This 182 showed up at Boeing Field during my day off. I was a bit far away from it but wasn’t going to pass up the chance to shoot something new and floats make a Cessna a bit more interesting than it might otherwise be. It didn’t hurt that a Q400 from SEA was climbing out in the background and showed up in a few of the frames.
An A-26 Invader, marked up as Sexy Sue, is based at Renton. It is flown pretty frequently. It is normal for it to take off and head up towards the San Juans before looping around and coming back down to Renton. A flight lasts about 40 minutes which means, even if I knew exactly when it got airborne, the chances of getting to Renton in time to get its return are pretty limited. I have caught it out and about one time when it landed from over the lake on a cloudy day.
My day off with the planes had me at Boeing Field when I got a notification that the A-26 was airborne from Renton. I was anticipating the arrival of something at BFI so wondered where I should put my priorities. It is about fifteen minutes from Boeing Field to Renton so a quick reposition is possible. I figured I could probably just make it when my other arrival touched down. However, I had assumed incorrectly about the direction of flight and the A-26 was heading off through Snoqualmie Pass instead of going north.
I tracked it for a while anticipating a turn but it kept going and eventually landed at Walla Walla. I did wonder whether they were heading to Oshkosh or not. Once it was on the ground, I forgot about it for a while. Then, when checking something else a little later on, I realized that they were up again and heading back home. Again, there was a question about something inbound to BFI but timing looked good so I waited for the first shot to be made and then hopped in the car to Renton. The lights all seemed to take forever but I was at the overlook in plenty of time. I wondered whether they would try for an approach across the lake and I would need to relocate but there was a lot of light aircraft traffic so they slotted in to the normal pattern having gone north a way before turning back in.
They were easy to see while downwind and then turned across the housing around Renton before lining up on final with Mt Rainier in the background. I decided to risk a slower shutter speed since the light was very bright and with such a cluttered background, I needed to blur things as much as possible to try and make the plane stand out. It worked a bit but it was still noticeable how much the background takes over shots from that location. As soon as they touched down, I was ready to head back to BFI since more things were due there. This day off was proving very fruitful.
There is something interesting about amphibious planes. Whenever I come across one, I am hoping I can get a shot of it. This one was parked up tight against the fence at Renton. Shooting through the fence with my normal camera is problematic with the wire strands always being in shot and hard to remove in post. The phone lens is a better bet in this situation. I stitched a few shots together to make something usable. I liked the star formation on the fin which led me to think this one might come from Alaska.
I was riding around Lake Washington on my bike and Renton is approximately halfway around. I wasn’t in any particular hurry so figured a few minutes down at the float plane base were justified and that I can get a bit of a break before continuing the ride. The phone was the only camera I had with me but it would do to get a photo of this Beaver on floats that was moored there. There wasn’t a huge amount of activity during my visit but it was still a good place to pause and have a drink.
A Piper Malibu was launching out of Boeing Field last year. Things were quite busy and the tower asked them to make an early turn downwind once airborne. They clearly took them at their word because they barely seemed to be off the ground before yanking it in to a tight turn to the north. I doubt they even passed the tower! They were only going a short distance and were due back about fifteen minutes later so I guess they know the area well.
I have posted a few shots from a visit to Paine Field one evening when the light was really nice. The bigger movements of that evening have got their own posts but there was a fair bit of light aircraft traffic that evening. Some of these were vintage types or at least types that have been a round so long that they should probably qualify as vintage these days. The warm, low light made for good shots of what otherwise might not be the most interesting of photo subjects.
These photos are not too sharp I’m afraid. However, they are important to me. The summer of 1986 had me just outside Chichester learning to fly at the historic Goodwood Aerodrome. Along with a bunch of similarly aged lads, we were being taught the basics of aviation courtesy of HMG. It was an amazing summer and, since we were flying once or twice a day, we were learning very quickly. I soloed on the Friday of my first week there having never even been inside a light aircraft prior to the Monday.
At some point during the summer, I borrowed my Mum’s camera and took a few pictures of the PA-38 Tomahawks that the flying school operated. These are those planes. In the line up of the planes can be seen G-BGRL. This was the very first plane I flew and will always be a plane that I am fond of. The fence behind them had a hole for a while when one student got to close with his wingtip. It was redefined as a gate named after his student number. The club had a PA-28 which is I the background in which I was self loading cargo for a flight for a student needing some weight and a couple of Gazelles lived next door. That was an outstanding summer.
I put together a post about some interesting jet traffic at Anchorage from a visit I made long ago. While jet freighters are a big deal at Anchorage, the area is also known for its more unusual prop traffic. Some of these are vintage and others are types that have fallen out of favor elsewhere but continue to have a use in Alaska. Here are some shots of the various props I got to see while on that trip in the mid-2000s.
Back when we lived in Chicago, I went to Kenosha to photograph the Grumman Wildcat that had recently been lifted from Lake Michigan. While I was there, I also got to have a look around the hangar which housed the collection of Chuck Greenhill. His airworthy planes were stored in the hangar but it was also busy working on restorations of some Grumman amphibians.
His Duck was in the hangar and it was a great looking example. I was disappointed that I never got to see it fly. It looked immaculate. I understand it has been sold and is now in Texas. There were also two Mustangs parked in there. One of them, Geraldine, they claimed to be the most authentic Mustang example in the world. I don’t know how you would measure such things but they seemed very confident claiming this. It even included a full, working armament so you could head up and shoot someone down if you were so inclined.
The amphibian restorations were very interesting. Bare metal fuselages and the wings off while they were in work. It would have been good to make regular visits to see how things progressed but I was not able to go back again so couldn’t do that. Even so, pretty cool to see the workmanship on these airframes.
A holiday visit to Paine Field saw that something interesting was heading for departure. It was unlikely I would get across the field in time to catch it and I didn’t. However, since I was there, I thought I might as well hang around for a bit and shoot some departures. There were a few piston types heading out as well as a PC-12. Since none of them were too important to me, I decided to play with shutter speeds around 1/100th of a second. With the 500mm, this doesn’t result in a high keeper rate.
It does provide a lot of prop blur which was the point since, with no background, you aren’t getting any sense of speed. It was more a case of seeing what I could get and having some panning practice. When looking at the shots on the computer, some of them are clearly junk without much inspection. Others look okay until you get zoomed in. A few of them are sharp even zoomed right in and they are the ones that don’t get culled.
