Category Archives: Pacific Northwest

Salmon Waiting to Head to Spawning Grounds

The salmon head to spawn in phases with the three different breeds coming at slightly different times. They head through the ladder at the locks in Ballard in the fall but, before they head into Lake Washington, they pause in the approach area. The transition from salt water to fresh is something that they have to adjust to and the area just by the locks where the fresh water is spilling out provides a good place for them to get adjusted. They can stay for a couple of weeks or more. The result was that we saw a lot of salmon swimming around in the waters by the dam. This was not a risk free occupation as shall be covered in a future post.

Destination Moon Exhibit

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The Museum of Flight has been holding a special exhibit this summer for the 50^th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. The museum has a number of interesting Apollo exhibits as it is but these were combined with some extra items specific to Apollo 11 and its crew. The centerpiece of this was the command module, Columbia. We actually waited until near the end of the exhibit before we visited but it was well worth the trip. Columbia was in the center of the final room of the tour and you could walk all around it.

The hatch was separate from Columbia and set up so that you could look through the window of the hatch at the command module itself. This was a nice idea but, since the exhibit was so popular, getting a moment when there wasn’t someone in the shot was unrealistic. Other items on display included gloves worn on the surface by Buzz Aldrin (which had various checklists embroidered on patches attached to the gloves), a NASA jumpsuit worn by Neil but used for chores on his farm in later years and his Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

The display also included the recovered engines normally on display but with the addition of a part from one of the Apollo 11 F1 engines recovered by Jeff Bezos’s team. The local Boeing connection to the project was well represented and a lunar rover was on display to highlight this too. Even at the end of the exhibits time, there was a long line of people waiting to get in. We had an early slot which turned out to be a good thing. By the time we got out, the line had grown substantially.

A220 Airborne

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My first Delta A220 (or C Series if you are old school) showed up in this post from when I was at DFW. It was only on the ramp so no flying action on that occasion. SeaTac is one of the regular destinations now and one was departing when I had just landed and was waiting to meet my sister off her flight from the UK. Shooting through the windows at an airport is a bit hit or miss. The quality of the glass is one concern since it is thick stuff. You also have mixed cleanliness and reflections from the interior. Then you have to deal with the heat coming off whatever is on the ramp with the potential for lots of APU and engine exhausts. However, I did get some clear shots of it as it got airborne. I think the shape is quite distinctive and I am really coming to like the type.

A Pair of Otters Return to Kenmore

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Getting an Otter at Kenmore is not a challenge. The Kenmore Air fleet returns to their home base each evening so a steady stream of them can be relied on. What I hadn’t seen before was two showing up almost simultaneously. I was watching the first on final approach when I saw a second appear in the background. It provided a slightly more dynamic view of a regular occurrence.

Four 777Xs On the Ramp

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The 777X initial airframe has already made it on the blog when it was parked on the ramp and when it undertook some taxi trials. It has since had the dodgy engines removed and I assume some more trustworthy examples are on their way. First flight will not be this year, though, based on what I am reading in the press. While the start of flying has not been achieved, production has continued. The initial customer aircraft have also now shown up. I understand that Lufthansa will be receiving at least one of these jets. The flight line now has four jets parked up – two in house colors and two all white. Hope we will see them up and active before too long! I hear a fifth came out with Emirates’ wing tips just after I took this! I have another primer one since which is below.

Bring a Couch to the Fireworks

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Fireworks displays attract lots of people and they come prepared in all sorts of ways. Some will come with a blanket to sit on. Others will bring folding chair and tables and maybe a bunch of food to go with it. It may be that they just come as they are ready to sit on the grass and keep it simple. However, I haven’t seen anyone bring a couch – until now!

Some Other Evening Arrivals While Waiting for Cathay

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Earlier this year I went out to get the Cathay Pacific A350 arrival later in the evening when the light was still good due to the longer days in summer. Of course, Cathay wasn’t the only airline coming in at that time. Some of the regular visitors also were arriving and even using the inner runway that is often only used by the heavier jets. Here are a few shots from the other arrivals in the nice light you can get late on a summer evening.

Crunching Concrete and Steel

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Removing the viaduct takes some specialized machinery. This one piece that was working near Pike Place Market had a couple of different attachments for the task. The process of switching heads was interesting in itself. A drilling head was used to punch holes through the deck of the viaduct and to remove the material from between the beams. There was also a head that was a cutting jaw. This would grab the side barriers and rip them from the structure. It would crunch through sections and break them in to manageable sizes. The effortless with which this seemingly solid structure was crunch into small pieces was intimidating!

Bruce and Brandon’s Last Resting Place

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I don’t want to look like I spend a lot of time visiting the graves of the famous but Seattle has a few on offer. Jimi was covered in this previous post and today’s is about a couple of other famous Seattle performers. Bruce Lee is buried in Lakeview Cemetery which is up on the hill between Lake Washington and Lake Union. Alongside him is buried his son Brandon. Brandon died during the filming of The Crow.

Their grave site brings a regular stream of visitors on a sunny day such as the one that took us there. The location is very pleasant with rolling hills and views to the water in both directions. We took a walk around a bit more of the cemetery and the following shots are of other locations we saw during our brief visit. It seems like somewhere that it will be worth spending longer to look around at a later date.

An MRJ Comes This Side of the Cascades

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A lunchtime jaunt up to Everett was the result of ATS carrying out a test flight of a Janet 737. I got to the field with a little time in hand and was looking on FlightRadar24 for the position of the inbound jet when I saw something orbiting north of me up near Concrete. It turned out to be one of the Mitsubishi MRJ90 test aircraft. It was flying a series of patterns up there. Since they carry out the test flying from Moses Lake, I wasn’t so surprised. More importantly, I figured that they would head back to base when they were done.

Imagine my surprise when the radio burst to life with their callsign setting up on the approach. A Janet was worth the trip but the MRJ was truly a bonus. I have only seen one before and that was a delivery flight from Japan to Moses Lake that staged through San Jose and was in the blog here. I hoped it was a different jet, but wasn’t going to gripe if it wasn’t (and I was pretty sure it wasn’t based on recollection of the registration).

The jet hummed its way down the approach and landed in front of me (and a few others that either knew or had got similarly lucky). It them taxied back and held in front of FHCAM. There was a departing Embraer in front of it so I figured it was waiting for them. However, they departed and it didn’t move for a while. I needed to head back so was desperately hoping it would go soon. Just as I was about to give up, they released the brakes and taxied to the hold. The departure was pretty quiet with the Pratt GTFs not making much noise at all.

The original colors of the jet appear to have been overtaken by test markings. There were some details around the engine inlets and the upper rear fuselage had been painted black. I suspected this might be for testing of water ingestion to help visualize the water flow but if anyone knows better what the purpose is, please do let me know.