Fireworks displays attract lots of people and they come prepared in all sorts of ways. Some will come with a blanket to sit on. Others will bring folding chair and tables and maybe a bunch of food to go with it. It may be that they just come as they are ready to sit on the grass and keep it simple. However, I haven’t seen anyone bring a couch – until now!
Earlier this year I went out to get the Cathay Pacific A350 arrival later in the evening when the light was still good due to the longer days in summer. Of course, Cathay wasn’t the only airline coming in at that time. Some of the regular visitors also were arriving and even using the inner runway that is often only used by the heavier jets. Here are a few shots from the other arrivals in the nice light you can get late on a summer evening.
Removing the viaduct takes some specialized machinery. This one piece that was working near Pike Place Market had a couple of different attachments for the task. The process of switching heads was interesting in itself. A drilling head was used to punch holes through the deck of the viaduct and to remove the material from between the beams. There was also a head that was a cutting jaw. This would grab the side barriers and rip them from the structure. It would crunch through sections and break them in to manageable sizes. The effortless with which this seemingly solid structure was crunch into small pieces was intimidating!
I don’t want to look like I spend a lot of time visiting the graves of the famous but Seattle has a few on offer. Jimi was covered in this previous post and today’s is about a couple of other famous Seattle performers. Bruce Lee is buried in Lakeview Cemetery which is up on the hill between Lake Washington and Lake Union. Alongside him is buried his son Brandon. Brandon died during the filming of The Crow.
Their grave site brings a regular stream of visitors on a sunny day such as the one that took us there. The location is very pleasant with rolling hills and views to the water in both directions. We took a walk around a bit more of the cemetery and the following shots are of other locations we saw during our brief visit. It seems like somewhere that it will be worth spending longer to look around at a later date.
A lunchtime jaunt up to Everett was the result of ATS carrying out a test flight of a Janet 737. I got to the field with a little time in hand and was looking on FlightRadar24 for the position of the inbound jet when I saw something orbiting north of me up near Concrete. It turned out to be one of the Mitsubishi MRJ90 test aircraft. It was flying a series of patterns up there. Since they carry out the test flying from Moses Lake, I wasn’t so surprised. More importantly, I figured that they would head back to base when they were done.
Imagine my surprise when the radio burst to life with their callsign setting up on the approach. A Janet was worth the trip but the MRJ was truly a bonus. I have only seen one before and that was a delivery flight from Japan to Moses Lake that staged through San Jose and was in the blog here. I hoped it was a different jet, but wasn’t going to gripe if it wasn’t (and I was pretty sure it wasn’t based on recollection of the registration).
The jet hummed its way down the approach and landed in front of me (and a few others that either knew or had got similarly lucky). It them taxied back and held in front of FHCAM. There was a departing Embraer in front of it so I figured it was waiting for them. However, they departed and it didn’t move for a while. I needed to head back so was desperately hoping it would go soon. Just as I was about to give up, they released the brakes and taxied to the hold. The departure was pretty quiet with the Pratt GTFs not making much noise at all.
The original colors of the jet appear to have been overtaken by test markings. There were some details around the engine inlets and the upper rear fuselage had been painted black. I suspected this might be for testing of water ingestion to help visualize the water flow but if anyone knows better what the purpose is, please do let me know.
I am just going to throw in a gratuitous shot of a business jet today. This Hawker was on approach one sunny day at Paine Field. It wasn’t rare or special in anyway (unless you count the scimitar tips to the winglets) so might not have got a post of its own but I just like this family of jets so here it is!
The Exotics@RTC team have a number of special days throughout the season and I figured the Italian Car Special was probably one worth taking a look at. I wasn’t mistaken. Unlike the normal meets that take place out in the parking lot, this one was centered in the shopping mall itself. The atrium was filled with Italian cars of many marques. This even included Lamborghini tractors!
It will come as little surprise to know that the prancing horse was on display in large numbers. The centerpiece of the display was a a pair of La Ferraris – one with a roof and one open topped – with an Enzo and an F40. This was quite a valuable selection to have in the middle and it seemed rather funny how so many expensive cars were barely getting any attention as a result of the focus on this foursome. Alfas were also on show and there were some older Fiats that were clearly trimmed for rally activities.
With the new tunnel open under Seattle, the process of getting rid of the Alaska Way Viaduct is underway. Large sections have already gone and others are in the process of being taken own. From the viewing terrace at Pike Place Market, you can get a good view of the demolition at the moment. The sections that have gone are replaced with a space full of dust and rubble. Meanwhile, heavy machinery is in the process of drilling out the viaduct deck and the barriers. There is more to come on this one.
On our first 4th July in the Seattle area, we watched fireworks from Kirkland. In the distance we could see the fireworks over Lake Union and we figured at some point we should make the effort to go and see them more directly. We did so this year. We based ourselves in Gas Works Park at the north end of the lake and we had a great vantage point for enjoying them. I took the camera along because the nice thing for me about fireworks is that I can enjoy them and shoot at the same time courtesy of the cable release.
My normal result with fireworks is that I get a lot of shots that are just not that special and a few that I really like. For some reason with this display, I had a far higher hit rate. I am not sure whether it is a function of their sequencing of the fireworks or just good luck but running through the shots I found so many I was pleased with. I won’t bore you with tons of shots but here are a few samples of what was a fantastic display. The coordination with music was great and my only gripe was that the finale was put to a piece that rather peters out instead of having a crashing ending. This seems to be more appropriate to fireworks. However, a minor gripe and a very impressive display.
I’ve seen a few Korean Air 777s on test at Everett since we moved here. This one was heading out on a delivery flight on a Friday evening. The only reason it gets a post is that, from what I can discover, this is the last 777 that Korean Air has on order. They have a bunch of 787s to come in the coming years but this is their last 777-300ER. They haven’t ordered the 777X (which, given how many different widebody types they operate, is quite a surprise!).
