Tag Archives: trial

Eviation Alice Readying To Fly

North of Seattle is Arlington and the airport at Arlington is home to Eviation, a company developing an electric powered aircraft called Alice.  They undertook some low speed taxi trials during December but plans for high speed taxi and flight were thwarted by consistently bad weather.  A recent nice day on a Sunday looked like the first opportunity to do some testing again and a NOTAM was published meaning we knew something was up.

I met my buddy, Bob, up at Arlington and Alice was already out on the field when we got there.  The time for the testing was at the end of the day so they were preparing for when the runway was theirs to use.  Sadly, the aircraft was not playing ball.  As is the way with flight test, things were not necessarily doing what they were supposed to.  They did run one of the motors up to speed but the other failed to perform and resulted in the first shutting down too.  Not ideal for an aircraft.  No doubt they will resolve such things in due course.  By the time they had spent some time troubleshooting, the sun was setting and there was going to be no taxi trial.

I chose the side of the field that was backlit since it was closer to where the testing would take place.  Some great shots from the other side with the setting sun on the mountains behind were made by others.  However, I was in the right spot when they dragged the plane back to the hangar.  Things were getting pretty dark  and I was very pleased to have brought the 70-200 f/2.8 with me since it did a great job with the lack of light.  The raw images looked very subdued but they really came out well when I processed them.

I put together a piece for GAR on what we had seen.  You can see that piece here if you want to check it out.  It seems to have generated a lot of traffic which suggests there is a lot of interest in some of these electric aircraft projects.  Whether they will be successful or not, we shall see.  In the meantime, the weather got bad again but we shall hopefully have a break in it soon and a chance to see them taxiing the plane and then flying it.

Pegasus Testing with the Hornet (and it’s not raining)

My luck with KC-46s and bad weather broke recently with a Pegasus launching out of Boeing Field on a glorious day.  It was carrying out trials work with a US Navy Hornet.  This jet was the subject of its own post.  The KC-46 followed it down the runway.  It rotated in a good location and the light was so much nicer than I have had recently so I was very happy to get shots of it as it climbed out and headed off to the airspace set aside for testing.

Well Trained Dogs (or Well Trained Sheep)

B11I6931.jpgAlameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton are home to more than just the Alameda County Fair.  They also held the Highland Games.  This was a mix of Celtic sports and other rural activities from the UK.  Part of that included some sheep dog trials.  A variety of owners and their dogs took turns in herding a group of sheep around a variety of obstacles and in to a pen – all done against the clock.  I love watching sheepdogs at work.  They are so controlled in the way they move and keep the sheep where they want them.  We have seen them in action for real while in the UK and they really do know what they are doing.

B11I6933.jpgIn a more controlled environment such as a show like this, things are a little different.  There are people all around them and you can’t help but wonder whether the sheep are beginning to learn the routine after a while.  Then again, I have crossed paths with sheep on the hills and they really are the dopiest of creatures so expecting them to learn is probably a stretch.  My favorite pose for the dogs is when they are crouched down on the ground waiting for the next sign to move.  They look so intent.

New Zoomify Trial

I previously added a Zoomify image to a blog post.  It was pointed out that, as a Flash based format, it didn’t work on some mobile devices.  That was using the default Photoshop installation.  I have now found a way of generating an HTML5 version of the Zoomify output.  This is a trial to see whether it works.  Let me know in the comments.  Click here to see the file.

Sheep Dog Trials – Insert Verdict Joke Here…

As part of the Scottish celebrations, there was a demonstration of sheep dogs at work.  This was something I always thought of a either a northern England or Welsh activity but I guess it is a big deal in Scotland too.  Anyway, a bunch of dogs were taking it in turns to demonstrate their skills with a small flock of sheep brought in especially for the occasion.

The dogs and the shepherds were certainly very effective.  They could move the flock wherever they felt like it (although the attempt to split the flock in two was a little less successful).  The dogs were really fun to watch as they zipped around the flock and then froze on the ground until needed again.

The sheep were amazing as well.  These creatures are obviously very fixated on one thing.  Eating!  The dogs could get them quite jumpy but a second alter they would forget everything and start munching on the grass.  I suspect if left alone, they wouldn’t move far at all as long as the grass lasted!