Erickson’s facility at Medford was the home for this Skycrane while I was there. A team were working on it and, I imagine, they were getting it ready for the coming fire season. At this point, though, it was still in need of a few parts. It looked a bit lacking but I suspect the process of adding the remaining elements to get it back into an airworthy condition was not going to take that long. Hopefully by now she is back in the air and working hard.
Boeing breathed a big, if perhaps temporary, sigh of relief when UPS signed up for a bunch of 747-8F freighters. These jets are now starting to come off the line and, before they get allocated to the long runs across the oceans, I figured I would try and catch one at Everett. Conditions were a little gloomier than I had hoped for but the timing was driven by luck, so I had to make do with what I could get. The 747 may be disappearing from operators around the world but the freighters will continue for a long time and the 8F is the better of the most recent versions in my mind. The extended upper deck of the 8I is a little too long for my tastes. UPS colors are not bad either. Hopefully I shall see more of them in service.
A trip to Green Lake, a short distance from Whistler, was a chance to see the floatplane base. We had heard a few aircraft in the area so I was keen to see what was going on. We started out at the base where a Beaver and an Otter were both just getting ready to leave. I didn’t realize the direction of the wind so I didn’t make any effort to get out to the lake. I thought that they would be long gone. In fact, they taxied down the lake to take off back in our direction. I would have had plenty of time to get out to see the departure if I had left when they headed out.
Instead, I was walking through the trees when both planes took off. I got a couple of shots through the trees but missed the main opportunity. I understand that Whistler Air is a subsidiary of Harbour Air in Vancouver. They are clearly locally branded though. There was a bit more movement before we left with planes making their approach along the lake. They tended to land a little away from us but then keep up on the step as close in as possible to minimize taxi time. This meant they were still moving well as they got to us.
Within the space of a few minutes, two Bombardier Global Expresses took off from Boeing Field. This type is a regular feature at BFI so this is not unusual. What did catch my eye was that they appeared to have the same color scheme. If they were NetJets aircraft, that would make sense. However, they didn’t look like a fleet operator I know (not that I know them all). Is this just a standard scheme that Bombardier will finish the jet in if you don’t have a preference or were they connected? If so, was a group of people taking two jets at the same time to go to the same place? Who knows?
A 747-8 freighter came in to Portland while I was at the ANG base. I could see it on FlightRadar24 before it landed, and it was listed with a Cathay Pacific flight number. I was pleased to get a Cathay jet but, when it landed, it wasn’t in Cathay Colors. Instead, it was in Polar Air Cargo colors. I figured it was a subcontract operation by Polar. However, when it taxied closer, on the side of the fuselage was the notice that it was operated by Atlas. Atlas and Polar are related so I guess this shouldn’t be such a surprise. Finding who actually operates any jet can be a bit of an exercise these days.
Evergreen Aerospace Museum has a couple of 747s as part of the campus. They are retired freighters from the now-defunct company that provided a lot of the backing for the museum when it was established. One of the 747s is sitting out in front of the main museum building. The other one is slightly more dramatic. It is parked on top of a water park that is next to the museum. The waterslides come from within the fuselage. Getting the plane up there must have been quite something to watch. Now it is an eye-catching way to let everyone know where the water park is.
The floatplane activity of Kenmore Air is busy on Lake Union in Seattle. The end of the day means a lot of planes are moving from Lake Union back to the home base at Kenmore. It makes for a rush hour of planes coming back in good light. I wandered out to the pier at Log Boom Park which gives a great view of the incoming planes. Then I just waited. You know they are all going to be back before sundown so it is pretty predictable.
The inbound traffic is a combination of Otters and Beavers. De Havilland Canada’s finest show up further down the lake as they come across from Lake Union and then they head up the lake. On this occasion, the wind was from the north so they made straight in approaches, landed and continued straight in to the base. On another day I was there without a camera and the wind was a southerly. They then overflew the base and made a tight turn coming back onto the lake with the evening light on the nose. I will have to try and get that before too long!
Before the time changed, it was possible to get some evening departures from Everett in nice light after work. I saw that a delivery flight was scheduled for a Thai 787 and a Dreamlifter was due out shortly afterwards. I figured this was a good one to go for. The Thai delivery actually slipped a bit from its scheduled time and I was more than happy for it to do so as the light was getting better and better. By the time the jet started rolling, the light couldn’t have been nicer. It was also a heavy jet and rotated not far from me so I got a great angle on the takeoff and, as it climbed away, the purple in the livery seemed to glow.
The disappearance of passenger 747s from service continues. Today is the last day for the United 747 fleet. I do not have anything of their earlier versions of the jet but I have seen the 747-400s in service a lot and have flown on them a couple of times too. I won’t be doing so again. A flight from San Francisco to Honolulu will repeat the first service and was sold out a long time ago. The planes have been heading to the storage yards in recent weeks and after today, there is one more to make the trip. Now the 777s and 787s will be responsible for the long-haul services.
If you buy a car, you go to the dealer to pick it up. If you buy an airliner, there might not be a dealer but you will still go to pick it up. After the production test flights have been completed, the customer gets to carry out their own test flights. If all squawks have been dealt with, time to pay and take the “keys”. Then a crew from the airline will fly the plane to their home base. This 787 had been handed over to LOT and the crew were flying it back to Warsaw. Delivery flights are often obvious from the takeoff roll. Fueled up for a long trip, they use a bit more of the runway than the test flights do. In a short while, this jet will be busy plying the LOT route structure.
