Tag Archives: oregon

Night Waves

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After dinner one night in Yachats, I decided to go out and see what I could make of the waves crashing on the shore at night.  A number of lights were trained on the shoreline from the local properties so it wasn’t too dark out there.  Even so, it certainly wasn’t very light.  Time to test the low light capabilities of the cameras.  The fact I was going to get slow shutter speeds didn’t bother me particularly as I was interested to see the effects that I could get showing the motion of the waves.

Light levels were indeed better than I had anticipated and I was able to get a lot of shots that came out okay.  There was a good element of luck involved too.  Waves are horribly unpredictable.  If you see something good, you can almost guarantee it won’t do it again and, even if it does, it will be ages before the next set of waves comes in and, even then, the big wave will break differently.  Also, some of the shapes they make turn out to look good in the shot and others are just indistinct messes.  Nothing to do but hang around for a long time and try and lot of different shots and see which ones work.  This randomness is a little frustrating as you feel you should be able to do something to improve but, in this case, it is a case of being there.

Seasprites Don’t Show Up Too Often

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The first time I ever heard of the Kaman Seasprite was in the 1980s when Airfix released a new kit of the SH-2F variant.  I thought it was a cool looking model but I wasn’t very aware of what it was used for.  It was already getting towards the end of its time in service with the US Navy with the SH-60B Seahawk becoming the platform for shipboard helicopters.  A few export programs went forward but these were not particularly successful.

I am not sure whether I have ever seen a Seasprite for real prior to visiting Evergreen at McMinnville.  They have a corner that is stacked with helicopters.  A Seasprite is one of the collection and I was pleasantly surprised to see it.  Given the number of airframes they have in this corner, everything is jammed together.  This made it hard to get a nice angle on the Seasprite but I was able to get a few shots anyway.

Yachats Harbor

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We spent a few days in Yachats, Oregon between Christmas and New Year.  It was a nice opportunity to have a break, see some pretty scenery and relax.  Yachats itself has a nice harbor and, as you drive around the south side of the harbor, you can pull off onto a smaller road that runs parallel to the shore in amongst the many houses that have been built there.  You are on the opposite side to the town itself and the view across the water and the sand flats looks nice with the low winter sung angles.

Bridge at Hecata Head

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Highway 101 passes Hecata Head and crosses a river before entering a tunnel through the cliffs.  The bridge is a pretty elegant structure.  Unfortunately, winter is not a good time to try and photograph it.  It is tucked in amongst the hills and the sun will only be on it when in the west and probably only in the middle of summer when it gets a lot further north.  I had to work with what we had in the shade.  Playing around with exposures and working with some HDR processing did allow me to bring a bit more punch to the shots which I felt represented more of what I actually saw while I was there.

Was This Sensor Once Highly Classified?

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The SR-71 Blackbird provided a reconnaissance platform that was unmatched.  It would have been pretty high in the sensitivity list when it came to its sensors and capabilities.  Now the jets are all retired.  The example that is in the Evergreen Aerospace Museum has one of the sensors extracted from the sensor bay and mounted on a stand in front of the aircraft.  I imagine there was a time when this was something that would not be available for me to look at but now, I guess, this is just another obsolete piece of tech.

Hecata Head Lighthouse

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Head south along the coast from Yachats and you have a steady stream of gorgeous locations.  One of these is Hecata Head.  The treacherous nature of this part of the Oregon coastline means a string of lighthouses were built at intervals to ensure coverage and Hecata Head was one of those locations.  The lighthouse is still there and it a popular tourist attraction.

You approach the lighthouse from the beach below, as would the original residents in the days when Highway 101 didn’t exist and boat access was the main way there.  The houses for the keeper and assistant keeper were halfway between the beach and the lighthouse itself.  The keeper’s house is now gone but the assistant keeper’s house is still there and is fully maintained.  You can rent it out for events if you wish.

The location of the lighthouse itself provides a commanding view of the coastline and out to sea.  Whales migrate along the coastline here and there were people keeping watch for them while we were there.  If you head a bit further south on the highway, you get to an overlook which allows you to see back to the lighthouse and you see just how rugged the location is.  I imagine building everything there was no small feat and neither was living there year round.

What Am I Supposed to do With This F-16 Ladder?

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The Open House at Portland International that the Redhawks held was not the only thing going on that morning.  While we were checking out the F-15s, a bunch of ground crew were at work out on the ramp area.  They were setting up spots on the ramp for some incoming planes.  As soon as I saw the ladders being carried, I could see that they were not for F-15s.  They looked a lot more like F-16 ladders.  The crews carried them out in a variety of manners but this person seemed to have a more relaxed way of moving a ladder around.

Hello C-17s. Where Are Your Buddies?

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In this previous post, I mentioned the crews at Portland setting up for the arrival of some F-16s.  They were coming in from Texas for a week of DACT training according to the word around the ramp.  Sadly, the jets did not arrive prior to the end of the Open House.  However, they weren’t the only planes coming in.  The ground crews and support equipment arrived ahead of the jets courtesy of a pair of C-17s.  These arrived a few minutes apart and taxied in to the adjacent section of the ramp.  One jet was already unloading as the second taxied in.  They were a nice compensation for the F-16s not arriving in time.

Sabreliner Testbed

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The Sabreliner is a neat little jet under normal circumstances, combining as it does the wing of the Sabre with a fuselage for passengers.  This example, that now lives in the Evergreen Aerospace Museum in McMinnville Oregon, is even better because it is a testbed.  The nose has a new radome grafted into place to allow the testing of different radar.  Meanwhile, pods can be mounted under the wings to test a variety of different sensors and electronics.  Some of these different configurations are displayed alongside the airframe.  Good to know that after years of specialized service, the aircraft will survive in the indoor comfort of the museum.

Tower, Requesting a Flyby

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Another shot from the Portland Open House of the Redhawks and a gratuitous reference to Top Gun scripts.  In this case it wasn’t really a flyby.  Instead, the jets were launching off the near runway.  They were all doing a nice job of keeping it low on departure and they ended up pulling up as the passed the ramp and the tower.  A nice view as they pulled up with a few of them getting some vapor is they climbed out more steeply than the average departure from the airport!