Category Archives: Pacific Northwest

Light is Getting Good at YVR

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Arrivals at Vancouver are often on a westerly heading and on the north runway.  This is not ideal for photography at touchdown except in the height of summer.  Then the light comes around to the north side quite nicely.  I wasn’t in Vancouver at the peak time but I did have a visit when the sun had started to get to a good spot.  I met up with my buddy Mark for a little evening shooting.

Unfortunately, not everything I wanted came to the runway.  The glide slope was apparently unserviceable so some airlines chose to go to the south runway.  However, enough came to the north to be worthwhile.  The later it got, the better the light became.  Some interesting overseas arrivals come in late enough to take advantage of this plus the regular local traffic to provide some nice opportunities.  It was a nice evening of shooting and meant the traffic was far easier by the time I got on the road home.

Too Many McLarens for Me to Know

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It doesn’t seem that long ago that there was interest in McLaren starting to develop road cars.  I guess the first time I saw one on the road, we still lived in Chicago, so it has been a while.  However, it still feels very recent.  What I haven’t done is pay much attention to what the different models are.  Consequently, when I am at Exotic@RTC, there are a bunch of McLarens from the local dealer as well as some local owners and I have absolutely no idea which model is which.  Moreover, I don’t know whether or is a base model of “little” interest or a particularly rare example.  I might recognize a Senna by the huge wing but haven’t seen one of those yet.

Instead I just wander around and look at the various cars to see which ones I like the look of.  Their styling is generally pretty nice.  Some of them have more interesting shaping for the aerodynamics (no surprise that is something I am focused on) but the simpler shapes are nice too.  Seeing which colors they bring can be fun too.  Some of the colors are rather vibrant/gaudy.  I was quite interested in one vehicle that was originally painted red but had been wrapped in a matte gray film with just some elements of the red visible around certain areas.

Since I don’t know which model is which, I guess it is probably safer for me to just not bother buying one for now.  I’ll have to do my research to make sure I don’t buy the wrong one.  That would be so embarrassing…

Great Blue Heron Spotting

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I posted a photo of a cormorant sitting on a post in Lake Washington in this post.  More recently, the same post became the resting place for a heron.  I had plenty of time to inch closer to get a better shot of the bird.  The background was rather distracting so I ended up crouching in an strange position in order to get a cleaner background.  The heron seemed content to wait for me to get the shot.

Jay Z Coming to Town?

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Corporate jets are rarely painted in interesting schemes so, when they are, you notice them.  This one showed at at Boeing Field with a puma on the tail.  A bit of research when back home suggests it is a project between Jay Z and the sport gear manufacturer Puma.  I think it is to help out athletes that are sponsored by them.  The registration is apparently a reference to Jay Z himself.  I have no idea who was on it on this occasion.  Maybe Sean was onboard?

This Didn’t End Well (Another Sinking Feeling)

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I posted a shot of a boat that was partially submerged in Renton in this post.  I came across a similar sight in Kenmore recently.  This boat was tied up to the outside of the marina but was clearly in a bad way.  I don’t know what happened but I am going to make a guess.  The water level in the lake is very high at the moment.  There are many wooden piles out in the water that are normally above the surface but they are currently all submerged.  I wonder whether the boat’s owner did not know they were there and punched a hole in the hull?

Light Rail Shots for Work

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A work requirement needed some photos of a project in which we are involved.  We provided he pictures but the team requiring them had an issue with the images we had an wanted something new.  When we couldn’t find any more, the easiest thing was to take some.  I was heading in the right direction one day so stopped off to take some shots of the Sound Transit Link light rail system.  I figured I would share a little of them here too for the rail fans amongst you.

Never Heard of Them But Now They’re In the News

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Until recently I had never heard of Miami Air International.  Then I photographed this rather unpleasant yellow 737-800 that landed at Boeing Field.  Only FlightAware (and a squint at the text on the fuselage) let me know who operated the jet.  The Scimitar winglets hint at the previous owner since they clearly didn’t get repainted!  A couple of days after this, another of their jets went off a runway in Florida and ended up in a river.  Now I know who they are!

A C-17 at Boeing Field?

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Boeing Field does occasionally get military transient traffic at weekend but recently it has had some heavies show up.  I saw that a C-5 had been passing through which would have been really cool to see.  I was heading down that way not long ago when I saw a KC-46 depart towards me as I drove shortly followed by a C-17.  I was a bit disappointed to have missed both of them.  I did not anticipate that the C-17 would return.

However, a while later, I heard something call up on final but it wasn’t showing up on FlightRadar24.  I took a guess it might be military and moved to the arrival end and, sure enough, the C-17 was coming down the approach at a leisurely pace.  It was a Travis jet.  I was told that McChord is being resurfaced so that might explain why this jet ended up at Boeing Field rather than down there.

Stored Max Jets Filling Up the Place

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The grounding of the 737 Max fleet worldwide means that they have been coming off the production line and going in to storage.  A few of them were scattered around the Boeing ramp at Paine Field.  One was particularly interesting though.  It seemed to have the front fuselage wrapped in something while the rear fuselage windows were not covered but had individual panels sealed across them.  No idea what this was all about but it did look unusual.