Category Archives: aircraft

Other Waukegan Bits and Pieces

I did get a little side benefit when out shooting the A-4 at Waukegan. I made my way to the other side of the field to be ready to shoot the A-4 when it departed. However, I did give myself a bit of spare time to make sure I didn’t miss it. The result was a couple of extra aircraft.

One was the Yak 52 that Grant owns and flies. He was running it up when I got across the field. I told him where I was going to be so he would know when he departed. Sure enough he came close and he headed out. Hopefully we will be seeing more of Grant’s Yak in the not too distant future.

The second benefit was a corporate jet heading out. Waukegan has a lot of corporate traffic. If I had waited a few more minutes there was a Hawker 800XP heading out but I had to be back at the Hooch. However, I did get this fella as he departed. He used a fair amount of the runway which suited me well.

The last one was a CJ that departed while we were taxiing out in the T-6. Not as great a shot but one to add to the catalog!

Scooter Time Again

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For those of you that have hung around here for a while, hopefully there is more than one of you, you will know that I have spent a lot of time shooting with the Warbird Heritage Foundation up at Waukegan. If you saw my recent post on the T-6, you will know that I was up at Waukegan to see the A-4 fly again. The A-4 is a great little jet and one that I love to see in action.

The aircraft has some new stores fitted underwing. These are practice bomb carriers and they add to the options for displaying the aircraft. They certainly look good. The weather was great on the day I went up and Paul wanted to get up and flying as quickly as he could. He had other things to get to later in the day so getting the jet up and running was a priority. First it required an engine run and a leak check after the servicing and then it should be good to go.

The engine run went well and a couple of minor things were noted and fixed. Then it was time to fly. I decided it would be best to head across the field. The hangar is north of the runway and doesn’t have the best light angle for the aircraft taking off. Fortunately, the wind, while light, meant that the jet would be departing heading in to the light so, from a position by the other hangar (the maintenance hangar is called the Bunker) should provide a good view.

This worked out well, Paul certainly helped by keeping the jet relatively low as he transitioned the gear up. I got some nice close shots as he came by and then he pulled up into a steep climb out. Certainly great and worth the trip – the T-6 flight was a cherry on the top!

Time in the T-6

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I recently popped up to Waukegan to see the good folks at the Warbird Heritage Foundation. I was up there to take some shots of their A-4 Skyhawk. It was scheduled to fly and the weather was looking particularly good so it seemed like an opportunity not to miss. A post on that will follow soon.

While I was there, the Chief Pilot, Herwig, was getting ready to take up the T-6 to run a check on the adjustments that had been made to the aileron trim. When he asked if I wanted to come along, I think you can guess what my answer was.

This was to be my first trip in a T-6. I minimized what photography equipment I was going to take along in order to keep things simple. Since we weren’t shooting anything else, I really only had two shot options. The ground or myself. Needless to say, I had a go at both. There is something very self centered but fun about shooting yourself in the cockpit while flying. I like shooting the pilot too but in the case of the T-6, the best I can get is the back of Herwig’s head!

The flight was a quick one and the trim checks were carried out before heading back to Waukegan. An overhead break into the pattern and then we were back on terra firma. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. Thanks guys.

Article In Progress

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When you are first putting together a piece for a magazine, you don’t know exactly what sort of response you are going to get from the subject. I am presently working on a piece about a manufacturer of business jets. The magazine is getting well established so it should be a good amount of exposure for the company but you never know whether that is something they want or not.

When I contacted this company, I got a speedy response from their PR team which was great. They provided responses to a series of questions I emailed to them but that is really only half of a story. When writing questions, you think you have covered the main bases. Then you get the responses and they trigger further questions. In a face to face interview, this process also takes place but you get to deal with the back and forth immediately and the result should be a lot better as a result.

Consequently, with a little prodding, I managed to secure an interview with one of the board members of the company. He arranged to meet me at one of their facilities that was conveniently located for me to get to. When I got there, he immediately had to apologize that an aircraft closing was happening that morning and he couldn’t immediately be available. This was really no big deal for me since I had made plenty of time available in case anything should mess up the schedule. Selling aircraft is the business they are in so it isn’t hard to see that it should take preference over an interview.

In the mean time, one of the team was available to show me around the hangars. I needed to get images of the aircraft in work to illustrate the piece and he was great at helping me get what I needed. There were only two restrictions applied. Registration numbers had to be obscured since customers owned the aircraft and some of the internal looms could not be shown. This was fine by me and wasn’t going to limit the piece at all.

