Tag Archives: photo

A Casual Passerby in the Backyard

While sitting on the deck one afternoon, I was fortunate to have the camera to hand. As I looked across to our back fence, I saw a raccoon walking along the top of the fence between the two houses behind us. He seemed totally uninterested in our presence and walked to our fence and then turned left to wander across the back our our house and our neighbors’ houses. I had a long lens on and he was too close for a while to fit him all in. Along the fence he went and then disappeared from view. First time I have seen a raccoon around here but probably not the last. What other wildlife will visit us?

Growlers Out in the Sun

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I’ve made a few trips to Coupeville to watch the Growlers undertaking FCLP training on the field there. My first trip was lucky with the flow to the south and good light. Sadly, I didn’t get to see much activity. More recent trips have had plenty of traffic but they were flying to the north which doesn’t work so well for photography. However, with a forecast for nice weather and a southerly wind so, having been stuck at home for ages, I was keen to get out and shoot some planes while staying a safe distance from everyone.

I got there a little early because I needed to take a work call before things were supposed to get moving. The lighting was at the other end of the field so I was a little concerned that I might be out of luck but shortly after getting there, a pickup truck hooked up to the light trailer and pulled it to the north end of the field. Result!

The jets showed up relatively soon thereafter and really didn’t go away for the next three hours. There were jets arriving and leaving throughout this time but it was rare to not have a jet in the pattern at some point. This gave me plenty of opportunity to walk along the road to try out different angles. I also had enough opportunity to try shooting a bunch of video too. That will show up in another post. There was a fair bit of cloud initially but things cleared up to be very sunny as the afternoon wore on. Here are a bunch of shots of the jets bouncing around the pattern.

An Update to the Japanese Rail Photos

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I have put some previous posts together of Japanese trains from my travels. This is an update to that (although a very late update given that these were taken nearly a year ago!). I got to see some different trains while I was in Nagoya for the day and then there is the variety of trains that you get around the Tokyo area. There was also a small line that ran through the Kamakura area which we crossed paths with as we were walking to the beach from the giant Buddha statue that I wrote about in this post. A few more photos to amuse those of you that like different trains.

Spirit of St Louis Replica

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Arlington is the current home of a replica of the Ryan Monoplane flown by Charles Lindbergh across the Atlantic. This is a detailed replica built over many years by a guy called Mike Norman. It has flown a few times and they are increasing the hours on the airframe prior to taking it further afield. I hadn’t seen it before but my friend, Bob, advised that it was due to fly on a recent Sunday morning. The weather was looking nice if a little warm (heat haze) so I made the trip up to Arlington early on the Sunday.

They taxied out a little later than planned but not by much and certainly not when you are working with an experimental airframe. They took off to the north and flew a couple of circuits. We were a bit distant from it but not too bad. I figured I would head to the approach end for the next circuit. I got there just as they were on short final so too late to get a shot but I figured I would get the next one when they climbed out again. However, the next approach turned out to be for the cross runway. They flew close by while downwind but I was on the wrong side for the light when they were on final.

On the next climb out they left the circuit to fly up towards Bellingham. This left a problem. By the time that they were due back, the light would almost definitely be tail on down the runway. I discussed with Bob the options and we decided to go to the south of the runway and hope they came that way. As it was, they arrived back at exactly the time the light was aligned with the runway so the worst of options. However, we were not far from the threshold and had a mountain backdrop on final approach so not too bad. It is a lovely looking replica. I hope to see it fly again, maybe in nice evening light. I suspect it is easier to fly when the air is a bit less bumpy!

Foxgloves and Other Wildflowers

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Just around the corner from our street is a wilder section of the road which currently has a lot of Foxgloves in bloom. I wandered around with camera in hand to take some photos. The bees were busy doing there thing but much patience was required because, whichever flower I decided to focus on, the bees concluded another one was what they wanted. I spent a lot of time only for them to choose the flowers either side of mine!

The bees were not only interested in the foxgloves. One particularly large looking bee was really going to town on another flower and I wondered whether he had had so much that he might not be able to get airborne again. I guess rolling off the edge of the flower gained him so airspeed – enough to stagger back into the air!

