Category Archives: civil

Skiing to Success!

As I wrote before, I was hoping to make a trip to the ski plane fly-in at Oshkosh this year. The weather had not looked good long in advance but then some snow fell and it looked promising. Oshkosh still had patches of the runway without snow so it wasn’t clear until the day before. Then a storm came through on the Friday. In Chicago we got quite a good fall. In Oshkosh, it was only 2-3″ but that was enough to cover the gaps. The next question was with the storm clearing out, was the weather good enough to fly?

The answer was yes. I was riding up with some of the people from Poplar Grove. I drove out to Union IL to meet up with some of the guys. As I left Chicago, the weather was not great with some snow still falling. I was not optimistic. However, as I reached Union, I came out into clear skies (and falling temperatures) and suddenly things looked a lot better.

I met Lee, Buck and Jim at Union as they were getting the aircraft ready to go. I was riding up with Drew who was coming across from Poplar Grove to pick me up. It was 8F as we got our stuff together. The Champ and the Cub were prepped and started up just as Drew arrived. They headed out as I loaded up and we followed on. Drew has a Piper Clipper so we had a speed advantage to catch up.

The first leg was to Palmyra in Wisconsin. Here the whole group had agreed to meet up for breakfast. The good folks at Palmyra had held off from plowing half the runway and one of the taxiways so we had no problem operating on skis. We all met up and trekked across to the restaurant who did a great job of feeding a raucous bunch! It was a very friendly group just confirming me previous good experience at Poplar Grove.

From Palmyra we all headed north to Oshkosh. We departed near the back again and caught up with some of the group. We managed to get some nice formations going en route and I could grab a few shots. Shooting through the windows was a little tricky but the results were not too bad. It was far too cold to consider sliding the windows open! At Palmyra we had reviewed the arrival procedures for Oshkosh. Since Pioneer field is not part of the main airport, we have to arrive low on a special route.

This sounds straightforward when reviewing the brief. However, the arrival height is about 500′ above ground level. At that height, it is not so easy to make out exactly where everything is. However, with two pairs of eyes checking it all out, we managed to pick out all of the appropriate waypoints and find the field. Even doing it right is quite interesting since you have to head straight at the cab of the main tower and then turn final. You feel like you are doing something wrong even though you aren’t. Drew made light work of it all.

Once on the field there was time to take a look at all of the other aircraft that had made it – and see the arrivals of those we had left behind. Chatting with the other crews was a lot of fun and also talking to some of the other visitors made it all the more interesting. There was a briefing about the departure as well. Since the wind was calm, departures were in the opposite direction. This made for great viewing from our location in the parking area with planes taxiing right past us and then turning to depart back past again!

We watched a fair few go. Our group was nearly last to head out and, again, we waited to be towards the back of the group. We got airborne and caught up with one of the Cubs which we found had a ski out of alignment. There are safety wires that limit the travel but a bungee holds the ski in optimal position. This had dislodged. They decided it was easiest to land and fix it so found an open field and dropped it in. They were back up in no time. A few more pictures of the group and then we left them to it.

They were planning making a few touch and goes at various spots but we were on our way home. Only in the last section of the trip did a low cloud base come in. This wasn’t a problem from our perspective other than that the lack of sun meant the cabin suddenly felt a bit colder! It obviously wasn’t a deterrent to some hot air balloonists we passed on the way back. They must have been chilly when the burner wasn’t going!

Drew dropped me back at Union and then headed home to Poplar Grove. It was a great trip and I had a whole lot of fun. I hope Drew’s passengers on his 767s have as much fun as I did. Thanks to everyone involved. It was great and I hope to spend a bunch more time with everyone in the future.

Will We Ski?

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We are creeping up on a day that may or may not prove to be a good day out. This one is weather dependent – something that is often true but in this case more so than normal. At the end of January, EAA schedule their annual ski plane fly in. Held at Pioneer Field it is combined with a chili cook and a celebration of the birthday or Audrey Poberezney, wife of the founder of EAA.

Aside from the weather being good enough to fly, two other things are required. First, there has to be enough snow on Pioneer Field for the planes to land. Second, there has to be snow at wherever they are taking off from! (Some planes do have skis with wheels that can go through them so are more flexible in operation but they are in the minority.) If the snow isn’t playing ball, the fly in has lost its main interest.

I originally planned to go a couple of years ago. Lack of snow canceled that trip for me. I decided to have another go last year. This time things were a lot better. Oshkosh is about two and a half hours north of us if the traffic is flowing. Since the fly in can start early, you either have to get going really early or stay locally. If you can find a nice hotel not so far away that your wife likes that has a spa, you can all be happy!

