bodies were going to the inner runway so were offset from my location.

Airliner Vapor In To SEA

If you were to ask people what characteristic Seattle would be known for, I suspect a fair few people would tell you it is rain.  It is true that we have damp winters here but summers (while a little late in starting) are actually rather dry.  However, we can still have some humid conditions which can be good for forming vapor and, if you watch the jets heading in to SEA, you will often see vortices streaming off the flaps and the occasional puffs of moisture above the wings.

Occasionally, the conditions are just right and you get a lot more vapor.  Better still, if this happens in sunny conditions and the planes are slightly backlit, you can get some lovely rainbow effects showing up.  I got lucky with one such day.  Asiana had an A350 coming in at this time so I was treated to some interesting effects.  A Lufthansa 747 and CargoLogic 777F also arrived but I decided to go with video on those to show off the fleeting nature of the vapor is it formed and dissipated.

Prop Vortices on a Damp Morning

A small twin is not going to get a lot of attention from the local photographers at Paine Field on a busy day with lots of traffic.  However, it was still relatively early in the day and the air still had a fair bit of moisture in it.  I took a guess that this might result in some prop vortices so decided to shoot it anyway.  Sure enough, some swirls of moisture showed themselves.  Not a dramatic look to them but still what I was after and there wasn’t anything else to do anyway!

Inlet Vortex on a Rainy Day

Boeing was supposed to be making the first flight of the fourth 777X one Saturday, so I headed up to Paine Field to see it.  The weather was not great with low clouds and rain and it was below minima for the flight, so we didn’t get to see the 777X.  However, an American Airlines 787 was doing a test flight and it took off in the damp conditions.

As they powered up the jet, the moisture on the surface of the runway got sucked up in the vortex that forms between the inlet and the ground at high power and low forward speed.  A dull day makes it easier to see this as well, so I was able to get a few shots of it.  The lack of flying that day was a disappointment but this meant the days wasn’t a total bust.

Misty 330s

While at Boeing Field, you get a steady stream of traffic for SeaTac overhead.  With Delta’s substantial presence at Seattle, the right time of day can mean a few widebodies.  The A330 is a big part of their operations and we currently get the old and the new with the -300s and the -900 neos.  The conditions looked pretty clear above me but there must have been a lot of moisture around because the jets seemed to be pulling a bit of vapor with them and going in and out of clouds that they seemed to hard to see without them there.

I played around with the processing a bit to see what I could do to show up the moisture more effectively.  It gets a little more interest out of a shot that would otherwise not be worthy of any note.

Rain Might Not Be Ideal But It Is Good For Reverse Thrust

I was a bit annoyed that my one spare day in Tokyo was a rainy one.  I didn’t have any great plans for the day other than getting adjusted to the time but, when I knew it was raining, I almost didn’t even bother with Haneda.  However, in the absence of another plan, I decided to go.  The thing I liked about it was that, with the rain falling, the runway was wet.  This resulted in a lot of moisture being thrown up in the air by the jets as they reversed thrust.  Some went for minimum reverse but others went for a bunch of throttle as they aimed to stop in time for the exit they were aiming for.

Lots of Prop Vortices

Departure day at RIAT was a bit overcast, much like the majority of the show.  The damp atmosphere did have the positive effect of meaning many of the more powerful prop aircraft were pulling vortices from the tips of their propellers.  This was most obvious earlier in their take off runs but you could get a  pretty good view of it even head on from where I was sitting in the FRIAT stand.  Here is one of the Hercs that was beating the air into submission.

Damp Air Brings the Vortices Out at KPAE

Damp and cloudy days are not always ideal for aviation photography but they can provide some interesting options.  One weekend I was up at Everett when they were approaching from the south.  The jets broke out of the cloud at quite low level but there was some light from the side coming under the clouds.  The damp air meant that the jets were pulling some conspicuous vortices as they flared for landing.  They were a long way off but it was possible to get some shots of them.  The 747 produced vortices that were easier to see but the 787s didn’t do too badly either.

Stormy Narita

The day I was flying out of Narita was not a good day for weather.  Another typhoon was approaching and the rain ahead of the storm had reached us.  I did initially visit the viewing terrace in the terminal but, as the rain started, I decided to head inside and go to the Delta lounge which has a great view of the runway and the ramp.  It wasn’t long before the heavens opened.  Departures reversed direction as the wind shifted.

The arriving jets were now throwing up huge clouds of spray as they selected reverse.  Combined with the heavy rain already, they were pretty obscured.  Editing the photos allows you to do a lot of work with the contrast to bring out more of the detail but the real view was surprisingly limited.  Some of the shots are so hidden by rain that there is little that can be done with them.  Departures also did a good job throwing up lots of water in their wake.

The amount of moisture in the air meant the inlets would often be fogged, even for the jets that were landing.  Trailing vortices were showing on climb out and there was lots of vapor over the wings after takeoff.  The only downside to all of this was that the cloudy background makes it harder to apprecaite the effects that were on show.  It does show, though, that a rainy day is not necessarily one to be ignored from a photography perspective.  You can sometimes get some interesting shots in conditions that seem very unappealing.  (It doesn’t hurt to be shooting this from indoors in a warm and dry room with a ready supply of food and beverages.)

Clouds Over the Valley

My trip to Rainbow Canyon gave me plenty of time to enjoy the scenery as the jets only showed up infrequently.  It was a cool and clear day on the whole but there were some times when clouds moved in.  This caused me some concern since I didn’t want to wait for a long time and then have jets show up when the valley was socked in!

Fortunately, the clouds did not get in the way of the main focus of the trip.  We did get some clouds drifting over the valley far below us.  We also got little puffs of cloud working their way up the canyon.  One bank of cloud rose out of the canyon and across the ridge on the opposite side from me.  I watched it drift across the surface gradually obscuring areas that had been clear a moment before.

Another small cloud formation drifted up the canyon towards me.  It was an isolated little cloud and it drifted in my direction and floated up over the edge of the ridge and to one side of where I was standing before it dissipated.  Then it was all clear again and I could go back to waiting for the jets.