Category Archives: aircraft

Drop Tank By the Road

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Sometimes you find the oddest things by the road.  Just outside NAS Whidbey Island, there is a drop tank sitting by the road.  I have no idea what it is doing there.  It seems to be on someone’s yard.  The shape was not something that looked like a Navy tank (which you might expect). I thought it looked like something from an F-111.  Fortunately, It had a data plate which showed a serial that seems to suggest a Fort Worth General Dynamics product so I guess F-111 is probably it.  Anyone know the story?

Some Nice Flexing

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Departures over the Speedway are best when they flex.  The straight out departures are fine but not that exciting and they often get pretty high pretty quickly.  Those jets that flex seem to stay a bit lower and provide a more interesting shot.  The later in the day it is, the better the light on a flexing jet.  If they are doing an evening departure after the Flag participants are back, the conditions can be ideal.

Here is a selection of jets in both good and okay lighting.  If a four ship goes out, you hope for the last jet to be more dramatic since it will be playing catch up with the others and shoot turn in a bit tighter.  The fourth Saudi F-15SA was another story though since he went very early and then straightened up before having another go inside us.  Not sure he had been paying attention at the brief!

T-33 Damp Departure

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My inability to see a Boeing T-33 jet in nice conditions continues.  I was at Boeing Field when one of the T-33s was taking off in support of a Pegasus test mission.  The weather was crappy with rain and a heavy overcast.  I thought that this was not going to work well but sometimes bad weather provides good opportunities so I gave it a go.  Besides, I don’t see them enough to pass it by.  As it turned out, the flat conditions and the dampness made the jet show up nicely against the background when it was still low on climb out.  Once it was against the sky, things weren’t so great but it turned out a lot better than I expected.

Evening Aer Lingus

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I was out one evening at SeaTac awaiting one of the British Airways special 747 schemes – see this post.  The preceding heavy jet was an Aer Lingus A330.  It was the test for me to make sure I had the exposure set up the way I intended.  The evening light was getting good and the green on the jet looked pretty good.

My First Global 7500

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I was a touch disappointed that a Global 7500 demonstrator from Bombardier landed at Boeing Field about 15 minutes before I got there.  I had not seen one previously and I missed it arriving.  It was parked up across the field although the heat haze was not making for much of a shot.  The following morning they filed a flight plan for departure at a time which meant I could get there before having to go to work so I headed across.  In common with these things, they weren’t exactly prompt.  However, they still taxied and got airborne in plenty of time for me.  The morning light limits your shooting locations so I was further down field than ideal and the jet was quite high but I have still finally got one.  They will be loads of them before too long but, for now, I am pleased to have this one.

Tankers at Sunrise

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Boeing started delivering KC-46s to the USAF as I covered in this post.  However, it didn’t take too long before the Air Force found various items of tooling in the aircraft that shouldn’t have been there and stopped taking delivery.  Consequently, rather than delivering the backlog, it has continued to build.  Paine Field had well over a dozen aircraft in various locations when we were there including three over by the Heritage Flight Foundation’s hangars.  Here three were illuminated nicely by the sun as it rose across the field so a pano seemed in order.

Sikorsky’s Historic Landmark

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Igor Sikorsky is well known as a developer of helicopters even though his early work was based on fixed wing types.  The airframe he developed to demonstrate practical rotary flight was the VS-300.  This helicopter went through a number of design changes over its life including upgrades to the cyclic system to make it more controllable.  When testing with it concluded, it was donated to the Henry Ford museum in Michigan and that is here I saw it.  It is a historic landmark and hugely significant.  However, it is stacked up in a display behind other artifacts, so it is actually pretty tricky to photograph.  I tried making a pano of it to avoid the things in front with some success.

Rainy Pegasus Takeoff

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I have shot KC-46s in bad conditions more often than would seem probable.  I got one in conditions so dark it was like a night shoot.  This time it was heavy rain.  Of course that can mean vapor.  The matte gray of fuselage actually looks better when it is wet.  I had hoped the inlets would fog but that didn’t happen.  However, the flat light helped the fuselage a bit which often gets too contrasts.  Besides that it throws up a ton of spray behind it as it accelerates down the runway. Rotating in front of me meant I was rather happy with the result compared to what I expected.

My First A220

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The A220 (or C Series CS100 if you are not yet ready to have it labeled as an Airbus) has been in service for a while but, until recently, I hadn’t seen one.  Then, while I was on the shuttle between the terminals at DFW, we came around the terminal that Delta uses and I realized that the jet that had just pushed back was an A220.

It was early evening so the light was quite nice.  The shape of the jet was quite distinctive.  Aside from the cockpit shaping, the wings are quite large (giving it quite decent range capability) and the large fans of the Pratt GTFs are conspicuous.  It is not a bad looking jet the Delta colors looked good on it.  Sadly it taxied to the other side of the airport so I didn’t see it depart but it was nice to finally see one for real.

Cape Air Ramp

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I have read a lot about Cape Air.  They are a small operator in the New England area flying a fleet of (mainly) Cessna 402s.  The reason I know this is that they have been heavily involved in the development of a new piston twin with Tecnam which they intend to use to replace their fleet.  The first examples have started to show up but, for now, the 402 is still their workhorse.  While I was sitting at a gate at Logan waiting for a flight home, we were right across from their ramp so I was able to watch the comings and goings of their planes.  Seeing them mixing in with the big airliners was pretty impressive.