Category Archives: aircraft

An Atlas 777F For MSC Air Cargo

A lot of attention has been focused on the end of 747 production at Boeing (and this blog will not avoid that topic) but, in the meantime, Boeing continues to produce 777 freighters which are selling well. One evening I was able to be up at Paine Field when a 777F that will be operated by Atlas but is under contract for MSC Air Cargo, a subsidiary of a large shipping organization, returned from a test flight. Getting a nice shot in good light is what you want when you have a new livery to shoot. Sure, it isn’t like some artistic masterpiece, but it looks pretty good.

GlobalX Takes UW Students to Texas

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The arrival of new airlines is of interest until they become a common sight. When they are still small, they will be picking up all sorts of jobs to get their utilization up and bring in some revenue. This includes odd charter jobs. The University of Washington football team had made it to a bowl game that was being held down in Texas. GlobalX was taking a bunch of the students down to the game. A load of coaches dropped them off on the ramp and they slowly boarded the jet. They certainly took there time about it but, eventually, everyone was on board.

As with all unscheduled flying, the wait for departure seems to take far too long. The doors had been closed for ages but the jet was still sitting there. I can imagine that a plane full of students was not happy waiting to get going (or maybe they couldn’t get everyone to sit down and strap in). Finally they taxied and departed for Texas. I don’t think the game went well for UW but the kids probably had a good time anyway.

Aussie Tanker on Show

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The KC-46 will end up being a big selling tanker because the USAF will buy loads and a few export customers will follow suit. However, where open competitions have been held, the Airbus A330 MRTT has been most successful. It is developing a wide customer base and one of those customer is the Royal Australian Air Force. They have brought their tankers, known as KC30, to the US on exercises but I had not seen one in person until I got to the Antelope Valley Air Show at Edwards AFB. The tanker was sitting on the ramp in the static area. It was looking particularly clean for a military jet and was configured with both the boom and the underwing pods for probe and rogue refueling. Fitting in a big jet in a busy ramp is tricky so a pano can help out making a shot possible. Now I just need to see one actually airborne!

Don’t See A Lot Of Eclipses These Days

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Time flies fast and it seems like it wasn’t long ago that Eclipse was talking about building light jets at a rate more like that for a car company. Their ambition faltered and bankruptcy followed. A small company was established to support the existing fleet, provide updates and potentially restart production. I actually visited them north of Chicago which tells me just how long ago that was. They did build a few new jets but also went bankrupt. However, the Eclipse fleet lives on. A lot of jets were built before it all went south. I don’t know how tough it is to support them these days so I am always pleased to see one out and about.

Mojave Gate Guards

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At the main entrance to the airport at Mojave is an area with some preserved aircraft from test programs. While Mojave is not particularly welcoming to visiting photographers on most of their land, this location seems to be just fine. The dominant aircraft is an ex-NASA Convair CV990. It was used for Space Shuttle landing gear trials amongst many other things. It is joined by an ex-USAF F-4 Phantom and a SAAB 35 Draken that had a second life at Mojave after retirement from the Royal Danish Air Force.

Bizjets Approaching Mt Rainier(ish)

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Sometimes you can get too fixated on image quality and forget the overall image. I was hanging around at Ruby Chow park one weekend when some jets were approaching Boeing Field. I got some shots as they came overhead but then switched to getting shots of them as they got close to touchdown. The view down the runway is looking straight at Mt Rainier. The jets in front of the mountain look great. Very quickly, the heat haze can make the clarity not as sharp as I would normally expect of myself but, actually, the shot is fine at full scale. Just enjoy the image and don’t fret about the details.

The Virgin A350 Comes to Me

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When we were in the UK, I had hoped to see the Virgin Atlantic A350-1000s in use. I did see them in the distance but never got anything of them moving. I was a touch disappointed because the Seattle route is served by the 787 fleet and we don’t get anything as large as the A350 coming here – normally! However, Virgin is apparently involved in supporting the NFL games in Europe and the Seattle Seahawks had a game scheduled in Munich. Virgin sent an A350 to Seattle to collect them. It operated the normal inbound flight and then took the team direct to Munich.

It arrived in good conditions and from the south which allowed me to get some reasonable shots of it. Lighting was a little overhead but it wasn’t too bad and could definitely have been worse. I wasn’t able to see them depart but, once the game was over, the return trip was made. I didn’t get the arrival but I was able to see the final departure of the jet as it headed back to London. Maybe Virgin’s traffic will grow enough to justify the A350 on the route more often? I would certainly like more opportunities to see the jet.

In From Manila And On To Teterboro

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A sunny Sunday morning trip out for a bizjet got a bonus. I was a touch late for the arrival unfortunately but this G650ER had come in from Manila on its was to Teterboro. It would have been nice to catch it landing but, after it cleared customs, they taxied out for departure to the east coast. I’m sure it was nice to stretch the legs after a trans-Pacific trip although I doubt a G650 is that uncomfortable!

Edwards Plane On A Pole

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Heading into the show at Edwards took you past a lot of planes that had been preserved outside the base buildings. The parking areas around these buildings had been coned off given that there were thousands of vehicles making their way along the roads so stopping to grab shots looked like it might be frowned upon. However, we weren’t always moving so it was possible to grab shots out of the window. I would like to have got more and have seen the shots of others that I missed but I did get a P-59 Airacomet on one of the poles which is a relatively rare beast.

One Of The Oldest Tornados

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The Tornado was entering service in big numbers with the RAF at the same time that I was getting seriously into aviation. I always felt it was the plane I knew the best. When I ended up working on them, it felt like a continuation of my youthful enthusiasm. The Tornado GR1 was my jet. After I moved on to other projects, MLU came along and that became the GR4. Somehow, the GR4 never felt like it was mine. I was a GR1 kid.

When I went to the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection at Old Sarum, there was a Tornado at one end of the hangar. It was a GR1 that had never been updated. Better than that, is was one of the earliest production jets that the RAF received. Some of the test jets at Warton were from this batch so this one really felt like one of the originals for me. The Tornado is long gone from RAF service but, for me, to see one of these earlier jets was really a treat. Camo with black radomes is how the Tornado should look!