Category Archives: corporate

What Goes On These Pylons?

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An older generation of Learjet was heading out from Boeing Field.  I almost ignored it but I got a few shots as it rotated and climbed out.  As it did so I noticed it had a pod on an underwing pylon.  A little further research shows it belongs to Phoenix Air.  Apparently, they have a few Learjets that have electronic gear fitted – sometimes on pylons and sometimes internally.  This pod appears to have dielectric elements front and rear so may well be an EW pod of some sort.  I wonder if anyone knows more about these guys and what they would be up to.

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?

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.

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.

Gulfstream from Above

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Getting the airliners coming in to LAX was what I was aiming for but I was pleased to get a bizjet bonus.  A Gulfstream made an approach to the northerly runway complex.  This was a surprise to me as the facilities for corporate aviation are on the south side of the airport so an approach over there would seem to have made more sense.  As with some other arrivals, I wasn’t complaining.  An aerial shot of a Gulfstream was very welcome.

NOAA Gulfstream

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The appearance of a Gulfstream GIV is not something that would normally be sufficiently unusual to justify a trip out.  However, this GIV was a bit unusual.  It belongs to NOAA and they use it for tracking weather systems.  It was operating out of Paine Field and I only got to see it once.  It would launch and head out over the Pacific for six or seven hours before coming back. The return was always in the evening after dark so never an opportunity to get a shot.  The rear radar installation is pretty conspicuous.  However, the nose radar is also a modification.  The radome is a different shape and the additional air data sensors around the radome may either be because of the change of shape or could be related to its mission.

Sadly, it departed to Florida before I could get a chance to see it on the ground.  It would have been nice to see it close up (or even in halfway decent weather – not something I was given this time around) but that was not to be on this occasion.

Two Avantis in One Go!

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Not long ago, I posted about seeing an Avanti for the first time in a while.  The lack of Avantis having been broken, I have seen a couple more.  I saw that one had come in to Boeing Field and I was there before it fired up for its next flight.  It taxied out on the opposite side of the field and then took off to the northeast.

A short while later, I saw a silhouette of a plane on approach and looked closer to see what it was.  It looked pretty like an Avanti so I figured it was the same aircraft returning for some reason.  I was a bit bothered that something might be wrong but happy to get another chance to shoot it.  As it got closer thought, it was clearly not in the same paint scheme.  Instead, it turned out to be a Canadian registered example and a pretty nice looking one at that.

Getting two Avantis within a short space of time was an outcome I was pretty pleased with.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t hang around to get the departure of the second example.

Filming With a G650ER

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I missed the best of this event.  I got to Everett towards the end of a filming session with a Gulfstream G650ER jet.  An Astar was being used to film the jet as it flew some approaches.  I had actually noticed the jet online earlier in the day because it had been flying orbits over some of the islands and showed up on FlightRadar24.  I didn’t know what it was at the time but, once I got to Everett it all became clear.  I didn’t get anything of the Astar as I didn’t have the camera out when I first arrived but I did get a shot or two of the Gulfstream near the end of the flights.  Looked like a fun sortie to be involved with.

Sabreliner Testbed

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The Sabreliner is a neat little jet under normal circumstances, combining as it does the wing of the Sabre with a fuselage for passengers.  This example, that now lives in the Evergreen Aerospace Museum in McMinnville Oregon, is even better because it is a testbed.  The nose has a new radome grafted into place to allow the testing of different radar.  Meanwhile, pods can be mounted under the wings to test a variety of different sensors and electronics.  Some of these different configurations are displayed alongside the airframe.  Good to know that after years of specialized service, the aircraft will survive in the indoor comfort of the museum.