Category Archives: Bay Area

Leap Frogs

The Leap Frogs are a parachute display team from the Seals. I have seen them a few times at shows in the Midwest – sometimes working with the Golden Knights of the US Army. During Fleet Week the Leap Frogs jumped to open the main part of the air show. On the day I went, they jumped from Fat Albert, the C-130 of the Blue Angels. Apparently, they also used an Air National Guard C-130 over the weekend.

Their jump routine is pretty cool. They do a lot of coordinated work once under canopies. They make a cool four canopy stack which takes a while to form up but, when formed, looks neat. I just wish they would hold it until they were a bit lower. They also do a nice pairs arrangement where two jumpers hook legs and end up plummeting downwards breaking just in time to land. Always a good way to get the crowd on edge!

My shots of parachute teams have tended to get a bit samey over time but I still like getting some shots of them as you never know whether you will get a slightly different angle on something or that the lighting will show something special.

Humid Approaches to SFO

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Moisture in the air is not always what you want when you are out shooting aircraft. However, it does have its benefits if there isn’t so much of it that everything is either obscured or gray. The weather conditions over San Francisco Bay can be very localized and, as the planes come down final approach, they can go through quite a variety. I was out hunting for Air Force One a while back and I got some good examples of this.

The weather at SFO was actually quite nice (although not when Air Force one departed as I have previously written about). The sun was out and the sky was pretty clear. In fact, there was quite a troubling amount of heat haze. However, once you got towards the south end of the bay, there was pretty solid cloud cover. The planes coming in were in full IMC for a good portion of their approach. Somewhere in the region between Coyote Point and the San Mateo Bridge they would break out of the cloud cover. Then, for the next mile or so, they were in the clear but still in very humid conditions.

The result of this humidity was a lot of vapor forming up over the wings. The low speed and high lift configuration made the wings a good place to get cloud formations as the moist air passed over them. Additionally, the trailing vortices were showing up well as a result of the condensing moisture in them too. For quite a while, each aircraft showed similar patterns as it descended. The widebodies seemed to be better for showing this but that might just be a function of them being easier to see further away when the effect was most pronounced. The closer they got to the field, the less the effect until it was pretty much gone when they were on final approach.

Commuter Train Without Commuters

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The Altamont Commuter Express or ACE is a train that runs from Stockton to San Jose each day. It brings commuters from inland to the Bay Area and Silicon Valley stopping off en route to pick up and drop off passengers. It only runs on weekdays so I never normally see them operating although I have visited their team for work in the past. However, they do run special services when the 49ers are playing at home.

I decided to head out one Sunday when the train was due. I occasionally need shots of trains for work proposals and presentation usage so thought I should get some stock shots. There is a crossing south of Pleasanton that I went to. You get a good view of the train as it approaches. I set up with one camera and had a second with a wider lens closer to the crossing with a remote. Sadly, despite my testing, I had pulled the plug on the remote slightly out by mistake and it didn’t fire. However, I did get the main shots I was after.

NAS Alameda

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NAS Alameda was once a busy naval air station. Of course, as is the way with these things, they get closed down long before I end up living in an area. How cool it would have been to be near a station when it was operating such a variety of types as were there at its peak. Now it is more famous for being the location that Mythbusters have used for a number of their driving related exploits. Big runways with little use provide a great playground.

The climb out of Oakland International takes you directly towards Alameda and you get a far better view of the runways than is otherwise possible. The hangars are now getting used for other tasks and the area is not deserted but it is nice to image ramps full of jets and maritime patrol aircraft. Oh well.

Hainan 787

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The San Jose trip also gave me a chance to catch another jet that had been of interest. Hainan Airlines is a Chinese operator. I have seen their jets around at various times but have never had a chance to shoot them close up. I really like the brightness of their livery and had wanted to see one. Unfortunately, my late arrival at San Jose meant their jet had just touched down when I got there. However, it did depart at a convenient time so I managed to get one at last.