Aside from those rules, everything was made available. Aircraft were powered up if I needed them. Anything in the way or obscuring the shot was removed. Gallery access was fine to get an overview of the hangars. When I asked if anything was out on the ramp, I was told it wasn’t but if I wanted something, it would be put out there. Fantastic cooperation and all provided with the friendliest attitudes. Everyone I met in the hangar was very friendly. They treated me the way they apparently treat visiting customers – shame I don’t have the cash to be a customer!

With the important things taken care of, it was possible to conduct the interview. The person I was interviewing was very helpful and willing to discuss most things that I brought up. One aspect of it was quite interesting from my point of view. My idea of who I am is not necessarily the same as that of the interviewee. I shall explain. I am interested in the topic that I am writing about and I have a fair bit of experience in the subject so like to delve a little deeper into the subject. I am interested in understanding but I am not trying to embarrass the company. They will get a chance to review what we write to make sure we do not say anything untrue.

As far as they are concerned, I am a journalist who wants a story. Will I try and make them look bad? They don’t know. The answers are all in line with the general message the company wants to portray. This is perfectly reasonable. However, it can mean that they are not going to give me the most frank answers to the questions or may avoid answering them altogether. As we were talking, I found this a little odd. It was only when I thought about it further afterwards that it made more sense. They don’t know me, what my motives might be and they have a business to protect and promote. I guess this is an example of my own inexperience in some aspects of this.

None of this should in anyway suggest that I wasn’t provided with the utmost cooperation. The team were great and I hope they find the article both fair and interesting. I wish them the best with their efforts and hope that we might get to work again some time. Now to just get some images of the aircraft flying!

Airliners versus Jetphotos

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I bounce backwards and forwards about whether I am interested in the two most prevalent of the online aircraft photograph databases, Airliners.Net and Jetphotos.Net. I have pictures on both services and they have (very) occasionally brought some useful contacts my way. Getting images on to their databases can be a frustrating process if you let it since they have very specific requirements about what they accept and what they want.

They own their websites and they can have what they want on there. If I don’t like it, I am sure they won’t be losing sleep and recognizing this a while back made my life a lot less stressful! Indeed, I stopped uploading to Airliners.Net and focused on Jetphotos for a while. They became similar in their issues over time and I stopped bothering altogether. It hadn’t done much for me so I didn’t see the need.

Every once in a while, I thought it might be useful to have something further there based on the occasional contacts I got. Therefore, I would get back into the idea of creating edits of my images for the websites. However, I now make the edits, submit the shots and, if they are accepted, fine. If not, fine a well. I am not chasing database statistics with these people.

I have recently come across a few shots of mine that I thought might be good for the sites so made the edits and uploaded to each site. This was one of those moments when I wanted to compare them in their acceptance policy. They have a desire for a high level of sharpening but don’t like things to be over-sharpened. They also can have different views as to what over-processing is – something I like since they often reject for that when I have done very little processing at all!

I have now got the results back and it continues to amuse. Both sites have accepted some and rejected others. The fun comes from the fact that they have taken very different approaches to their analysis. Airliners have rejected some things that were accepted by Jetphotos. Similarly Jetphotos have rejected some that Airliners accepted. Rejections were often for similar reasons but for different images. Is there any rhyme or reason? I don’t know. I used to appeal shots that I thought they had been incorrect on. Now I don’t bother. Will this ever change? Probably not. Will I change my approach? Probably not. Does it matter? Probably not. The most important thing is to not get stressed about this stuff I guess.

Some Special Schemes

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One of the things I did quite well with while around LAX was getting jets with special color schemes. Plenty of airlines are painting aircraft in something other than the normal house colors. This can be a livery that is part of their alliance, like OneWorld or Skyteam, or it can be something special of their own. It might also be a tie up with another organization.

Whatever the reason, it certainly makes things more interesting to get something that is a little different to break up the monotony of the regular fleets. Here are a selection of some of the different colors that were on display while I was out west. The Alaska scheme is not too apparent since the shot is head on but you can see it if you look. Others are more obvious. Hope they are worth a look.

Some Nice Biz Jets

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While shooting at LAX, there are the occasional business jets operating. Thankfully, the FBOs seem to be on the south side of the field so the movements are on the runways that are closer to you when at Imperial Hill. They may also use the closer runway of the two so you get a close look.

I won’t say much about the jets other than a couple of things. first, being on the Pacific coast, you can get nice big jets that have long range. Second, I saw one jet that had a Chinese registration. Not sure how many biz jets there are in China yet – I know the number is growing. However, having this show up was a nice treat.

Last was the Aramco 767 which is something a bit different for me. Not a bad collection in a short space of time.

Elusive ER-2

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Paul and I decided to make a trip up to Palmdale while we were in LA. Palmdale is about an hour and a half north of LAX if the traffic is flowing freely and can be a source of some interesting aircraft. It can also be a big disappointment. Luck of the draw. As we headed over the pass towards Palmdale, the clouds were drifting in which didn’t bode well. However, you never know.