I had been in touch with Jim Koepnik (until very recently, EAA’s chief photographer) to keep an eye on the developments in the days ahead of the event and Jim ended up being an excellent guide (provider of transport and a warm car to hang out in between aircraft) throughout the day. (Good luck Jim with whatever comes next!) We ended up having great weather and when wrapped up suitably felt little of the cold. I got a bunch of shots and ended up writing a piece for Global Aviation Resource on the day.

This year the plans have been less effective. Originally I intended to repeat what we did last year. However, there had been no snow for ages and there didn’t appear to be any coming soon. We decided to scrub the hotel. I had been in touch with EAA Chapter 1414 about their group trip up and possibly putting cameras on their planes. They offered a ride up. Since I originally thought I would already be there, I had not intended to accept. However, since the hotel cancellation, this became a good possibility if the event went ahead.

Now we have had snow! A big storm came through Illinois and Wisconsin last week. I’m not sure whether the conditions will be good by the time of the event or whether the weather will allow flying anyway. However, we have a plan of sorts so now we just have to wait and see what comes next. Fingers crossed. In the mean time, here are the shots from last year.

Poplar Grove – A Friendly Place!

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There are occasions when you have an idea for something that you want to do, get a bit of a start on it and then it falls by the wayside for a long time. Such was the case with heading to Poplar Grove. I had read something about this airfield not far from Rockford IL and thought I should check it out. I made contact with the owner of the field and he said I was welcome to visit any time. After that, somehow I got distracted from this and didn’t follow up. Not only a failing on my part but also rather rude! Not the impression I would normally expect to give someone I hope – other than my friends and family who know my true nature of course!

Despite all of this, Poplar Grove came back into my mind recently. I am looking at the Oshkosh Ski plane fly in later this month and a group from Poplar Grove are regular attendees when the conditions allow. I made contact with them about possibly working together if the weather allows the fly in to go ahead. This reminded me of my previous failings to do anything after my previous contact.

This time, I decided to be a bit more cautious. Rather than contact some people and then fail to follow through, I decided to take advantage of the continuing pleasant weather and make a trip up. The Sunday weather forecast looked very promising and a weekend is more likely to have activity for light aircraft. I got on the road early and headed up to the field.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t appear on my GPS. However, a little check on Google Maps was enough to point me to where I needed to set the destination and I got there without any trouble. A couple of aircraft departed as I pulled into the lot which always inspires a bit of confidence. Initially I decided to just hang out in the lot and see what was going on. Standing around with a 500mm lens tends to start a few conversations and this was no exception.

One guy stopped by to ask if I had got any pictures of his son who was learning to fly and had been up while I was stood there. Another couple of people said Hi! as they passed by and another guy stopped for a longer chat. He pointed out that the field was a friendly place and, if I knew how to stay out of trouble on an airfield, it would be fine to take a walk to some other spots.

I followed his advice and headed off. The layout of the field is very cool. There is one hard runway and two grass strips. One of the grass strips and the hard runway were both in operation. There were many hangars (apparently about 450 aircraft are based on the field) and there are also some houses with taxiway access. I want to move!

Standing near one taxiway I got a good view of the aircraft movements. As people taxied by I would get friendly waves which I reciprocated. What a nice place. The chap I had talked to previously drove up and we ended up talking for a while. His name is Steve Langdon and he is involved with the EAA chapter that I had been talking to as mentioned earlier on! He told me about the many different and interesting aircraft that people operate or are working on at the field. This was reinforced by the arrival of one T-34 and the departure of another – one that obviously knew where I was!

By lunchtime, I really needed to be heading back to Chicago so started to walk back to the car. I passed an open hangar with a beautiful Beech 18 sitting in it. This belongs to the owners of the field and, having now been back in touch with them, I hope to get a chance to photograph this aircraft at some point. I suspect there are plenty of other aircraft on the field that I will want to shoot as well. This place is a treasure trove.

Thank you to everyone I met at poplar Grove. it is a lovely field with a great attitude. I hope to spend more time there soon!

Another Jetstar Moment

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A long time back (not that long if you think in geological terms), I wrote this piece about hunting down a Jetstar. I won’t bore you with the details in case you read about it the first time. If you didn’t and want to know, click on that link and you can find out more. Anyway, I still get updates when any Jetstars are flying in the US so I know if they are coming close. Normally, if they happen to be near me, the chances are that I am either already doing something or the weather is crappy (or both).

Recently, I got a morning email about a departure of the same jet as before from Midway. I was free and the weather looked good. Moreover, I still had time to get ready and get down to Midway before it was due off. I decided to give it a go. I needed to find a new location to shoot from so tried a couple of spots when I got there by checking out some of the other departures before settling on a location. Next time I might try a different lens but the result overall wasn’t too bad.

Other Waukegan Bits and Pieces

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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!

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!

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.

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.