Category Archives: civil

Add an Ilyushin to the Recent Visitors

There have been a bunch of AN124s popping in to Moffett Field recently, one of which I saw while at the Solar Impulse arrival event. When I went back for the departure (which I covered for Global Aviation Resource in this article), I was surprised to see another freighter from the old Eastern Bloc. At his one was a more recent version though. It was an Ilyushin IL-76 but one that is fitted with the PS90 engine. It had been brought in to transport the ground crew and their gear for Solar Impulse. They were heading to Phoenix next and, since it was a short flight, everything needed to move quickly.

I didn’t get a great chance to photograph the plane. It was a long way up the ramp and there were too many lights between us to make for a great shot. However, I got what I could. My friend Hayman works nearby and he was able to get the departure later in the morning. I’m not jealous…

Helos This Way Please

Leave a Reply

I love helicopters and getting to see two in close quarters at Salinas recently was the sort of thing to make me smile. An Astar had come up to drop someone off and was heading back out again. Meanwhile, a local Robinson R-44 had been moved out on to the ramp next to it for its pilot to have a local flight. They ended up starting up and departing at almost the same time. What I hadn’t realized was that the departure path for both of them was going to take them right past me.

I had figured that they would start up and then hover taxi to the runway before departing in the runway heading. Instead, the approved profile made use of the taxiway next to where I was. The result was that they both pulled to the hover and then turned in my direction before accelerating right by. That was a lot better than I was expecting. The need to gain speed before climbing to minimize time in the “avoid curve” means that you get a nice low view of a helicopter when it takes off. This is far better than the fixed wing alternative in my view.

WestJet and the House of Mouse

Leave a Reply

Promotional paint schemes are not uncommon – particularly with certain airlines. Alaska has a bunch of them. This one was a new one for me. WestJet, a Canadian airline, seems to have a marketing tie up with Disney too. They have painted a 737 up in an all-over shame that certainly gets your attention, if only to wonder what on earth it is. I was pleasantly surprised to catch it having had no idea it was on its way.

What, No Winglets?

Leave a Reply

There is not a huge amount of variation in airliners these days so coming across something a little different is usually a moment of interest. While the name Alaska Airlines might suggest an airline focused on Alaska, it is actually headquartered in Seattle and seems to have a wide range of operations all across the west coast. Consequently, we see a lot of them in both Oakland and SFO. They have a large fleet of 737-800s and 737-900ERs and both types have been retrofitted with the APB Scimitar winglets. Apparently, not all of them though. This example I saw coming by Coyote Point and it not only doesn’t have Scimitars, it doesn’t have winglets at all. A rare beast these days.

Optica Flashback

Leave a Reply

A few outlets have recently been covering the reemergence of the Edgley Optica. In the 80s, his was an aircraft that was coming in to production. Designed as an observation platform, it is a rather interesting looking airframe. A bulbous fuselage sits ahead of the wing and the powerplant is mounted in the rear driving a ducted fan. The unrestricted view is supposed to make the aircraft ideal for seeing what is going on below. Supposedly, the ducted fan makes for a low noise signature which helps the “stealthiness” of the aircraft.

The ownership of the design moved through a few entities and the program experienced some setbacks including a crash and a fire that destroyed a number of in production aircraft. Ultimately, the whole thing sputtered to a stop. A few airframes are still in use around the world but John Edgley, the original designer, has bought back the rights and is now trying to relaunch the project. I saw the aircraft at Farnborough back at the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s. These shots were taken then. I really would quite like to track down some of the currently active airframes.

Night Loading the Ruslan

Leave a Reply

Waiting on the ramp at Moffett Field for Solar Impulse, over on the other side of the field we could see another visitor. An Antonov AN124 Ruslan was parked up with its nosed raised in the process of loading a payload. It looked a bit like a satellite container and, given the proximity of two satellite manufacturers, that wouldn’t be improbable. It was a long way off but I had some time to try and get a shot and this was what I got.

