Tag Archives: Paine Field

Skylease Cargo 747 Makes a Gloomy Weekend Appearance

Not long ago I posted about the variety of operators of 747s that I have photographed over the years. The number of operators is gradually declining so, the likelihood of a new one showing up near me is reducing. However, I did get a new opportunity one weekend. Skylease Cargo had made a few trips to Paine Field for Boeing but these had all been when I was at work. This time, one was due in on a weekend.

I headed up first thing in the morning to catch it coming in from Miami. The weather was not good at home and it was worse at Everett. There was a low cloud base. Things were rather gloomy but you take the opportunities when they come along. At least, since the weather was bad, I wasn’t going to have to worry about being backlit this early in the morning.

No doubt about it, the conditions did not result in shots that I am going to treasure. A white jet on a cloudy day is never going to provide a competition winner. Never mind. It was a new operator of a favorite jet and what else was I doing on a dull weekend morning anyway?

Western Global Decides to Mess With Us

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We had a brief phase a few months ago when Western Global was bringing in jets to Paine Field. The first one I encountered was a 747 freighter. It arrived in okay conditions but was flight planned for a departure that afternoon. The weather was getting better and better and, when they missed their original slot, I wasn’t complaining since the light was only going to improve. However, there was absolutely no sign of them moving. The crew appeared at one point and then left again. Eventually it became clear that they weren’t going.

The jet was parked in a position that meant the tail was slightly obscured. That meant the shot was not quite what I would have liked but it was going to have to do. They didn’t end up leaving until the next day but that was no longer the weekend, so I didn’t see it go. A touch frustrating but such is life!

Penultimate Boeing 747

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By the time this post goes live, the last production 747 will have been delivered long ago and will be in service. As the countdown to the last jet was underway, the interest in the remaining jets off the line went up significantly. The penultimate jet to be built was also for Atlas Air and was branded for their contract supporting Kuehne + Nagel. I saw a few shots of it appear online as people got it arriving in some gorgeous lighting. Sadly, I couldn’t be there for that but I did manage to get it arriving from a test flight one afternoon. The light wasn’t fantastic, but it was okay. After this one, there was only one more to go.

United 787-10 Arrival at Paine Field

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The 787-10 has a center section that is too long to fit in the Dreamlifter. This means that they can only be assembled at the North Charleston plant. The conspiracy theorists amongst us may think this was a deliberate part of the plan to focus production there and close the Everett line but, whether that is true or not, Everett is now only addressing issues with airframes already built and is not building any new 787s. However, some continue to come here from the east coast for rectification work prior to delivery. That means we get some 787-10s showing up and one of them was for United. I hadn’t planned on it but was there for something else and got this as a bonus.

What A Difference A Few Minutes Makes

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Paine Field is getting rather full of spare 777X airframes. They are getting stored in all sorts of locations and a recent spot for them is alongside the main assembly building at the north end of the field. I was using the long lens and so, rather than change lenses, I shot a few images to make a pano. It was a little dull but more of a record shot. A few minutes passed by the the clouds behind me had moved on and the light on the airframes had improved significantly. I reshot the scene before it changed again. Looking at the two shots, it is hard to believe that they were only a few minutes apart. What an impact a change in lighting can bring to a shot.

An Atlas 777F For MSC Air Cargo

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A lot of attention has been focused on the end of 747 production at Boeing (and this blog will not avoid that topic) but, in the meantime, Boeing continues to produce 777 freighters which are selling well. One evening I was able to be up at Paine Field when a 777F that will be operated by Atlas but is under contract for MSC Air Cargo, a subsidiary of a large shipping organization, returned from a test flight. Getting a nice shot in good light is what you want when you have a new livery to shoot. Sure, it isn’t like some artistic masterpiece, but it looks pretty good.

One More Go With The Blue Avanti

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You know the score with me and Avantis. One of the new additions to Paine Field for Lynk Air was due back in. I was off work as mum was visiting. Surely she would want to go and see an Avanti land? How could I refuse that. If I got a few shots of it in the process, we both win.

Alaska 737 Touchdown At KPAE

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I was up at Paine Field after work one day for the arrival of a DHL/Singapore Airlines 777F. Before it was due in, an Alaska Airlines 737 was due in on one of the scheduled flights. Alaska operations at Paine Field originally were just using the Embraers but, with the success of some of the routes, they have upgraded a number of the services to the 737. I thought this would be a good opportunity to see whether the low shutter speed settings I was planning for the 777F would be okay.

I wasn’t going down to some crazy low shutter speed. I wanted to make sure I got a good shot. However, when you are close to the runway, as is the case at the windsock, you don’t need to be too low to get some blur. I was only using the 24-105 at that range as things are very close. The level of background blur I got was okay. It would be good to get more but it was going to be fine for the 777F. When playing with this approach, you know that a bunch of the shots will not be sharp enough. Unfortunately, you never know whether the key moments will be the sharp ones. Fortunately, one of the better shots was with a healthy dose of tire smoke as they touched down. I was happy with the result.

A Singaporean DHL 777F

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The only 777s coming out of Everett at the moment are freighters. This can mean unusual airlines but not usually and I don’t head up there terribly often at the moment. However, one of the jets on test recently was destined for DHL’s operations in Singapore. Consequently, it is a hybrid of the DHL and Singapore markings. It seemed worth a look and it helped that they had taken off mid afternoon and were due back after work.

A few photographers had showed up for this arrival as was expected. At this time of year, even early evening is not the best of the light, but it was pretty good. They could be seen out as they set up for approach with Mount Rainier in the background. They touched down with the sound of the RAT buzzing in the background. I was ready to go and headed for the car, but I heard a shout from Royal and Nick that it was coming back. Sure enough, they had taxied back to do one further acceleration and abort on the runway, so we got a second chance at some shots.

The Plane Almost No One Wanted

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When Boeing launched the 737NG family, the original models were very similar in size to the previous generation of 737s. However, there was pressure for more capacity so they added a new model to the family with the 737-900. A few were sold but it was not a capable enough aircraft and hardly anyone bought any. Instead, Boeing had to redesign the aircraft with some more capacity after redesigning the rear bulkhead and some more range resulting in the 737-900ER. This has sold considerably better. There are still a few -900s around though and Alaska has a few. They are very early jets and they are not worth the investment for adding winglets so they are some of the few NG generation jets to still have wings with the original wingtips. Here is one of them arriving at Paine Field.