Category Archives: civil

Some Board of Trade Video

Over a year ago I shot a job that Midwest were undertaking on the Board of Trade building here in Chicago. The job was spread over three weekends and I was there for the first two. The job involved lifting a lot of steelwork and piping into location at the back of the building where the steelwork was then assembled using the helicopter to move the individual pieces into position.

All of this was a touch trickier since the assembly location was close to the building which is pretty high. Therefore, 300′ of lifting line had to be used which made the job of maneuvering the helicopter to position the loads just that bit harder! The final week involved the cooling towers being put in place but I could not be there for that.

I shot a bunch of stills but also got a fair amount of video which, at the time I did nothing with. While doing some work on my database recently, I realized just how much footage I had and decided to have a shot at editing it down to something a bit more digestible. Here is the result.

Trying the New Spot in Better Light

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I recently posted about a trip to O’Hare in some crummy weather when I didn’t end up with many good results. One of the better aspects of that visit was that I found a nice location directly under the approach to 14R. This provides some good head on shot opportunities. Head on shots are kind of fun I find. They are a different perspective to normal and mix things up a bit. You can’t do it all of the time or it is dull but it does make for some more dynamic shots that the standard side on pass.

I waited to see when the right combination of wind and weather would occur so that I could get the morning light just off the nose when this runway was in use again. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait particularly long. Things lined up quite nicely so I popped out to have a look. My desire to stay in bed meant that I was about five minutes too late to catch the ANA arrival from Japan but others were on the way so it was a nuisance but not a huge loss. However, en route I did take a look at the south side of the field for other possible shooting locations.

I had shot a few years back at a spot that provided a great view of aircraft departing off 22L, many of which turn quite early after departure giving some topside views. This spot ended up having a warehouse facility built on it which was a nuisance. however, further development in the area has provided some spots to park so I checked out one of these and it seems a reasonable option. Then I headed to the approach.

In good light it seems to work really well. I experimented with wide angle shots as they pass overhead as well as long lens shots that crop tightly in on the aircraft as it gets closer. Both seem to have some merit. I didn’t stay too long as there was a gap in the larger arrivals so I headed back to my other new spot to try a few departure shots. Then it was back to the approach for the last of the big jets and then home. Not a bad morning really and with the day only just started, plenty of time to do other things.

Trying and Failing with Bad Weather

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Every once in a while you have what you think will be a good idea and it turns out you were wrong. This is the story of one such event. A weekend morning was looming and I felt like getting out and shooting. The flights from Asia are morning arrivals at O’Hare and so are not often something I shoot. A few of them appear and that is it. Back to the RJs and 737s so I often don’t bother. Also, the normal arrival pattern is not great for morning light.

This time they were coming in from the west so heading in to the light. However, the weather forecast was a bit crummy. The traditional thought is not to go since dull skies and mainly white planes are not a great combination. However, two things made me think otherwise. One was the possibility of the sun breaking through and illuminating the aircraft against a dark sky background. That can look good. The other was the possibility of a lot of vapor in the air making for some neat vortex effects and vapor clouds over the wings.

Consequently, I decided to give it a go. I headed out having scoped out a potential location to shoot from that would give me a view of the arriving aircraft. I have not shot over that side much before so a good location is not something I had. There is a lot of industrial space over there so buildings can obscure the view and the ever present power lines are another consideration. As it turned out, the spot I chose turned out to be quite reasonable.

That is where the rest of the plan starts to go wrong. The sun did make a brief appearance. The opening shot is probably the only one that really achieved what I was hoping for. After that, the cloud cover thickened up and then the skies were pretty unhelpful. My second hope for the moisture to give some good effects proved to be a little too optimistic. There certainly were plenty of trailing vortices and occasional puffs of cloud above the wings but the gray background did not help make them stand out.

I decided that I was probably done for the day and started to drive south on my way home. I then happened upon a few cars parked up at a spot directly under the approach to 14R. I thought this might be worth a look and it certainly made for some good angles. I grabbed a few shots before heading home but this was a spot I decided was worth a further visit. More to come on that…

Remember Northwest?

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I have been going back through a lot of the archive recently with the goal of culling a lot of the crap images that have no hope of ever seeing the light of day again and are, therefore, just filling up drive space. As I do this, it reminds me of a few things I haven’t seen for a while and some I won’t see again. Northwest Airlines is one of these!

From time to time I have done a lot of shooting of airliners. I won’t profess to them being my favorite thing to shoot – fast jets and helicopters are probably my favorites – but when it comes down to it, I love all things that fly and airliners do just that. Besides, they are sometimes easier to come by! One of the features of shooting airliners is that most of what you see does not cause you any surprise. There may be something that is rare or unusual wherever you are and that can be quite exciting but usually what you see is pretty much what you would expect to see.

