Category Archives: corporate

Sabreliner Duo Passing Through

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The large exercise that was taking place in Alaska attracted a lot of unusual types and I have posted about the Hunters and the Northrop Grumman testbed heading up there already.  They weren’t the only ones, though.  Paine Field had a couple of transients too with a pair of Sabreliner jets heading north.  This vintage bizjet is a pretty agile type and Clay Lacy used to display one on the air show circuit.  These two had an interesting pod mounted under the front fuselage – presumably for some sort of electronic warfare role.  I was able to head up to Paine Field that weekend to get them as they arrived.  I didn’t have the time to get them departing although they weren’t around for long – just getting some fuel and then heading onwards.

They did route back through Paine Field when the exercise was done so I was able to get a second go at shooting them then but the conditions were much as before, so the shots are not too different.  I did take a bit of a chance with my shots by dropping the shutter speed down pretty low to try and get some good motion blur – always a risk when shooting something new!

A Few of the Recent Vision Jets in the Area

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The Cirrus SF50 Vision is a strange little jet.  It might be jet powered, but it isn’t a particularly high performer.  Sure, it is quicker than a piston aircraft, but it doesn’t compete with the jets that are a little larger than it and it certainly isn’t huge.  However, it does fill a niche. There have been quite a few of them around her recently and, with its bulbous fuselage, V-tail and dorsal engine, it sure looks different.  It also helps that they often get painted in interesting schemes so I’ll get shots whenever I can.  Here are some I have seen recently.

G700 Test Jet

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I posted about the arrival of some Hunters and, in that post, I mentioned that I was there for a Gulfstream test jet.  A couple of years ago, I managed to get some shots of a G600 test jet and I had been hoping to catch a G700 at some point.  When one of the test aircraft filed a flight plan for Boeing Field, I finally had my opportunity.  I was waiting for it when the Hunters showed up.  It wasn’t far behind them that my original target showed itself.

This is the fourth test aircraft.  It is in a nice paint job typical for the average anonymous bizjet but it gives hints to its true purpose by having some of the windows replaced with instrumentation.  I was able to get it as it came in from the south, albeit with the usual cluttered background that Boeing Field has.  Fortunately, they were operating out of the field for a few days and I was able to come back at a later date to catch it on approach from the other end.

Dropping The Shutter Speed For Fun

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One weekend, I was at Boeing Field awaiting something interesting.  There was the regular traffic of business jets and, since they were pretty standard fair and the light wasn’t great anyway, I figured I would play with dropping the shutter speed super low.  The R3 is great for this because I can select a frame rate of 30fps if I want.  When shooting with silly shutter speeds, really high frame rates increase the chance that I might get something that isn’t terrible.  Technology overcomes lack of talent!

I was dropping down to 1/50th or 1/60th of a second for some of the arrivals.  I was using a polarizer to take out a load of light to allow such low shutter speeds on a sunny afternoon.  It also didn’t hurt to reduce the glare with the sun so strong.  Most shots were worthless but there were a few that came out okay.  Full size there were more acceptable ones but, since I was experimenting, I focused on the ones that were really sharp.  Such low shutter speeds do result in parallax issues which is not ideal, so I tend to look for the sharpness to be on the front fuselage unless the plane is going well away from me.  There were some 737s on test too, so I played with the same techniques for them as well.  Maybe I shall go even lower at some point.

An EMB-135 Can Look Good

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One Saturday afternoon, I was out shooting some planes approaching SEA with my buddy David.  We were thinking of calling it a day but I was curious about an EMB-135 that was due in to Boeing Field.  The weather was looking like it would get worse and these regional jets are hardly exciting.  However, a quick search online showed some older shots of it painted white but a more recent shot of it painted gloss black.  I wondered whether this was still how it looked.  I told David I would give it a go as we parted.

As I waited for the jet to arrive, I really hoped it was painted black.  Waiting a while in gradually degrading weather for a regional jet seemed like it might be a poor use of a Saturday afternoon.  When it came in to view, I was very relieved.  It was, indeed, gloss black with a hint of color on the tail.  The fact that the cloud had come in actually made it easier to get a good exposure on the black finish.  Once I got home, I checked out its ownership a little further and, while it was listed to a company matching the Aero on the fuselage, I think it is used by ConocoPhillips.  Maybe, if you are an oil company, you paint your planes to look like crude oil?

Don’t See A Lot Of Eclipses These Days

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Time flies fast and it seems like it wasn’t long ago that Eclipse was talking about building light jets at a rate more like that for a car company.  Their ambition faltered and bankruptcy followed.  A small company was established to support the existing fleet, provide updates and potentially restart production.  I actually visited them north of Chicago which tells me just how long ago that was.  They did build a few new jets but also went bankrupt.  However, the Eclipse fleet lives on.  A lot of jets were built before it all went south.  I don’t know how tough it is to support them these days so I am always pleased to see one out and about.

Bizjets Approaching Mt Rainier(ish)

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Sometimes you can get too fixated on image quality and forget the overall image.  I was hanging around at Ruby Chow park one weekend when some jets were approaching Boeing Field.  I got some shots as they came overhead but then switched to getting shots of them as they got close to touchdown.  The view down the runway is looking straight at Mt Rainier.  The jets in front of the mountain look great.  Very quickly, the heat haze can make the clarity not as sharp as I would normally expect of myself but, actually, the shot is fine at full scale.  Just enjoy the image and don’t fret about the details.

In From Manila And On To Teterboro

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A sunny Sunday morning trip out for a bizjet got a bonus.  I was a touch late for the arrival unfortunately but this G650ER had come in from Manila on its was to Teterboro.  It would have been nice to catch it landing but, after it cleared customs, they taxied out for departure to the east coast.  I’m sure it was nice to stretch the legs after a trans-Pacific trip although I doubt a G650 is that uncomfortable!

Falcon 50 Through the Snow

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Crappy conditions are not usually what you are after when photographing aircraft but, sometimes it is what you get and you have to make the best of it.  One upside is that, if you are somewhere with a reasonable amount of traffic, you can play around with getting shots of something you weren’t necessarily focused on.  While standing in the snow waiting for the Skycourier’s arrival, I did have a Falcon 50 on approach.  I like the Falcon 50 a lot so this would normally have my attention already.  However, crummy conditions almost left me in the car.  I decided at the last minute to try it anyway.

I was really quite pleased with the patterns that the snow made around the jet as it came in.  in such bad light, the landing lights are always going to be more dominant and their ability to light up the snow flurries ahead of them can work out well.  These pictures will probably never be gracing anyone’s walls but I got a kick out of them when I went through them back at home.

What Is Experimental About This?

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Dassault is developing their business jet line.  The 5X was stillborn as a result of engine supply issues but it led to the 6X which I got to see last year when it came through Boeing Field on tour.  The next jet is the 10X.  This is going to be a large cabin and long range jet to play with the Global 8000 and G800.  However, it hasn’t flown yet.  When I saw this jet at Boeing Field, I wondered what the story was.  The large graphic on the side must either relate to something else or is delusion of grandeur on the part of the owner.