Tag Archives: photo

Flexing Fighters

Regular visitors to Nellis will know this and can move along. For those that haven’t shot there, Nellis departure routes when taking off from the 03 runways can be one of two things. The jets tend to climb quickly and they are offset from the usual photography location alongside the speedway. You can get shots but they are pretty samey with side on shots of the jets further away or slightly underside shots of the jets coming off 03L.

However, anything that is playing as Red Air tends to take a Flex departure. This involves a break to the left from the normal route with a different heading to take the, to the ranges to deal with the incoming Blue force. The aggressors tend to flex most of the time. The other aircraft that may be augmenting the aggressors might flex too. The nice feature of this is that they break towards you. Then you are playing a guessing game as to how quickly they will break. You pick a spot along the road and hope that they will come your way. Sometimes they will turn tight and catch you out. Other times they will delay a bit and still be far away from you. At their speed, it doesn’t take much to increase the distance from where you are. At least you get more dynamic shots.

Egrets

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How about some photos of egrets? They aren’t rare and they all look pretty similar but they are still an interesting looking bird and, since they like to hunt in the shallows, they end up being pretty close and therefore accessible to shoot. I have shot a bunch of them while waiting for something else and, occasionally, specifically because they were there. Here are a few of the more recent shots I have got.

Did Someone Patch This Raptor in a Hurry?

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The F-22 Raptor has a complex coating system on the skin of the airframe that is part of the overall approach to stealth. Normally, they look pretty well finished in order to preserve the performance of the system (although I have spotted a few jets with the green primer showing through worn finishes). However, one or two of the jets that were at Red Flag had what almost looked like a panel missing from the spine of the jet. Looking a bit closer, I think the panel had been replaced and the finishing of the surfaces around the work remained to be done. It did look a bit of a mess though. Checking some of the other jets, they also show this panel in a slightly different color. Perhaps they have all been undergoing a modification program in this area?

Trains Along the Bayshore

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Having had a post with a train in it, I was reminded that I had actually photographed some trains a while back and they had never made it on to the blog. It was actually a work related reason I was out there. I was waiting for the delivery of a pair of our locos (a delivery that was o late it was after the light had gone) but, since we often need imagery for proposals, I thought it would be good to get some new shots.

The location is up in Pinole. The trains are running along the shore of the bay so it provides a quite photogenic location. A number of Amtrak California trains came through. Since these trains are part of my work, I found myself checking out what was in each train and what condition it was in. I guess I have been doing this for too long! Anyway, here are some train pictures.

Going Further Gets You There Quicker

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The title of this post is a pretty weak premise for the pictures I am posting. The pictures are of Air India Boeing 777-200LRs. In the pictures, they are not doing anything special. However, I shall justify the pictures with a slightly interesting fact. Air India has been serving SFO for a while. It is a long flight from Delhi to San Francisco and they were looking in to alternative routes. A lot of negotiation ensued that finally allowed a polar route to be used. This route is nearly 1,000nm longer than the route that they were previously flying. However, the prevailing winds on the longer route are helping the jet along. The result is that the longer route is actually two hours quicker. Strange but true.

Looking Down on DC

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I had to make a quick trip across the country to D.C. recently. It was only a brief visit so I didn’t travel with any camera other than my phone. I originally thought the flight back was very early in the morning but it turned out I was mistaken and we took off once the sun had come up. We departed to the north from National which takes you towards all of the most famous views of the National Mall.

The flight path involves a turn away from the good view so you are fighting the appearance of the engine and the wing when trying to get a shot (and that doesn’t take account of the battle you have with the high quality windows of your average airliner. It is the best view you get of the area though so well worth a go. Shooting in RAW also helps to fix some of the issues you can get with a phone when the shooting opportunity is fleeting.

Korean A330 Aiming for the Keys

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After watching a few aircraft making their approaches, you get a feel for how high the jets will be at a given point. Any variation from this seems pretty different, even if it is not really that large. A Korean Air A330 made its approach and it seemed noticeably lower to me. There was a displaced threshold in operation so maybe they were aiming a bit closer to the piano keys than normal. They didn’t do anything untoward but it did catch my attention.

The Raccoon Family Outing

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As a Brit living in the USA, there are certain animals that, when you see them, seem most unusual because you don’t have them on the other side of the pond. Some of these are large creatures which people who grew up here are still fascinated by like bison. Others, though, are not so interesting to the natives. Raccoons seem to fit that bill. They are more of a pest to most people. To me, they are more exotic. As we were walking through Golden Gate Park, we came upon a family of raccoons alongside the trail. They seemed totally uninterested in the people walking by and more bothered about feeding. However, the click of the shutter was obviously enough to get their attention as they all perked up and stopped what they were doing when I took some shots. This didn’t last long, though, and they were quickly back to eating.

Skywest’s Own CRJs

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Skywest provides feeder services for a number of airlines around the country. They do also operate under their own name for some routes though so you do occasionally come across their aircraft in their own colors rather than those of their customer airline. I have shot a number of the aircraft over the years and here are some of them. The interesting thing is that they rarely seem to be in the same colors. I don’t know whether this is because they have changed their colors a number of times or because they are leftovers from schemes they wore in other uses or from previous operators. Whatever the reason, there has been some variety.

I’m not sure what the long term prognosis is for the CRJs with Skywest. These jets are rapidly disappearing from service with various operators as larger jets with more seats are more affordable to operate. Skywest may have plans for them or may operate them on services that can justify the cost or maybe they will all disappear quickly and we will barely notice that they have gone.

Welcome Back from Hawaii

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Hawaiian Airlines are a regular feature of the Northern California aviation scene. Whether it is SFO or OAK, their jets are a regular feature. I was awaiting a movement coming in to Oakland when a Hawaiian A330 came over the top. Initially I wondered where it was going but it turns out that it was making a wide turn back in to Oakland. A short while later it showed up again on the approach. Annoyingly, it had passed the moon as it went over the top but I was too slow to catch it.