It is only at a later stage, when whatever you saw is no longer around, that you can get interested in something that was previously pretty unexpected. Such is the case with Northwest. Before the merger with Delta, Northwest had a large fleet that covered the country. I didn’t fly with them much but I would frequently see their aircraft. I would take pictures of them but probably not get too excited. I even spent one day at Detroit where they were most of what I saw.

Now, Northwest is no more and its fleet has been repainted in Delta’s colors. To find a picture of a Northwest jet as I go through the archives suddenly takes on a level of interest that it hadn’t at the the time it was taken. Maybe it will have the same effect for you so here are a few samples of something no longer to be seen.

Goodbye Another 747 Fleet

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A while back I wrote a post about the retirement by JAL of their Boeing 747 fleet. At one time they had been the largest operator of the type. Well, it has happened again. Another large operator of the 747 is retiring its final passenger example. Singapore Airlines is saying goodbye to the Queen of the Skies.

Unlike JAL that is in financial difficulties and is rationalizing its fleet, Singapore is doing very well. It is just moving on. It has a growing fleet of A380s and a substantial fleet of 777s so the 747 is no longer suitable for its needs. Sad to say but it is actually just a bit old these days. The freighter version is going to live on with Singapore so it won’t be impossible to see the type in Singapore colors but it will only be the Mega Ark aircraft from now on.

All of this makes me feel a bit old. I was studying aeronautics when the 747-400 was going through its certification program. My college days are a long time ago so the fact the 747-400 is now considered pretty old is hardly surprising. That doesn’t make me feel any better about it. The unique shape of the 747 is very appealing to me even now. With the never ending stream of 767s, 777s and A330s, a 747 showing up is always a welcome surprise. I guess it is going to become a rarer one in the coming years! Enjoy them while you can. At least the 747-8 will be around for a while but they don’t appear to be selling in quite the same number so we shall have to see how easy they will be to see.

Thornton Quarry Video

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The Thornton Quarry lift job with Midwest Helicopters was a full day job so it provided a bunch of opportunity to try different things. This was true for the stills but it also allowed me to experiment with the video as well. Since the aircraft was operating all day, I was able to get to multiple locations and see all aspects of the job as they happened. Normally, this isn’t possible since a lift will only last about 30 minutes. In that case, you have to pick the location that will get the shots you must have and accept that the alternative shots will not be made.

This time I was able to move around the whole site and capture as much as possible of what was going on. Some of the clips looked really interesting and the time but they actually proved to be no use. Some of the boring stuff as it appeared at the time actually ended up being really of use when it came to editing.

At this point, it is important for me to apologize to people like Gerry Holtz. Gerry is an editor and he does this sort of thing for a living. Anyone else who knows about editing professionally, you are all due my apologies and my respect. I am trying a bit with video editing but what I have learned is that it is bloody difficult to do.

On this shoot, most of the video was captured using my SLR. The rest of it was shot on a GoPro which is such a great little device to get something a little more unusual. It was handheld (or mounted in the case of the GoPro). No tripods or dollies and certainly nothing as impressive as a Kessler Crane!

I suspect that to be good at editing it is important to have had some education in the process. I am doing it the guy way – try something and then try something else and see what happens. Not even a manual to consult! Consequently, I make some progress but probably my approach starts from the wrong place. If I was going to do a lot more of this I would take the training aspect seriously. However, for the time-being, this is a little side hobby so I will probably stick with what I am doing.

Part of the fun(?) of the edit process is taking all of the disparate elements of the footage and trying to combine them into a coherent timeline. Part of the engineer in me thinks it should be delivered in the same order it happened. This is rubbish of course. The viewer has no concern of course. As long as the result doesn’t obviously have terrible jumps or continuity issues, no-one is going to be any the wiser.

Also, how much do they need to see. About eighty lifts were done during the day. Does the video need to have eighty lifts? NO! In the end, I concluded that two lifts were enough to tell the story. One wasn’t enough but it didn’t need more than two. I cut the length down as I went but even then it was still quite a long piece. A pro would probably have it down to a couple of minutes but then, as I mentioned, I am not a video pro.

One lesson I have learned as I have practiced this video stuff is how many of the tools the software has are no use at all. There are a million transitions between scenes, all of which make it look like you are experimenting with the software but they are a distraction from viewing. I have learned to use simple transitions that are short so they are not obvious to the viewer. They just stop the jump being the item the viewer focuses on.

