Category Archives: aircraft

Filming helicopter

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).

Construction Helicopters at the Mart

Previously I posted about the work with Midwest Helicopters at the Merchandise Mart. This post included the stills of the job while this one had some video. That job was all about erecting the steel to support the new chiller units. Construction Helicopters had the job to lift the chillers themselves since they were considerably heavier than the S-58T can lift.

This time I ended up shooting the lift from along the river. While I had originally planned to be back on the roof, the plan changed but it ended up being a better solution. I wish I had planned it to be so but I will take being lucky any day. The view from the ground was one I had intended for the first lift if it had gone to the second day so this time i was able to get shots of the building with the helicopter operating in front of and above it.

This was the first time I had seen the Super Puma that Construction Helicopters have acquired. I have had a soft spot for the Puma family for many years dating back to a model of an RAF Puma I made as a kid. It is a great looking helicopter and certainly a powerful performer.

The weather was excellent and the lift went very smoothly. The chillers were picked from a barge on the river in front of the Mart and lifted to the roof. I certainly wasn’t alone in watching the work as quite a crowd gathered along the river to watch. Great job to everyone involved.

FedEx shots

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A recent trip to Seattle gave me some time at the very beginning and end of the day to pay a visit to SeaTac. Plenty of interesting things are to be seen there. One specific area of interest for me was the amount of traffic for FedEx. They had a lot of movements with a variety of types. (A contractor operates Cessna Caravans for them which I saw but did not get any shots of sadly.) With FedEx just having announced a reduction in types in their fleet plan, this was a more interesting opportunity than it might otherwise have been.

Two McDonnell Douglas types came through while I was there. The MD-11s are busy as usual but I also got MD-10s. Meanwhile, the Airbus A300s were also in use. I don’t get to see them often and, since they are going to be retired in large numbers soon, I might not get many more chances. With movements at the beginning and end of the day, I was able to catch them several times. They were busy. I am assuming the middle of the day is quieter for them so I didn’t miss much while at work.

The only unfortunate side of shooting the FedEx jets was their departure profiles. When on the departure end of things, I was generally in a good location to catch the jets as they came by. FedEx was the exception. I don’t know whether they practice rapid climb outs due to flying into some dangerous places or just for noise abatement (they do have some aging aircraft) but the result is that they climb fast and are much higher than average by the time they reach you. Nothing much I can do about that of course but it was a bit of a shame. Approach shots were not an issue of course. The three degree glideslope is the same for everyone! Time to enjoy some of these jets before they go for good.

Merchandise Mart video

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In a previous post I showed some images I took at the Midwest Helicopters lifting job at the Merchandise Mart. As is normal for me these days, I also took the time to get a bunch of video and, finally, I have got around to editing this. I wanted to focus a little more on the guys working on the roof rather than just the helicopter operations. Of course, there is still plenty of footage of the flying too! I hope you enjoy.

Clow Cavalcade

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Air shows are not planned to be a big part of my year this year. However, I did take the time to go a short distance out of the city recently to a small event that I like. Clow is an airport down in Bolingbrook, southwest of downtown Chicago. The airport holds an event every year for the local community to show what goes on at the airport and to try and generate interest in the aviation industry. It is not an airshow. There is not a flying display. However, a number of aircraft do visit and make some passes to show the crowd some interesting aircraft.

A number of aircraft are on display. Some warbirds show up and the EAA owned Ford Trimotor was providing rides throughout the event. Usually they have some parachutists displaying throughout the event (and I have previously shot them at work) but, unfortunately, the weather did not prove to be cooperative this year and the cloud base was too low to allow them to jump.

A number of aircraft manufacturers have their aircraft on display with Cessna, Piper, Cirrus and Diamond all having aircraft available to view by potential (and wishful thinking) buyers. Eclipse also brought one of their Total Eclipse 500 aircraft.

I was most interested in getting some shots of the aircraft either flying or on display but an event like this is also about seeing how the crowds interact with the aircraft and their owners. It is a very open event with people having the chance to get close to the aircraft and the operations. Since the conditions weren’t great, I often put down the camera and just watched everyone having fun. (Obviously no pictures of that!)

Cloudy KC

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Our journey home came through Kansas City. We got the airport in plenty of time so were hanging around waiting for our flight. The clouds were working their way across the sky and the beams of light that cut out of them at times could be quite attractive. An airport ramp is not the best foreground for that type of shot but you don’t ignore something because of that. Here are a couple of examples of how it looked.

Museum of Flight

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The end of the field trip for the ISAP Symposium was a visit to the Museum of Flight. Located at Boeing Field, this is a great museum and worth a visit whether you are an aviation nut or not. It has an impressive collection of aircraft and they are nicely displayed. Inside are some impressive machines including the always attractive M-12, a variant of the Blackbird family that was intended to launch high speed drones (a program that was not ultimately successful and was cancelled).

Outside is a further selection of great airframes including a British Airways Concorde, the prototype Boeing 747, a Boeing 727 in American Airlines colors and a NASA Boeing 737 which may (or may not) be a prototype. There are others too but these stand out. They also have a Space Shuttle crew trainer which, since it is not an original orbiter, is actually more accessible to the visitors. It was not a long visit so we had to move pretty quickly to get around but a good time nonetheless.

Heritage Flight Foundation Visit

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The field trip during the ISAP Symposium was held at Paine Field in Everett. We were hosted by the Heritage Flight Foundation and its owner John Sessions and they were excellent hosts. (I visited once before and you can see that post here.) Aside from the selection of aircraft still in the hangar where we were set up, they had arranged some photo sorties with some of their aircraft. The B-25, Grumpy, was the camera ship for a few photographers and the P-51 Mustang was the target. A T-6 also went up as a second camera ship. Each photo position was a paying ride with the T-6 obviously being the premium slot.

I had decided not to take the ride. It was not cheap although certainly not bad value for money. As the weather was not looking great, I wondered whether I had chosen wisely. As it was, the people who did go up did get some great images. The area certainly can provide some nice backdrops and the light, while flat, did not hurt things. However, even as someone on the ground, the flights seemed over very fast so I imagine for those on board, it was gone all to quickly.

For those of us on the ground, we got treated to the departure and arrivals of the aircraft plus a few passes of the P-51 and T-6 which were a lot of fun. Gloomy skies made it all a little flat looking but still a great sight. Being able to be close to the aircraft during the start up, taxi out and return was certainly worthwhile. The following day they were having a public event and I hope the weather improved for the large numbers they were expecting.

NAS Whidbey Island

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The day before the ISAP Symposium kicked off, there was a smaller field trip to NAS Whidbey Island. Located on an island (surprisingly enough) north of Seattle, it was a bit of a journey to get there with a bus ride and ferry trip to get us there. As with all military bases, you never quite know what will be going on when you get there. They can be a hive of activity or have no flying at all. We did okay on this trip.

First we stopped in the hangar of an E/A-18G Growler unit. One of the officers was their to show us around and answer any questions. There was also one jet in the hangar that we could shoot. We then migrated outside to see some jets launching or coming back from trips. Then it was time to head up to the tower. We got to hang out for a short while on the catwalk outside the tower cab. This gives you a great view over the ramp area and the field as a whole. We had a couple of movements while we were there but then things got pretty quiet which would have been a disappointment for the second half of our group who were up second.

Lunch was served in the officers’ club which included some great mementos of operations and types passed. After that is was back on the journey home. A good little trip and a nice time to hang out with some folks I hadn’t seen for a while and others who were new to meet.