Bell 430

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If you watched Airwolf many years ago, you would be familiar with the Bell 222 helicopter. It is a sleek looking machine and one that gave the impression of being powerful. Consequently, I have always been pleased to see one. Bell have taken the airframe and made some updates. The result is the Bell 430 and I saw one recently at San Jose. The addition of a four blade rotor to replace the two blade system is a good change. While it doesn’t have the thwack sound of the old rotor, it provides a cool sound of its own.

The replacement of the retractable gear with the skids, though, it’s not a cool update. The retractable gear helped make the airframe look so purposeful and the skids really hurt the lines. For me, it is a combination of a hit and a miss with these changes. No doubt there are many more subtle improvements that have been made but, overall, I still think the 222 is cooler.

Waterspouts

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San Francisco Bay is a large body of water and you can get some interesting weather effects that will develop. I was down by the bay when the wind was whipping around. It was causing some little columns of spray to form out in the open water. Rather than a real waterspout, they were more like a dust devil – just water instead of dust! They would form up and then disappear. However, it would not be long before a replacement would form. These are funny looking effects and it would have been nice to be a bit closer to see them in more detail.

San Jose for R2-D2 Boeing 787

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The arrival of a new Star Wars movie is not really a secret. There are more promotional efforts associated with the film by businesses of all types than I can remember for any other release. All Nippon got in on the game quite early and announced that a number of their jets would be carrying Star Wars markings. The first to break cover was a 787-9 with markings to represent R2-D2. My friend Hayman and I made it to San Jose a while back to catch it arriving.

The story of finding it made it to a blog post for GAR which is here. Therefore, I won’t repeat the whole story of how I nearly missed the arrival. If you want to see that, click on the link and you can read the whole thing. After the arrival, we hung around and then headed to the departure end of the field to be ready for its return journey to Tokyo. It is a pretty cool scheme that they have implemented. I will now have to keep an eye out for the other two that they are doing.

Sunrise and Moonset

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We live to the east of some hills that border the San Francisco Bay area. On a number of occasions when I have been heading to the bay, I have seen the moon setting over the hills and thought that it would make a good shot. Of course, at those times I either don’t have the camera or I am not in a position to take a picture. I regularly use an app on my phone called The Photographer’s Ephemeris that gives information on sun and moon angles for any location. The shot I was after was to have the full moon setting behind the hills just after sunrise with the early light on the hill tops.

This happens once a month but having it occur when I am not constrained by work requirements is a different thing. It turned out, though, that the combination I was after was going to occur on the morning of Thanksgiving. Excellent. Of course, did I remember to set an alarm? Nope. I woke up and realized I had missed it. The following day the conditions were similar but an hour later. I decided to give it a go anyway. The result is not quite what I wanted but it is okay. However, the sun was way too high by the time the moon hit the tops of the hills. I will definitely try and do this again some time.

Virgin Dreamliner

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Not long ago I wrote here about the effort to get a Virgin Atlantic A340-600 before they were retired. At the time I noted that Virgin had added a second flight to SFO and it was using the 340 prior to the availability of the Boeing 787-9 later in the year. It turns out that things have changed a little. The 787 is now operating the service but, rather than replace the A340, it has replaced the 747-400 and the A340 is running the additional flight albeit only on weekdays.

The loss of the 747 is another example of how quickly they are disappearing from services as I have written about a few times now. However, it is nice to have the new type and still retain the increasingly rare A340. Unfortunately, getting out on a weekday to catch the 340 is not usually practical. I have managed to see the 787 at last though. Winter can be a great time to photograph aircraft with low, soft light. It can also combine with crappy weather in the form of high and gusting winds though. Such was the case this time. Hiding behind a tree to try and minimize the impact on the camera does help though. Interestingly, the colors of Virgin Atlantic’s latest scheme do not seem to like digital capture. The red seems a lot more subdued in my images than I recall it being!