Paine Field is about fifteen minutes from the office. I wouldn’t normally nip out at lunchtime to photograph something but, when I saw that an Avanti was coming in, I figured that was worth my time. They are not too common around here so grabbing my lunch and heading up was worth it. At least I knew exactly how far out it was and when it was due so I could be there just in time and get the shots before heading back to the office. It beats eating your lunch at the desk!
The G650 was a plane that got off to a good start. The combination of space and range made it a popular choice amongst those that have $60-70m to drop on a plane. Recently, things have been a bit quieter as the competition has ramped up but the deliveries this year have perked up. This one was departing out of Boeing Field and, as I zoomed in to check the sharpness of the shot, I could see the passenger in the cabin who seemed to be looking back at me. She didn’t have a camera, though, so I am the only one with a shot of the encounter!
Early efforts at composite business aircraft did not go smoothly. The Beech Starship ended up being a burden on the company and they bought most of the planes back and destroyed them. Prior to the Starship, there was the Lear Fan. A project started by Bill Lear and continued after his death, the idea was a composite aircraft with two engines driving a single pusher propeller. The light airframe and plenty of power was to provide great performance. Sadly, the early approach to composite design did not go smoothly, nor did the gearbox design to combine the two engines to one propeller.
The project folded after three prototypes had been built. All three still remain and I have seen two of the three. One lives in the Museum of Flight here in Seattle while another is in the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field in Dallas. The third one is in Oklahoma City so I am a bit annoyed I never knew that when I traveled there regularly. Still, two out of three isn’t bad. The single prop looks pretty chunky (the idea being that single engine handling was identical to twin engine handling) and I imagine the diameter had to be limited to avoid prop strike issues during rotation. Overall, it is quite a neat looking design. A shame it was a bit ahead of the technology curve when it was designed and built.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Biz jets often look samey but a cool livery gets a second look. This Gulfstream was at Boeing Field. I don’t think I need to explain why I shot it…
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.
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.
