Category Archives: civil

Finally a VLJ Makes It

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About a decade ago, the very light jet was the hot idea.  Everyone seemed to have a design and they were bringing tons of investment in to make the planes and sell them in quantities and at prices that had previously been unthinkable.  As it turned out, there was a good reason why it had been unthinkable and the projects either never made it to production or made a few before bankruptcy followed (sometimes more than once).  Eclipse did better than most in making jets before they folded, later re-emerging in a slimmed down form.

Cirrus is one company that stuck with it and didn’t go bust.  It did benefit from a lot of Chinese investment and the fact it had a successful piston lineup to generate some income didn’t hurt.  Their approach was the SF50 Vision, a single engine jet.  It was a slightly unusual design but not a bad one and it has finally made it to certification and production.  This example is a regular at Boeing Field so maybe it lives there?

DoJ SAAB

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Unmarked aircraft are conspicuous by their effort to be inconspicuous.  I saw this SAAB 2000 parked up at the Clay Lacy ramp and, before too long, it taxied out and departed kindly backtracking passed me in the process.  SAAB 2000s are not overly common anyway so that was the first thing to notice but, since it was completely white, I figured it might belong to someone not advertising their presence.  Sure enough, it belongs to the Department of Justice.  I wonder what it was doing here?

Low Level Departure by Learjet 31

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This Learjet 31 was heading out of Boeing Field on a lovely afternoon.  The pilot obviously liked a bit of speed because, after rotation, instead of climbing out, he kept it on the deck and built up some speed.  Then, as he got further along the runway, a more aggressive pull into a “zoom” climb.  I appreciated the effort because it meant the jet had some ground behind it as it came past which is a pleasant change.  The color scheme was pretty cool too.

Max7 Number Two

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The first Max7 test aircraft got a blog posting here but I have now seen the second in action too.  I think I first saw it on the ramp at Renton but I didn’t see the registration so can’t be sure.  Now it is engaged in testing and flying regularly out of Boeing Field.  It actually departed as I pulled up, so I only got to watch it rather than get a shot.  It was a bit overcast then anyway.

Later in the day it returned and this time the light was a lot more favorable.  I have yet to be able to gauge it against a 700 series and see the increase in length but the bigger engines are pretty obvious.  Still not a huge number of orders so we shall see whether it becomes a success but, in the meantime, we shall see them testing in the area for a while.

My First Latitude – Now They are Everywhere

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This post is a little late in coming to fruition but it is even more the case now than when I first wrote it.  The corporate jet market has been in a bit of a slump for a while but one thing that is likely to provide a boost is a new model.  Cessna launched the Latitude jet a few years ago.  An evolution of their existing line, it took parts of the Sovereign and combined them with a new fuselage.  (As an aside, I have never been a fan of the Sovereign.  The fin looks like a barn door on it.  The larger fuselage of the Latitude actually suits the fin size a lot better so things are a bit more in proportion.  Still, not many of the Cessna jets are that elegant in my mind.)

The one at the top of this post was the first Latitude I got to photograph.  I did see a test jet take off from Wichita Mid Continent when I was there visiting friends but I didn’t have a camera.  They are easy to identify with the gently upcurved wingtips.  Having seen this one, I have since come across a bunch of them.  It appears that the arrival of the new type attracted a bunch of customers and Cessna was ready to build to meet that demand.  Now I don’t consider them particularly noteworthy.

Concorde

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Few would argue that Concorde is an elegant aircraft design.  It may have had commercial limitations, but it never failed to be a head turner.  Getting good shots of it when it was flying was not too difficult.  One the ground it can still be a good subject but having it confined in a tight space does make things a little more tricky.  The Museum of Flight’s example is in their covered annex across the street from the main museum.  The annex has a great selection of aircraft but they are right up against each other.

I decided, after getting some shots on an initial visit, that I would try something a bit different and took a fisheye the next time I went.  Concorde already has some interesting curves and a fisheye can either help of ruin them so some careful framing was required.  I combined that with a 70-200 to crop in close and avoid the surrounding clutter.  It was a fun experiment to see what you could achieve in a constrained environment.

Lyon Air Museum

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A weekend in Southern California for work was not my idea of fun but I did have a few hours free on the Sunday morning so I headed down to Santa Anna to the Lyon Air Museum.  It is located on the opposite side of John Wayne Airport from the main terminal building and is not terribly obvious unless you look hard.  Even the entrance road is a bit obscure and could be easily missed.  However, once there, it was definitely worth the time.

The museum is in a modern structure and has an impressive collection.  Supposedly the planes are all airworthy and they have some interesting ones there.  Some of the collection will get their own posts.  For now, here is an overlook of the museum and a few of the side exhibits that don’t get their own story.

Frontiers of Flight Museum

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A work trip to Dallas wrapped up a few hours prior to my flight home.  I was flying out of Love Field so figured a quick detour to the Frontiers of Flight Museum just across the field from the terminal was in order.  What I hadn’t appreciated was that tons of school parties had the same idea.  The place was heaving with kids and being kids, they were doing everything at high speed and high volume.  The inside of the 737 exhibit was not a great place to be!

Southwest has a big influence on the museum including a whole 737 and the front fuselage from another.  They don’t dominate things though and there are plenty of other airframes both inside and out.  I shall pick on a few favorites in due course but here is a sample of what was there.  It was a brief visit but a fun one.

Etihad 777-200LR in its Last Days

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When Boeing developed its updates to the base versions of the 777, it came up with the higher capacity long range 300ER and a lower capacity but ultra long range version, the 200LR.  The 300ER sold very well but the 200LR was more of a niche product and, while it sold, it never went in the same numbers as its larger sibling.  Etihad was one of the customers but they have now decided they have no further use for the type and it is being retired.  I was glad to catch one at LAX in the days running up to their retirement.