Author Archives: Rob

Another 727 Chance Before Sunset for Departure

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The arrival just before sunset of a Kalitta 727 was the subject of a recent post.  It departed later that evening, but it was very dark by then and I didn’t hang around.  It wasn’t long before the jet was back again and this time it arrived a little earlier in the day.  That meant that there was a chance that they would depart before sunset.  That was something I was willing to take a chance on.  In the later evening, it is a quick jaunt to Paine Field from home.  Sure enough, they obliged by being prompt.  I had barely got there when the jet taxied.  The light was very nice, and they were flowing to the north so I was able to get a few shots, hop in the car and be home so fast that Nancy thought I must have blown off the idea altogether!

Water Lilies

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I haven’t been to Juanita Bay Park much recently.  The middle of summer is not a great time to go because the sun is high, the humidity is quite uncomfortable, the bugs can be in a bitey mood, haze makes photos even worse than the sun angles – you get the picture.  I did head down one afternoon after work, though, just to see what was happening.  The lake was covered in water lilies with the pads spread out in all directions.  The flowers were not quite so common but there were still plenty.  I was taken by how they were dominating a space that is normally wide open.

Woohoo! – Another Hawker 4000

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A few times a year, Boeing Field is treated to the arrival of a Hawker 4000.  This was not a successful jet for Hawker and so they are far from common.  I have shot them on occasions, and they have probably got blog posts when I did.  I saw this one coming in one weekend so headed over to see it.  When I looked up the operator, Talon Air, I was interested to see on their website that they have quite the collection of 4000s.  I guess owning a bunch of them makes supporting them a little easier.  Annoyingly, another one was at BFI while I was there and got towed near me before I realized what it was.  It didn’t fly while I was there unfortunately.

Wasp Hunting Grilled Chicken

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I was listening to an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage that was discussing wasps versus bees.  As part of the conversation, one of the contributors mentioned that wasps like sweet things early in the season when they are feeding their young but, later in the year, they are only feeding themselves and they want protein (or the other way around if I have remembered incorrectly). I didn’t know anything about this before but then, shortly afterwards, we were sitting out on the deck after dinner and a wasp landed on a plate and then flew off with a chunk of chicken.  This chunk was almost as big as it was.

A week later, we were back out on the deck and, with dinner done, a wasp came back to check out the leftovers.  This time I was ready with my phone.  Sure enough, it landed on my plate, checked out a piece of corn and then homed in on some chicken.  A few bites later, it had extracted its meal and got airborne and away.  I had my video proof, so I was happy.  It came back for a second piece a little while later, so I guess it was storing food for later.

A Dornier Is Worth an Excursion

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The Dornier 328Jet is not a total rarity but it is unusual enough to get attention.  Earlier this year, one showed up as coming through BFI.  Since I was able to be there, I decided it had to be worth the trip.  Sure, it is just another landing shot of a small airliner but I spend too much time thinking back to things I never bothered about at the time that are now gone so I’d rather not add to that list.

Antonov Design Bureau Back at Everett

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Once Russia went to war with Ukraine, the ability of Russian cargo operators to continue their US business went away.  Volga Dnepr had been providing a bunch of service for Boeing operations at Everett bringing in outsize airframe parts.  With them out of the picture, Boeing had to find an alternative.  Antonov Design Bureau designed the AN-124 originally and it has an in house airline, Antonov Airlines.  They seem to have picked up a bunch of work that Volga Dnepr previously had.  Despite the enthusiasm for various people calling them Russians, they are definitely Ukrainian!

They have been in and out of Paine Field pretty frequently over the last few months.  I have got shots of them at different times with the aircraft carrying various messages about cities in Ukraine.  Having got shots at different times, I also started shooting some video.  Here are some of the shots along with a video of one of the departures.

Why Am I Struggling with the Butterflies?

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The flowers in our back yard are very popular with butterflies and, with nice evening light in the garden, I was bound to drag out the macro lens.  However, when I tried getting some shots, the camera was having a really hard time focusing.  I often ended up using the manual focus ring to get something close when the camera kept focusing on the background.  I had struggled with a couple of other subjects previously and I was beginning to get really annoyed.  This was not a cheap lens, and the camera certainly isn’t cheap but why wouldn’t it focus on a butterfly?  I was using animal mode so thought it would cope.

I ended up trying different focus area modes.  Narrowing it down to the small focus spot and moving that around by hand rather than using the subject detection modes was my next effort.  I seemed to have some better luck, but it still was unreliable and was giving me a red box around the focus area.  Why wouldn’t it work.  I took a look in the menus to see if there was something in there which was going to be an issue but nothing there either.  I was beginning to be fearful I had a dud.  Then I noticed something.  The focus limit switch had moved from the full range to having a minimum focus distance of 0.5m.  That would certainly be an issue.  Put it back to where it should have been and suddenly the focus was working perfectly.  What a dope.  Not sure when I had knocked that switch but it might have been a while back.  Doh!

VISTA X-62

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The Antelope Valley Airshow at Edwards AFB last year gave access to some very unusual airframes including some unique types.  In the 90s, an F-16D airframe was converted into a variable stability testbed.  It was used for test pilot training but also became a testbed for other technologies.  Known as VISTA, it also tested a thrust vectoring nozzle on the engine as MATV, performing some amazing maneuvers.  I know one of the test pilots that flew it including when it misbehaved!

The aircraft continues to be used for new developments and, relatively recently, it was re-designated to be an X-plane.  It is now known as the X-62 while continuing to perform some of its original test pilot training roles.  It was on display in one of the hangars at Edwards.  It was a bit hard to get good shots of it since everything was rather crowded, but I was able to get a few that I was happy with.

Top and Bottom of the Conference Center

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The conference center in Pittsburgh was my destination for a rail conference in June.  I was there for several days but it was only on the last day that I managed to get some time to head up to the roof area of the center.  It had some interesting gardens with views across the roof structure and some art installations.  It also had a great view across the river.  The top wasn’t the only interesting spot.  There was a route under the center too which I found on my first day there when I was struggling with how to actually get into the place.  It was not very intuitive which, given the nature of the place, seems rather odd.  I saw a few people riding bikes through this lower level, but I never went down there.