Category Archives: aircraft

Honeywell’s Convair is Back

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I have seen the Honeywell Convair at Paine Field parked up at various times but only once did I catch it flying in.  This post includes shots of it which were, unfortunately, on a rather overcast day.  A white airframe on a cloudy day is not a great target but its rarity meant I was still pleased to get it.  It was due back in at lunchtime recently so I decided to make the quick trip up while eating my lunch.  The weather had been crummy but I had seen some gaps developing in the clouds and Everett often is a little clearer than by the office.  I figured it might work out.

I got there a little while before it was due in and a clear patch did briefly appear before closing in as an Ameriflight Beech 1900 landed.  I looked to the distance and saw potential so waited with fingers crossed.  The Convair appeared downwind and then turned on to final.  It was a shady shape in a cloudy sky.  Had I blown it?  As the approach got close in, a burst of light appeared and the airframe jumped out from the background.  I was delighted.  It touched down, I packed my stuff up and I was back in the office before you knew it!

Lightroom 8.2 Detail Enhancer

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Updates to Lightroom come along relatively regularly and they tend to include new features along with fixes and performance tweaks.  The latest update, Lightroom 8.2, includes a new addition called Detail Enhancer.  This is a feature that is designed to provide some better small-scale detail as part of the raw conversion process.  It creates a new DNG file based on a more complex calculation of the demosaicing of the sensor data.

I saw some videos about it and figured it wasn’t going to be of much use for the type of thing I am working on.  However, it did trigger one possible area of interest.  The algorithms are supposed to be designed to make better calculations around the different color pixels that sensors have.  Sensors are set up in a Bayer Pattern where different color sensitive sensors occupy different pixel spaces.  They each record in one color and then software interpolates between them to create colors for each pixel irrespective of which color was originally recorded at that location.

In a post from a while back, I mused on the way in which the colors of the Southwest Livery and the registration clashed and seemed to provide a distorted image even when everything around them was sharp.  I was pondering whether this was artifacting caused by the different colors and the way the sensor was recording the data.  If this was the case, maybe this new functionality would change the way things were rendered.  I dug out a few of the shots that had previously demonstrated this effect and ran the process on them.  These shots show the wide shot, the original rendering of the close up and the revised rendering using Detail Enhancer.

As you can see from the comparisons, Detail Enhancer does not suddenly render a perfect registration for the aircraft.  However, to my eye at least, it does appear as if the results are noticeably better then they were with the original rendering.  For completeness, the original rendering is done with the latest process version of Adobe’s raw converter to make things as fair as possible.  It does appear to make a difference.  This makes me think my theory about whiny things looked wrong might have some merit, even if this update has not fully resolved things.

Fin Repaint

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I’m not sure why but recently the 747 fin in Future of Flight at Everett made it to be a popular photo on Airliners Net.  The fin sits inside the museum section and it was painted as a 747-8 fin, even though it actually came from a British Airways 747-100.  The picture had it with the -8 paint finish.  I have a similar shot but the fin has recently been repainted in a blue finish.  Not sure what the purpose was but, since Boeing have taken over Future of Flight, they must have had a reason.  If anyone knows why, let me know in the comments.

Medusa Flight for the First Delivery

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Finally, the first Boeing KC-46 Pegasus tankers were delivered to the USAF.  Not one but two tankers were delivered in the ceremony, a nice effort at a joke by Boeing having left everyone thinking it would only be one.  Then again, when you have that many of them sitting around, I guess it should have been even more!  The ceremony took place on one day and the delivery was the following morning.

The jets left from Paine Field just after sunrise.  That is sunrise if you don’t have clouds on the horizon.  The sun had barely squeaked above those when the two jets took off as Medusa 1 and 2.  They were preceded by a McConnell AFB KC-135R – the aircraft that they will be replacing.  It got airborne in very limited light and headed for Kansas.  Then the two new jets lined up in turn and departed.  No flybys or wing waggles.  Just gear up, switch to departure frequency and off into the steadily brightening sky.  Avoid the traffic inbound to SeaTac and off you go.  Lots more should be following soon while efforts continue to fix the issues with the camera system and the underwing hose and drogue pods.

Thomas Cook A330

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The Thomas Cook A330s do come in to Seattle and I got some distant shots of one once – it was actually one of the Voyagers that is leased out by Air Tanker – but they were not much use.  SFO proved to be a better hunting ground and the light even played ball.  This is not a Voyager – just a standard A330 – but the Thomas Cook colors popped a bit better this time around.

BA QOTS Over the Bay

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This is just a gratuitous Boeing 747 post.  The jets are fast disappearing from service with the major airlines but British Airways (those of you that call them British Air just stop!) has a substantial number of them left and they are due to stay around for a few more years.  This one was arriving at SFO in 2018.  It came into view across Coyote Point and headed down the approach in nice winter light.  There will come a time when they are gone so appreciate it now.  I have flown on more of them than I can recall so have plenty of happy memories of traveling on them.

Another FedEx 767

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The only civilian 767s being built at the moment are for FedEx.  I posted one of them on test at Paine Field in this post.  I caught another one recently.  I got the departure early on as it disappeared into the clouds that were pretty low.  The return later had slightly better light.  The approach was terminated with a go-around resulting in some vortices streaming from the wing as they climbed out.  Dark skies make for an interesting background!

Asiana A350

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During the summer season, Asiana was flying their new A350s in to SeaTac.  I did get some more distant shots but nothing of significance.  With the introduction of the winter schedule, they changed to a lower capacity type.  However, while I was at SFO, I was able to shoot one of the A350s as they continue to run there in the off season.  The light was quite nice as it came in so I was pleased to get a shot.  They will soon be pretty common but, for now, it was a nice catch.

State of the Pegasus Fleet

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January 2019 brought a milestone for the USAF.  They accepted their first KC-46 Pegasus.  Admittedly they accepted it with a number of deferred issues that Boeing has been given a few years to resolve but that are Category 1 deficiencies.  I guess this should mean we will see a lot of deliveries in the coming weeks and months.

The backlog of jets parked up is substantial.  There are jets parked at Boeing Field on both the military ramp and the flight test ramp.  There are more scattered around the Boeing ramp at Everett.  More of them are in the conversion area at the south end of Paine Field.  More still are parked up across the cross runway.  It’s a lot of jets and, if you are an accountant, this is a level of Work In Progress that must make you squirm.  We should see them start to head on their way before too long.