Category Archives: aircraft

WHF Day Out

What seems like far too long a time had passed since I had last had a chance to head up to Waukegan to see the team at the Warbird Heritage Foundation. A nice day and a break in my schedule meant that I was finally able to resolve that shortfall. I headed up to Waukegan keen to see what sort of day was in store. As with any collection of older aircraft, the chances of much flying are relatively limited since the planes are usually in need of some sort of care. However, there were a few parked out on the apron when I got there.

Sean and Mike were busy taking care of them as I wandered up. The first thing Sean told me was that he had flown the Bird Dog that morning and that it was a shame I hadn’t been there. Indeed so! Telling me I have missed out on a great opportunity is just cruel! Never mind. I still haven’t seen the Bird Dog fly so it would have been good to see it let alone fly in it.

The project for the day was the T-28 Trojan. Not so long ago, this aircraft had an engine go bad. The chip warning light came on while Sean was flying it and, since he was close to the field, he made a speedy descent to land. The engine pretty much gasped its last as he taxied in. A rebuild later and now the plane is flying again. However, as with all engines after overhaul, it is going through a running in period. This also requires a different grade of oil and a change of oil was the task for the guys.

With the new oil in, the engine was run and the oil topped off. Then it was time for a flight. Jeff is a regular T-28 pilot and member of the Trojan Horseman and he came along to fly with Sean in the back seat. Putting hours on the airframe is the goal but not going too far from the field in case anything goes wrong. They did their duty flying patterns over the field and I grabbed some shots when I could. Most of the time they were quite far away but, with the moon traversing the sky, a couple of opportunities presented themselves for shots with the moon in the background.

I also grabbed some shots of the aircraft on the ground while they were off doing their thing. I haven’t got much before of the Bird Dog so spent a bit of time with it including getting some shots of the cockpit. Harsh exterior lighting meant a but of HDR was required for some of the shots but hopefully it isn’t too obvious! I have shot these planes a lot over time but there is always a chance for something new. Good to see you guys again and hopefully it won’t be so long next time!

Helinet and Transformers

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Every once in a while, I am reminded of something that has happened before and I realize that this took place in the days before I started blogging. Then I have to decide whether it is fair to you, my dedicated reader, to roll out something that is several years old as a blog post. If it is interesting enough, why not. Besides, my life is not always so interesting so getting material is a case of taking it when you have it.

The subject in this case is a helicopter. “no, surely not” I hear you cry. It’s not like I ever write about or photograph helicopters. This is true. Indeed, this helicopter was involved in filming in the city which, as some recent posts will show, is not a particularly new topic either. This film, though, was Transformers 3. The filming of Transformers was a big deal in the city. Major streets were shut for days at a time and set construction to make them look like they had been demolished was impressive. As I think about it, I should probably post some pictures of that too at some point (note to self…).

Alan Purwin of Helinet was the pilot for the helicopter used for filming. It was a Eurocopter Astar (Squirrel for those of you in the UK and Ecureuil for the French speakers). It had a large camera mount on the nose to hold the cinema camera. Until recently, it was relatively easy to tell movie shoots from TV shoots by the size of the mount. Now film cameras are being replaced with such digital powerhouses as the Reds, the mount sizes are no longer so obvious.

There was filming day and night (including people skydiving into the shots from other helicopters and, if memory serves, the Trump Tower) and some pretty dramatic explosions. The Astar would fly around the river a lot getting shots and sometimes the shots were of people on the buildings so it would be flying close to them. All of this was a treat for someone like me. Just watching it was great fun but I got some shots too.

The plan had been to write a piece on Helinet. However, Paramount were not keen on having anything come out until the movie was released (a year later!) so the article stumbled a little. Then, there was an accident on one of the sets out of the city in which a woman received terrible injuries and the whole production schedule changed and Alan headed off to other projects. It would be nice to follow that one up again at some point.

New Angles on O’Hare

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I hadn’t been out to O’Hare for a while and with a sunny Sunday according to the forecast and no other things needing to be done imminently, I decided to head out. I spent the initial time out there getting some pretty normal approach type shots. A couple of new things for me to see but nothing terribly dramatic. Then I decided to try some other places.

I headed around to the west side of the field and looked at what the departures had to offer. A level of cloud had moved in which was making the sky a little gray in the shots, even if there was still a good level of sun on the planes. The sun was causing a lot of heat haze and the backgrounds weren’t making for great shots so i decided to bag that idea and head to the approach lights. With departures off 32L, I could go to the place where the approach crosses the main road and get some head on shots of the departures.