One of the things we were keen to see was NASA’s ER-2. This is a variant of the U-2 airframe, two of which NASA acquired for research work. ER stands for Earth Resources I think although whether that is all they do is a different question! It was scheduled to launch that morning so we headed up.

We looked around for a spot to locate ourselves and found something that looked promising. We were well placed for the main runway. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize they were launching away from us on a cross runway until the sound of the ER-2 made us jump out of the car and watch it climbing away towards the hills. It turned and came close as it departed to the east but not a great shot.

Next to launch was a U-2. Lockheed Martin do maintenance on them at Palmdale and this one launched away from us as well. Our luck was not looking good. We could track the ER-2 since it was a civilian flight but whether the U-2 would come back or was being redelivered, we did not know. In the end, it did come back and flew right past us. Finally some success.

As we waited, something else showed up on the horizon. The shape looked slightly familiar and, as it came closer, it turned out to be a B-2. Almost totally unmarked, we suspect it was from Edwards. It flew a couple of approaches and then departed north. It came close enough to us but they are difficult to shoot unless the light is really good – which it wasn’t – so a little dull. However, a nice break.

Finally the ER-2 came back. We were ready for some lunch so watched it head towards us. Then, it broke off to land the opposite way on the runway it had departed from. There was no time to reposition ourselves so we missed out again. My results were a few distant crops of shots against a white sky so nothing to be too proud of. A bit of a bust of a day but that is the luck of the draw. Time to head off and get lunch after that!

Santa Monica

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After spending a bunch of time around LAX, it was time for something different. Paul asked whether I had ever been to Santa Monica airport. I hadn’t so we took a look online to see what others might have seen there. It seemed pretty promising and there also appeared to be a viewing deck!

The trip to Santa Monica from LAX is a short one and we got there in no time. The field is on top of a hill and you come under the approach end of the runway as you drive up the hill. Sure enough, there was a viewing deck and a very nice one. It had a long balcony along the side of the apron, there were plenty of picnic benches, some good vending machines and there was a restaurant as well.

This makes the spot a popular one for visitors. A number of families were there at various times during our visit. They brought the kids and some food to show them the planes. They got visits from the airport police a few times – not to hassle them but to give them stickers of planes and to encourage their interest. Now that is a pleasant change!

There was a good mix of operations. They are plenty of corporate jets in and out. Netjets and FlexJets had a few movements and a very nice gold Gulfstream showed up. Some rotary wing action was also on display with a three ship of aircraft heading out at one point together, possibly for a photo shoot. There are also plenty of lighter aircraft operating including a nice Stearman and a SIAI Marchetti SF-260.

The traffic was very intensive but it was steady and the weather was steadily improving so with access to refreshments and places to sit, it proved to be a great spot to visit.

Easterlies – Good for Me, Bad for Them!

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One of the surprising benefits of the bad weather system that passed through Los Angeles while I was there was that it made for some different operations at LAX. LAX has four runways in two pairs, one north of the terminal complex and one south. The prevailing wind is from the ocean so everything tends to operate with arrivals and departures in a westerly direction.

The airport is pretty much designed to operate this was – more so since the construction of the extension to the international terminal has resulted in the cross taxiway between the north and south areas being closed off. Moving aircraft from the north to the south and vice versa seems to be a bit of a hassle and, for some reason, if the traffic is operating in the opposite direction, it seems to be just that bit harder.

When the weather turned bad, operations started out in the morning with some westerly movements and some easterlies. Some of these were simultaneous with arrivals heading towards departures coming out from the other side of the field – not unsafe but certainly a little disconcerting I imagine. As the wind strengthened, the incoming flights were redirected and the airfield went to a full easterly operation.

While this may have made the ground handling a little more tricky, it was certainly good from my point of view. Relocating to Imperial Hill, I now had a lot of arrivals coming in on the runway closest to me and touching down pretty much directly in front of me. (If it weren’t for the number of power cables around this area blocking the touchdown zones, this would have been perfect.)

This also meant a lot of departing traffic came our way as well so it was a chance to see things in a slightly different way to that which is normally the case at LAX. This combined with a few pleasant surprises. One was the arrival of a Qantas A380 on our runway. From what I understand, they normally operate from the north side only so this was quite a bonus and there is a shot of it in the post here.

Also, we had a DHL DC-8 show up. Not only did it land in front of us but it turned around pretty quickly and soon taxied past us and lined up to depart. Not a bad piece of luck. The light was a little erratic – it was bad weather that caused all of this – but it was still an interesting opportunity.