This 182 showed up at Boeing Field during my day off. I was a bit far away from it but wasn’t going to pass up the chance to shoot something new and floats make a Cessna a bit more interesting than it might otherwise be. It didn’t hurt that a Q400 from SEA was climbing out in the background and showed up in a few of the frames.
I saw an article in Flight about the first P-8 for the Royal Norwegian Air Force having rolled out at Renton. It showed an airframe with a large saint emblem on the fin. I figured this would be worth a look when I could next get to Renton. My day off to chase planes provided that opportunity. Sure enough, there on the flight line was the new P-8. It was sitting next to an RAF P-8 – their eighth example. The RAF jet flew that day but I imagine it won’t be too long before the Norwegian example follows it in to the air so I shall have to keep an eye out for that.
I am going to guess that this company is a sponsor of the Ridge Motorsport Park in Shelton WA. If not, they have chosen a convenient location to store some heavy machines and they park them in a very orderly fashion while keeping them exceedingly clean.
Kenmore Air is well known for operating a fleet of deHavilland Canada floatplanes in the Pacific Northwest. They do also have a sizeable fleet of land planes too which, up until know has been Cessna based with Caravans being their staple. However, they have added something new to the fleet in the shape of a Pilatus PC-12. Not sure what the purpose of this is and whether it is the first of many but I was pleased to catch it on approach not long after they took delivery (or at least announced delivery).
While I was shooting super bikes at Shelton, I was wandering along the fence line out on the circuit when a lot of bird noise started up. Regular readers may recall my previous post about a killdeer in Bellevue that was making a lot of noise. This was a pair of killdeer and they should probably reconsider their tactics.
I was totally unaware of them until I got close at which point they started making a hell of a racket. The reason was that they had a couple of chicks with them that were hiding in the longer grass trying to stay out of sight until their parents encouraged them to move. The adults would make a lot of noise and would fan out their wings and turn their butts in my direction. Clearly they didn’t think too much of me.
Once they started making this display, I looked around until I could see the youngsters. I would never have seen them otherwise as they were well concealed even though they were out in the open. I had no desire to make them any more stressed than they already were so I moved along to leave them in peace. They did try to move away from my approach which meant going where I was going but I was soon passed them and they could go back to avoiding the motorbikes.
While spending a little time at Boeing Field waiting to see what would be on the move, a Falcon 900 powered up over at the FBO. Most bizjets can taxi from that ramp down to the threshold but there is a limit on the size of aircraft than can use that taxiway to the end. Larger jets have to cross over to our side of the runway and use the taxiway that is close to the parking lot. I hoped that the Falcon 900 was in the class of jets that needed to do that and that they wouldn’t just do an intersection departure instead.
I got lucky and they came my way. I prefer the look of the cockpits on the newer generation Falcons with the multi window configuration dating back to the Falcon 20 looking a little outdated but, putting that aside, the Falcon 900 is a nice looking plane.
Photographing motorbikes means trying to get the shutter speed nice and low to make the background blur out and give the strong impression of speed. When you are a distance from the track, you might have to go quite low in the shutter speeds to get the effect you want. There is an alternative. Get really close to the track. Even with quite a high shutter speed, there is plenty of blur. Indeed, the chances of getting a sharp shot get quite low unless you take the speed up a bit (or shoot a lot and go with the probabilities saving you).
I went to the Turn 5 location at Shelton a couple of times while I was there. The marshal station is right in the apex of the bend and it is slightly above track level. Standing beside it gives you a view down on the riders as they come by. I tried it out once in the morning. It was good to get some practice but the light was behind the riders so it wasn’t ideal.
I went back again later in the day when the light was slightly more favorable. I shot with both a long lens as they were approaching and with a wider lens as they passed right beneath me. The speed with which they corner means that the panning becomes more of a whip motion and it is hard to pull off reliably. Plenty of efforts were made to try and get a good shot of the rider while conveying the sense of speed.
Anyone who has been reading the blog for a long time will know that I like the Piaggio Avanti. I think it is a massively underrated airframe which should be more popular with bizjet owners than some of the tiny and slower jets that sell well. Oh well, that ship has sailed. They show up occasionally and it is a good day if I get to see one.
This example was at Boeing Field. It was heading out so I saw it taxi out and take off. They usually have quite a long take off run so it was a fair distance away when it got airborne. Another example has been around recently but I have not been able to see it. Maybe the chance will present itself again before too long so I can get something a bit more exciting that just taxiing nearby.
The Karmann Ghia is a vehicle that I have known of since childhood. A teacher at my primary school had a white example and it looked amazing to me as a small boy. They turn up at car event pretty regularly and I occasionally see one out on the road. However, I was caught out at Exotics@RTC recently when I saw another car parked next to a Karmann Ghia that was also badged with that name. I had to google it when I came home and found out that there was a different platform used for a newer design during the 1960s. These are apparently known as the Type 34 whereas the original version is the Type 14. I had no idea until this visit. I guess that makes my excursion and educational exercise.
I was hoping for an approach and landing when I saw this Black Hawk heading downwind but, sadly, it was just passing by, presumably on its way back to JBLM. It was a bit distant but I still decided to get some shots. The crewman was looking out of the side of the cabin as they flew by and a few of the shots seem to have them looking directly at me. The helmet and mask combination that they use is very intimidating. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, honestly.