Category Archives: civil

Concrete Fly In

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The time between me doing something and its appearance on the blog can vary wildly.  Sometimes, I will aim to get something squeezed in here soon after it happens but that is the exception.  Usually, I have stuff posted out quite far in advance.  As I come up with new topics, they get added to the schedule and, if a topic doesn’t get written about promptly, it can really disappear into the distance.  Such is the case with the Concrete fly in of 2023.

There will be several posts that make it on here from that event in the coming weeks.  I have started writing them up but some of the specific topics will take a while to appear.  However, I shall start things off with a more general post about the fly in.  Held at Mears Field in the interestingly names town of Concrete, it is a popular gathering of planes from around the region.  There is a single runway running east/west in the valley and the planes park up on either side of it.  You are able to walk across the runway at a couple of locations (or further away from them if you want to avoid the air cadets) so just keep you head on a swivel.  The wind seems to change midway through the day, so arrivals were from the west in the morning and the east in the afternoon.

We set up at a spot near the threshold on the eastern end of the field and it provides a good location to watch the landings and the takeoff rolls.  Sometimes, it is easy to forget that you can walk around, and you find you have stayed in one place for ages getting similar shots.  I did try and mix it up from time to time but it was rather sunny and warm and the shade under the wing of a 170 was pretty appealing.

Since I was shooting a lot of light aircraft, I decided to try and make the shots more interesting by keeping the shutter speed low to emphasize speed.  The downside the this is that you are very close to the runway so the parallax effect is quite pronounced.  You can also just miss a ton of shots but why not have some fun.  Few of them are ones you can’t afford to miss.  It does mean a sharp nose is probably combined with a blurry fin.  This will really annoy some viewers and others will never notice.  Since I am shooting for me, I’m the only one that has to care!

More to come of some specific planes and events from the day out with a regular crew of aviation loons.

The Honeywell Demonstrator Comes Back to Seattle

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Honeywell’s Boeing 757 demonstrator has been on the blog before.  I caught it at Paine Field during some awful weather.  More recently, it was back in Seattle and I managed to get it again.  This time the weather was a little better.  It was actually getting a bit of a tour of the region in with passes at Paine Field, SEA and Boeing Field.  I thought I was going to be in the wrong place for it but I was fortunate enough to catch it twice in one flight.

I was at SEA as it came in on the outer runway.  A little bit close in on the underside but I figured it would show off the unusual pylon for engine testing that is mounted on the upper side of the front fuselage.  It wasn’t landing there, though.  It then continued on and headed for Boeing Field.  They changed the flow direction around the same time so I was actually able to make it back to Boeing Field before it landed there.  It did then park up at Modern for the day.

Almost Directly Under the Approach

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Photographing airliners can be a little “samey” since there are lots of very similar jets and getting a shot of them from the side looks much like any other shot unless the aircraft is specially painted or the lighting is particularly unusual.  Consequently, every once in a while, it is fun to try and shoot from a different angle.  The approach to SEA when the planes are on a southerly flow brings them in over a part of Burien where you can get yourself pretty much under the flightpath.

It won’t take too long before you are again getting a sequence of repetitive images, so it isn’t going to be useful for much time, but it is a chance to do something a little different.  Head on shots from a distance are possible.  Then you can get the shot looking up from the underside.  This might be a tight shot of a part of the airframe, or a wide angle shot of the whole thing.  An opportunity to do something a little different when you are photographing aircraft that are not ones where you care about missing the shot as you might when something special is coming in.

Air Canada Instead of Jetz

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It’s not unusual to see Canadian A320s in Boeing Field.  They provide a lot of sports charters but, until recently, these were usually undertaken by Jetz aircraft.  More recently, it seems that they have transitioned to jets in the Air Canada core colors.  Since Air Canada has been taking delivery of lots of 737 Max aircraft recently, maybe they are cascading some of the older mainline jets to the charter operations.  I don’t really know.  I only know I have shot a few of their aircraft at Boeing Field recently.

