I am just going to throw in a gratuitous shot of a business jet today. This Hawker was on approach one sunny day at Paine Field. It wasn’t rare or special in anyway (unless you count the scimitar tips to the winglets) so might not have got a post of its own but I just like this family of jets so here it is!
A morning at Haneda provided a few planes to shoot but the temperature was really oppressive so I didn’t hang around too long. A Gulfstream turned on to the runway for departure and I almost didn’t bother going in to the sun to shoot it. However, habit got the better of me and I was glad I did. It wasn’t a normal Gulfstream but one from the Japanese Coast Guard. It included a large radome under the front fuselage. I hadn’t seen one like this before.
My wife is a star – well that, or she is a masochist. Our trip to the UK was in three phases. We spend the first phase visiting family. The second phase was my visit to RIAT for a few days while she did things in London and around the south coast. The last phase was our time to tour around East Anglia and relax a little. Our last full day had us up near Cambridge. She suggested I might want to visit the Imperial War Museum aviation collection at Duxford. Since I had taken a chunk of the vacation to do aviation things, I was not going to push anything aviation related for the rest of the trip but she was quite happy to do this. What a star!
I haven’t been to Duxford for ages so I was interested to see how things had changed. What was once called the Superhangar had been rebuilt and had lots of interesting stuff inside. The American Forces section was there last time I went and hadn’t changed a lot. Some of the large airliner stuff outside was familiar but other bits were either new or something I didn’t recall from previous visits. It is a very extensive collection and well worth a visit. I was really pleased to check it out.
I will give a few of the exhibits their own posts but this is a bit of a summary post. Below is a gallery of some of the shots I took as we wandered around.
While walking along the waterfront at East Cowes, I heard the noise of an approaching helicopter. As it got closer, it turned out to be a Coastguard AW189. I hoped it would come closer and it obliged by flying almost directly over us. What I didn’t know was that another of the fleet would be at RIAT when I was there a few days later so I was going to get a closer look than this. Stay tuned for that!
I was looking to get some midsummer shooting in at Vancouver. The day was a lovely one but the evening promised so overcast rolling in and that proved to be the case. However, I thought I would give things a go. The lack of the strong evening light was disappointing but it did actually make for some softer lighting conditions and things weren’t all bad. The evening culminated (at least for me) with three quick arrivals. An Edelweiss A340-300, a BA A380 and a China Airlines A350-900. I quite liked the conditions as they provided something slightly different. Clouds shouldn’t necessarily be a deterrent from an evening out shooting.
I’ve seen a few Korean Air 777s on test at Everett since we moved here. This one was heading out on a delivery flight on a Friday evening. The only reason it gets a post is that, from what I can discover, this is the last 777 that Korean Air has on order. They have a bunch of 787s to come in the coming years but this is their last 777-300ER. They haven’t ordered the 777X (which, given how many different widebody types they operate, is quite a surprise!).
My cloudy Vancouver shoot also gave me the chance to play around with some lower shutter speeds. I have done this for the turboprops before but this time I decided to play with some of the jets. A really low shuttle speed can blur out the background and give a nice impression of movement but it is a problematic shot to make. You don’t want to do it on something that you are keen to get in case you get nothing! It is also something that results in very small apertures if there is much light which can make for a lot of dust spotting in post! A cloudy evening is a good time to try and a bunch of boring regular jets are good targets for a trial!
Summer evenings can be a good time to visit Paine Field as flying seems to be busy and the light is often quite nice. On two separate visits, I saw this FedEx 777F flying. The first time it was on some acceptance flights and it flew an approach followed by a low go around. The gear doors had been blown down prior to this approach and the RAT was deployed. It then flew a pattern and landed.
Next time I saw it, it was heading off to Memphis on its delivery flight. They seemed to have a few issues with the transponder prior to departure which was fine for me as it delayed them until the light was a bit nicer. Not sure I would be so happy to take my new plane with a snag though! Memphis when empty is a piece of cake for a 777F so it made it off the ground pretty speedily.
Getting a good angle on jets lined up on the approach is a combination of luck with where you can stand and the timing of the arrivals to be in sequence when you can get them all together. It is also a question of whether you have the right focal length to catch them together but not so much that one is out of frame. I played with this a bit at YVR. Sometimes there would be a jet on the parallel approach too but combining the lot was more luck than judgement.
When I photographed this amphibian, I thought it was a Goose or a Widgeon. It made a pass over Paine Field while I was waiting for the return of the Bf-109 so I grabbed some shots of it. It was only as I looked at the shots afterwards – particularly the engine installations – that I realized I didn’t know what it was. I looked up the registration as saw it was a Gweduck. This is the only example so far and it is based at Renton. I would love to see more of it – particularly if that can include some time on the water!