Pacific Aerospace P-750

Leave a Reply

An oft quoted idiom in aviation is that if it looks right it flies right. I’m not sure whether that was deep in the minds of Pacific Aerospace Ltd when they designed the P-750 or not but this is an aircraft that is functional and useful but I doubt too many people will consider it pretty. It is a workhorse. Some sections of fuselage which minimize the use of double curvatures to make production simpler and cheaper. Add to that the reliable PT-6 seemingly bolted on the nose and a wing with a thick section and some simple dihedral at the tips and you have a plane. If you want to take a decent load of skydivers up to altitude quickly and get back down just as quickly for the next load, this is your sort of plane.

This example showed up at Salinas while I was there. It parked on the ramp for a while before heading back off. It has a rear door suited to skydiving and the name on the bottom suggests that is what it does. I first saw one of these at East Troy in Wisconsin where it was also carrying skydivers. The diving approaches both examples used show just how quickly this plan can get back on the ground. The first time you see it, you may think something is wrong but it is just the most efficient way to get to the next paying customers.

Solar Impulse and Shooting at Midnight

Leave a Reply

The round the world trip of Solar Impulse, the solar powered aircraft conceived of by Bertrand Piccard and built/flown by him and Andre Borschberg, resumed its journey after an enforced stay in Hawaii while they dealt with some overheating issues with the batteries. By the time the batteries were fixed, it was too late in the year to continue. The aircraft charges its batteries during the day and uses them at night. If the day is shorter and the night longer, the flight is not sustainable. The arrival of spring meant they could resume the trip.

Originally the leg from Hawaii to the continental US was supposed to go to Phoenix. The break meant they came up with a revised route which included a stop in the Bay Area at Moffett Field in Mountain View. This meant I could cover it for Global Aviation Resource. There are two articles I prepared which you can see here and here.

The arrival was scheduled for about midnight. Late landings and early departures are scheduled to provide the calmest conditions. The very high aspect ratio, lightweight airframe is sensitive to turbulence. It also is easier to schedule a very slow aircraft in to the air traffic patterns during the night. While the time moved around a bit, it ended up being pretty much as expected. This brought the issue of how to shoot an aircraft at midnight.

I took a second shooter with me in the person of Hayman Tam. I wanted stills and video for the story and can’t get both at once so we worked on it together. He would focus on stills and I would get video. I would also get some stills too. The plane is sufficiently slow that you can get both for most situations apart from the landing itself. It didn’t hurt that Hayman had just taken delivery of his D500 which should be a lot better in low light.

I was mounting my camera and the 100-400 on a gimbal mount to steady it for video. This was also helpful for getting stills. Not ideal but better than nothing. I was at the max ISO for my camera of 12,800 (excluding the extended ranges) with -1 to -2 in exposure compensation. Even so, it was still a very slow shutter speed. Some bursts of shooting were necessary to get a reasonable shot. Fortunately the aircraft has a lot of lights of its own otherwise there wouldn’t be much to see. It’s a shame my new bodies hadn’t arrived at the time as they might have been able to get better results. Even so, I was quite pleased with what I got considering that I was shooting in the darkest conditions I have ever tried for a plane.

Texas One Retires (for now)

Leave a Reply

I saw online this weekend that Southwest Airlines had retired Texas One, a jet painted up in Texas colors. Texas One is a 737-300 and Southwest is accelerating the withdrawal of the 300 Series jets. It flew out of Dallas to a facility that will break the jet for parts. By coincidence, I happened to shoot this very jet the day before when it arrived at SFO. I had no idea that it would be at the end of its career. Nice surprise. For those that like the colors, fear not. I hear that Southwest will be painting another jet in this scheme before too long.

Michael Jordan’s Gulfstream

Leave a Reply

Waukegan Airport is the home for a number of corporate aircraft. One of the regular visitors is a Gulfstream belonging to a man who has a home in the area and who is associated with Chicago area sports in a big way. However, the aircraft is wearing colors that are more associated with his college playing days in North Carolina. The result is possibly not the most attractive paint job you have ever seen. It does include the logo of the man in question in his trademark (literally) pose of Air Jordan. I once spent a portion of a day driving around the airfield with the Airport Manager. As we went through one of the electronic gates, he spotted the remnants of a cigar on the ground outside the gate. Apparently, this is one of Michael’s cigars. He is not allowed to smoke them when on the ramp so he drops them just before entering the area.