The Caravan’s of Seair seemed to delight in making their departures closer to Stanley Park than the Harbour Air flights. This meant the long lens was way too much at their closest point but it did provide some nice angles for the aircraft as they took off and climbed out. The Caravan looks rather uncomfortable when on floats on the water but, once it is airborne, it looks pretty good to me. I was quite pleased with these passes.
The SJ30 is a jet that always has an “almost” feel about it. It has gone through a number of owners and the development has resulted in certification but very little production. There just aren’t many of them around. One of the more recent versions came to Everett. It arrived one weekend early in the day and before I was there. I didn’t get to see it fly but it was parked up in a convenient spot to get a photo. The stalky undercarriage is a distinctive feature of the jet. I wonder whether the current owners of the design will finally make it into a successful project?
We flew across Lake Union on our way back to Kenmore so went over the top of Kenmore Air’s base there. It turned out to be a busy time for the base. There were a bunch of planes on the water heading in and out of the base with others tied up awaiting their next flight. Having watched ops at the base on a number of occasions, the view from above provided a very different perspective to what I have seen before. At some point I hope to fly in there to experience it for myself.
I had a work day up in Vancouver. I finished up in the office at the end of the day just when rush hour traffic would be at its worst. The sun was out and the temperature was still nice so I figured I might delay my drive home for an hour or so and head to Stanley Park. It is a nice place to hang out, there is always plenty going on in the harbor and the floatplane departures might have factored in to my decision making.
There is a bit of an evening rush of departures but, with the days getting shorter and floatplane operations being a very visual thing, I figured they wouldn’t be going out too late if they were to be back before dark. I was actually pretty lucky as there was a wave of departures shortly after I got there and then, when I thought it had all wrapped up, another burst of flights headed out. Meanwhile, there were arrivals coming overhead for landing. It killed a bit of time and made for an easier drive home when I headed back south again.
With a friend visiting from the UK who was keen to experience some float plane flying, we booked ourselves on some flights with Kenmore Air. Having spent a fair bit of time over the last couple of years photographing their planes in service, it was nice to be actually experiencing their flying for a change. It proved to be a fun time and I will cover more bits of it in coming posts. Today I am focusing on their base. They were happy for us to wander around while we waited for our flight which was a lot of fun. Plenty of aircraft up on the land awaiting their next flights so here are some shots.
Here is a bit of video I shot of a Dreamlifter heading out of Paine Field. I was there with a visitor who wanted to see the large beast and, rather than shoot more stills, I figured I would go with just video. If I had planned for it, things would have been a little better but hopefully it shares a little of the experience.
I was picking up some family members that were coming to stay. I got to the airport a little ahead of their scheduled arrival time and, since it was some time near an airport, I figured a bit of photography wouldn’t go amiss. They were coming in on a Virgin 787-9 so I knew I would shoot that. The heavies come in on the inner runway, but the rest tend to go to the outer. You can still get them, but it isn’t so close. I figured a few shots on a cloudy day was worth time to experiment with exposing high and playing with the shots in post.
A couple of Kenmore Air planes departed from Kenmore while I was at Log Boom Park. The conditions were pretty damp and humid (and were about to be joined by pretty heavy downpours of rain!). This meant the departing planes had a good chance of pulling some streamers from the prop tips. Sure enough, when the Otter took off (and it started the takeoff run a little early which helped the shooting angles) the prop was streaming some vapor. The shape of the cone of the tip vortices as they flow across the fuselage was quite interesting.
A little while later (and just before the downpour began), a turbo Beaver came out. It, too, pulled some nice vapor from the prop tips as it accelerated across the water. A bit of a cross wind was apparently coming in (no doubt related to the impending storm) and they got airborne one float at a time. At this point we retreated to the car – but not in time to avoid the rain entirely!
The merger of the Virgin America fleet into Alaska Airlines started off slowly at first. With Virgin taking delivery of new jets, Alaska pondered how to mark them up. The first of the A321neos came in Virgin America colors but then one arrived in a plain scheme with some outlines on it of west coast skylines under the tag line “Most West Coast”. It didn’t have obvious airline branding and I wrote about it here. It turns out that jet did not stay in those colors for long. It has now received the standard Alaska Airlines branding and I saw it operating out of SeaTac heading to Los Angeles.
Falcon 20s are not that unusual but, if one is coming close to home on a Saturday afternoon when I don’t have anything else planned, why not? This one was coming in to Paine Field and the sun was out and it would be approaching from the north (hopefully) in the afternoon. Good combination. I popped up the road to see. It did indeed show up on schedule. This was just as well. A short while after landing, clouds rolled in and the wind picked up resulting in them changing runways! This jet belongs to Alliance Air Charter and appears to be configured as a freighter. I wonder if it is an old FedEx jet?