A Better Go at a Prime Air 737

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In this recent post, I showed a shot of an Amazon Prime Air 737. With a bit more notice and better timing from an availability point of view, I saw that another jet was coming in to Paine Field from Anchorage. It was being delivered from the conversion line in China and would have the finishing touches taken care of by ATS at Everett. I was there and set up in plenty of time – except… I had one camera ready to go but the other one had been previously used for some video at home and was on manual focus. I was shooting with the 500mm initially and all was well. As the jet got closer, I switched to the 100-400 and everything was wrong. Nothing would focus. It seemed like forever but I must have realized fast and flicked the focus switch because I was able to shoot it as it came level with me and crossed the threshold. What an amateur mistake. Fortunately, I got away with it!

Circus Around the Potential Jumper

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Continuing the theme of the construction activities that went on around our apartment when we lived in Chicago, there was one day that was a little out of the ordinary. I had been for a walk in the afternoon and was coming back along Wabash when I saw a lot of people hanging around. Then I spotted the TV crews and a bunch of law enforcement.

It turned out that someone had climbed one of the cranes and was threatening to jump. Everyone was waiting to see what happened. An inflatable mattress had been installed underneath the crane in case the person did jump but someone was working to talk them down. I had no interest in being around if things didn’t turn out well so, having seen what was going on, I went on my way. I don’t recall it being a big story later so assumed it all got resolved satisfactorily.

Ryanair Subsidiary Buzz

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Ryanair has a subsidiary based in Poland that it has been rebranded as Buzz. I must admit I knew nothing about this until, on my way back home from a meeting south of Seattle, I stopped off at Renton to see what was on the flight line. A Ryanair jet was parked up and next to it was a Buzz jet. It still had some taped markings on it but it was basically finished in Buzz colors and registered in Poland. Obviously it won’t be going to them for a little while longer but, once the grounding is lifted, it should be heading to Eastern Europe.

Tunnels on the Great Northern Railway

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More from our hike on the Iron Goat Trail. I described the snow sheds in this post previously. There were some areas of the route that suffered such regular disruption that an alternative solutions was needed. When the track got taken out, trains could get stuck in the mountains, sometimes for days while things got repaired. One of the trestle bridges was washed away in a land slide and, since this wasn’t the first time, the chosen solution was to cut new tunnels.

A tunnel was also cut at Windy Point to avoid a tight curve on an exposed promontory. These tunnels are still there. They were cut from the rock by hand. Timber linings were inserted to prevent anything falling on to the track but the timbers are no long gone in most areas. However, you do see a few pieces lying at odd angles in places. There are also some access tunnels that were used for the crews to access the tunnel during construction allowing multiple faces to dig at the same time to speed construction. It must have been tough work up on the mountains in all weathers hacking through the rock to build this.

The tunnels are not considered safe to enter these days. Some are blocked by falls. I wasn’t interested in heading in there anyway. I wasn’t equipped for it and the hike was why we were there. However, I did peak in to the entrances of several tunnels to see where they had been cut in to the rock faces. We had made an easy drive to get to this location followed by a simple walk but, when this was all being built, this was the middle of nowhere. The process of picking an alignment and building it all from scratch is most impressive. Ultimately, a new Cascades tunnel was cut and the train no longer needed to take this route. Instead of turning up on to the lower grade, trains now continue up the valley and enter the new tunnel to head east.

Wildcat Has Looked Better

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In 2012, A Grumman Wildcat was raised from the bottom of Lake Michigan. The lake has numerous wrecks scattered across it as a result of the training that was undertaken during the Second World War with students ditching their aircraft. Many have been raised over the years with some being restored to flight and others ending up in museums. The one that was raised in 2012 was the subject of a piece I put together for Global Aviation Magazine.

The airframe was moved to a hangar under the control of Chuck Greenhill (who had financed the recovery) at Kenosha Airport after it was raised from the water and this was where I got to see it. Opening the hangar door was quite a shock because the smell was pretty overpowering. The airframe was covered in various creatures that had attached themselves over the years and they were not doing well in the air of the hangar. It was a tough smell initially. You got used to it a bit and having the hangar door open helped to get some fresh air in there.

The airframe was in several parts. The wings were laid out in place and the tail section, which had separated at some point during the accident, was laid out behind it all. Obviously, there was lots of damage to the aircraft given that it originally had crashed and then spent decades underwater. The recovery process was delicate to avoid inflicting any further damage.

The airframe remains the property of the US Navy. It was originally going to go to Pensacola for restoration but ended up going to the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo MI in the end. It is currently undergoing restoration there.