It is a bit of a game since the planes appear quite suddenly and are soon over you. However, it offered some different views. Not something I will do every time but it was good to get a slightly different perspective on what is on offer.

New Transformers Filming

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The new Transformers movie is currently filming in Chicago. Some aerial filming was recently scheduled and we got advanced notice since it was going to make things a little disrupted in the morning. They were opening three of the bridges along the river and a helicopter was running through at low level filming sequences.

The filming work was being carried out by Alan Purwin of Helinet. Often, when filming is underway, it is hard to get close and get anything recorded. Obviously, they don’t want people filming there own stuff. Also, they don’t want you appearing in the shot. Fortunately, I found a spot where they were happy for us to be and that gave us a view, even if it was a bit restricted.

I actually moved from my first spot. The helicopter was so low I could only just see the top of the rotor head as it passed. The second spot gave a more open view. Watching from that close was very impressive. It took a couple of hours since they had to open up and close down areas between passes. Watching them come in was easy but coming the other way was a bit of guesswork as the helicopter could be heard but only appeared suddenly. Still, another good chance to shoot helicopters in the city. Am I getting repetitive?

Here is some video I got too.

Wings Over Waukesha

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The Wings Over Waukesha air show was recently held in – you guessed it – Waukesha. I covered it for Global Aviation Resource and, rather than duplicate everything here, why not head over to their website to see the original piece. Here is the link.

Airshow Review – Wings Over Waukesha

Airlines That No Longer Exist

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A while back I put together a few shots of Northwest Airlines planes when it occurred to me that I had shots of an airline now departed. For some reason, this topic popped back into my head again and I started wondering what other airlines I have shots of that no longer operate (at least under the name they had at the time). I thought about a bunch of airlines that have disappeared but it turned out that I did not have shots of many of them.

However, there were a few that I came across as I went through the files. I got interrupted in the process and was not able to search through all of the possibilities but I did get a few from days gone by – some from quite a while back. Here are some examples. (Some might find the Continental planes barely gone but they are United these days.)

Super Puma Video

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The Super Puma lift that Construction helicopters undertook at the Merchandise Mart was a good chance to get some video of a wider nature rather than the close up stuff I normally get. Here is the result.

Other SeaTac Stuff

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The SeaTac shooting had a number of specific things that I have already covered. However, since it is an airport that serves a lot of destinations and carriers, it has a bunch of other things worth seeing. Long haul operators include Delta (serving a lot of routes that were once Northwest), British Airways and Icelandair. I have always seen the Icelandair aircraft on the ground when traveling through SeaTac but they seem to have a schedule that means one arrives at around the same time the previous day’s arrival departs. Not a very efficient use of the airframe but I guess it works for them.

The domestic carriers were also there with Alaska making up the majority of the movements – at least in the time windows I had.

Filming helicopter

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Something I haven’t seen for a while is any filming activity around the city. We have two big movies being shot in Chicago this summer but I don’t think I have seen anything of them at work yet (unless this is it). When the filming is underway, you often get a helicopter shooting film from the air. A turret on the nose holds the camera and the mount is operated by someone inside the helicopter while the pilot positions for the shots that are required.

I heard a Eurocopter Astar (Squirrel for non-US readers) flying around (not unusual since the local TV stations use them predominantly) but noticed it was a different aircraft with a more prominent mount. I have seen this Astar doing filming work in the past but not for a while. The sun was getting low but I decided to try and grab some shots as it came around.

Of course, just as I did this, it made a couple more passes and then left. However, it did return later. By now the light was getting very low. I suspect the shots he was getting of the city looked great but it was getting tricky to get anything good of him. However, it is always fun to try.

Horizon schemes

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Seattle is a busy airport with plenty of operators coming through. However, the home airline is Alaska and their regional affiliate is Horizon. Consequently, both of them are very busy. Horizon operates a fleet of Bombardier Q400s. They used to have some CRJs too but these have been moved to another operator and now they are dedicated to the turboprops.

They do seem to have really gone to town in applying special liveries to some of their aircraft. These are focused on a lot of the local colleges and universities. They do paint up a lot of planes in school colors! While I was there, I got a surprising number of them passing by. Here are a few samples of the different schemes they have (along with one normal one just to show that they aren’t all specials).