Anyway, the final part of this story is that I was very happy with the result for this video. Unfortunately, it turns out the company that was doing part of the work is very sensitive about their equipment and doesn’t like the equipment being shown on the video so I have had to remove it from my YouTube channel. Consequently, I can’t include it in this post. Oh well…

Some O’Hare Arrivals

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A bit more time stuck indoors than I would ideally have liked had meant that I was beginning to climb the walls a bit. Some good weather had been about but I had been unable to get outside to enjoy it. However, I did get a Sunday when I was able to get out and the weather showed signs of clearing up. (It had been pretty murky early in the day but the forecast said it would get better and it wasn’t wrong!)

I decided to head to O’Hare to watch some European arrivals. A strong westerly wind meant the arrival direction would be reliable as far as sun angle was concerned and the low temperatures should hopefully avoid too much heat distortion. Apart from that, an afternoon out shooting the arrivals is better than plenty of other options even if it isn’t something new and unique.

As it was, there were a fair few interesting aircraft coming in along with the regular O’Hare types of traffic. I was able to keep close to the car which meant I could hop back out of the chilly wind between interesting targets and listen out on LiveATC’s app on my phone to know when something was coming my way. Flightaware also allows a bit of planning ahead.

It was a fun afternoon and some good results showed up. Some new bits to add to the catalog along with some of the familiar stuff and some that will soon no longer be familiar and need to be remembered before they are gone. Here is a small selection of the day.

Thornton Quarry Part 2

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I mentioned before what the lift at the quarry involved. However, I thought it was worth talking a little bit more about the work of the guys on the ground. There was a good team spirit needed for this job and the guys worked hard throughout the day to get everything done. With the many rolls of netting to put in place, there was plenty to do! These were long rolls. The later rolls were over 300′ long and they were hanging from 150′ of lifting line! Also, it could be breezy and keeping the net under control was interesting!

There was one group of guys at the top of the quarry who were responsible for hooking up the nets. They would put the roll into place and unroll it along the roadway. When the helicopter came in, it had a special fixture on the end of the line. This was a spreader bar with hooks for the net. The bar was attached at the bottom but a ring was placed into a hook to turn it up the other way. This meant that the hooks would be the right way up to hold the net. When the release was triggered on the hook, the spreader bar would flip over and the net would fall free. Then the whole thing could be repeated.

The other guys were on the top of the rock face ready to attach the net. A wire line was rigged across the top of the rocks. When the net came in, they guys had to grab the net, bring it into place and start wiring it to the line. Two guys would be in harnesses and they would head over the edge as the net was lowered to ensure that it was aligned correctly and were it needed to be. Joining each net down the rock face would follow another day.

The guys worked well together handling the nets into place and making sure they weren’t aligned incorrectly. If the wind twisted the net, they had some good techniques for getting them back around the right way. The was vital since the release would not work if it was facing the wrong way! Jim was flying during all of this with a very long load so he did a great job to stay focused.

Thornton Quarry Part 1

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The main job of the day was at a quarry. This was a more unusual job than the ones I have normally seen with Midwest. For a start, it was a long job. This was actually the second day of this job and a third would be required before it was finished. The task is to place wire netting on rock faces to stop and falling rocks from flying freely at anything below. The nets hold any debris against the rock face.

You will have seen things like this before. However, if you are like me, you hadn’t really given any thought to how they are put there. Today I am going to focus on the flying aspect of the job. The work of the guys on the ground was a separate issue and I am going to give them their own posting to follow this one.

The rolls of net are laid out on the ground and picked up by the helicopter. Then Jim had to fly this very long roll across to where it was supposed to be placed. The guys on the ground would attach it and then Jim would lower the net down so the bottom became the top and the top ended up at the bottom. There are over a hundred of these rolls and each one takes several minutes to place. Consequently, it was necessary to land several times during the day. One need was for fuel but another was for a break. This is a long time to be hovering a helicopter!

The weather was really nice for the majority of the day and I was able to get around the site and see the work from many different locations. I also got to have a break during the day which most people didn’t so it was easier for me. Even so, I was bushed at the end of it all. At least I got to fly back to base and not deal with the traffic!

McCook Lift

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As I hinted previously, my day with Midwest involved a couple of lifts. The first was a relatively straightforward job. In common with a lot of jobs it was cooling systems for the roof of a building that was being constructed. The equipment was laid out on the ground near the building and the guys were ready to roll when we landed.

The location is quite close to Midway airport. We talked to them as we came in and the traffic from the airport was close to where we were operating. A couple of times, a low flying Boeing 737 from Southwest could sneak into my shot. They were obviously well clear of us and there was no problem but it was quite fun to see something different in the background.

The job went off without too many issues and soon the aircraft was back on the ground and we could hop on to head to the next job.