Sun on the MU-2

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Regular readers of the blog will know that there are certain types that I seem destined to struggle to shoot in decent light.  It might be the nicest of days, but the sun will go behind a cloud just before the intended subject appears.  I thought the Mitsubishi MU-2 was one of those types but, a few months back, I finally got lucky.  One came into Boeing Field on a day with good sun.  Not the perfect conditions but it was still a relief to finally get some shots when it wasn’t overcast!

SEA Saturday Afternoon Departures

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Earlier in the year, I was down at SEA for a reason that now escapes me.  However, I had some time to kill, and the traffic was on a northerly flow which means it is easier to get reasonable afternoon light on the departing jets.  Consequently, I hung out for a while to photograph some of the jets heading out.  The majority of traffic is going to be the regular Alaska and Delta narrowbody traffic and that gets pretty repetitive.  However, mid to late afternoon is when a lot of the departures for Europe and the Middle East take place.  This means widebodies.  Here are a bunch of shots of departing aircraft as they climb out and head on their way.

Gliding at Arlington

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Arlington Municipal Airport has a steady stream of light aircraft activity, but it is also home to a gliding community.  At weekends, it is not unusual to see some Piper Pawnees tugging gliders into the air.  Depending on the suitability of the conditions, these might be some pretty short flights, or they might be up for quite a while.  I have been up there at various times when the gliders are operating off the grass next to the main runway.  Usually, I am there for something else, so the gliding photos are taken when the opportunity arises.  Here are some shots of the Pawnee tug planes and the gliders themselves.

Playing With the Bizjets to Experiment

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I have been messing around with low shutter speeds for traffic at Boeing Field a lot this year.  Some of those shots have made their way into posts on here.  One sunny afternoon, I was at the field and there was a lot of business jet traffic but nothing terribly special.  This provides a good opportunity to try different things.  I had the polarizer and a neutral density filter.  The polarizer is good on sunny days for taking down the glare and it also cuts the light.  However, the neutral density can really pull the shutter speed down.

Since I didn’t care if the shots were a failure, I was willing to just keep bringing the shutter speed down and down.  I compensated by cranking up the frame rate in order to increase the probability of getting a sharp one.  This is an interesting challenge.  Normally I spend a bit of time culling out shots that just aren’t sharp but, when playing with silly shutter speeds, you need to re-calibrate just how sharp things should be.  What is a little off when zoomed in might be of no concern when looking at the full image.  That is not an excuse to let plainly bad shots through though.

Here are some of the results that weren’t too bad.  Even an average Challenger can look a little more interesting with a very blurry background!

Everts MD-83 Freighter While I Am Waiting

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My buddy Chris was visiting Seattle but was stuck in the arrivals line at the airport.  I was waiting to pick him up but, since it was taking longer than expected, I was checking out some other movements.  An Everts MD-83 was scheduled out of Boeing Field.  The weather was not great, and I didn’t know when Chris would finally get through immigration, but I figured I would give it a go.  Sadly for Chris, the MD-83 got moving faster than him.  It was on its way long before he finally got out.  I had plenty of time to get back to SEA to pick him up.

Frontier’s A321neo Special

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Frontier Airlines has been adding a bunch of A321neos to its fleet.  They are not a regular feature at SEA but they do come in periodically.  The airline has at least one that is painted in a special green livery incorporating Pratt and Whitney imagery including a bald eagle.  This is to signify the environmental benefits of the latest generation of jets.  I actually saw one when I was elsewhere in the country.  It was parked on a pier I could see but I didn’t have my camera available to get a shot in the nice evening light there was at the time.

Fortunately, it showed up as coming to Seattle one weekend.  I figured I would get another chance at it.  However, the weather wasn’t looking great.  There was a hint that things might improve so I made my way there to see if I would get lucky.  Sadly, the forecast was a little optimistic and it was still rather gloomy when the jet made an appearance.  I made the best of it that I could but it was not great.  Amazingly, I have had a long time since taking this shot and have yet to have another chance to shoot this jet.  I think it may have visited but there was no way for me to be there.  Hopefully I’ll catch it in good light one day!