Category Archives: Pacific Northwest

Italian Day Brings Out the Wealth

I have done quite well this year with getting to feature days at Exotics@RTC. The Italian Day is always going to be a popular one and the number of Ferraris and Lamborghinis in the area is going to provide a good basis for the event with a bunch of other cars of varying vintages being able to fill in the gaps with a bit of variety. I do not know much about these cars so, when I walk around, I am either looking for something I recognize or something that looks totally different. Here is a selection of shots of cars that fit those criteria.

Evening Raptor Demo at Last

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The “at last” in this title is not that I haven’t seen an F-22 demo in the evening. I saw one once at Chino and it was very cool. This is more about the fact that the Raptor demos in recent years have not strayed far west very often. They did a demo in Australia but only had one demo west of the Mississippi for one season. However, Canada did attract the team, and Abbotsford provided a chance to see them for me.

The pilot for the demo for the last two years is a guy that was a regular attendee of air shows in the Midwest when I lived there. I know some of his friends, but he was quite young then and I can’t claim to know him. Even so, it is rather cool to see him have made it to his chosen airframe of the F-22 and then to become the demo pilot. Only near the end of his second year did I finally see his routine and it was a good show. I know he has used flares at a number of events, but warm dry weather probably has meant that the fire risk precluded that. Even so, the evening light made for a great show.

Nicely done, Sam. Excellent performance. Hope you have enjoyed it for the last two years.

Spirit of Vancouver Island

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I posted about the Salish Class of ferries that BC Ferries operates previously but, as we were arriving in Swartz Bay, one of the larger ferries in the fleet headed out. Spirit of Vancouver Island runs the main service between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay carrying the heavy traffic loads. She pulled out just as we were coming alongside so I got a brief view of her heading away.

Girls Fly 2 Arrivals

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Each year, there is an event held at Abbotsford International Airport to encourage the involvement of young women in the aviation business. You get quite a few military aircraft arriving for the event, and they focus on female crews from the units to bring the planes in. While this is in Canada, the US supports the event well. I headed up to see what the arrivals would include.

Weather was a bit overcast so not ideal given that plenty of the planes coming in will be grey. However, there were hints of sun periodically although it did end up throwing down more rain around the time I was leaving. Aside from the A-10s and a Cyclone, the arrivals I saw were dominated by transport and tanking types. The KC-135s had come quite a long way but the one I was probably happiest to get was the C-5 Galaxy. No TF-39 whine, these days, but still a cool jet to see flying.

NASA T-38 Once But Not Twice

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A NASA T-38 was making a brief visit to Boeing Field. It was due in during the afternoon with a planned departure early on Sunday morning. I was in place in plenty of time for the arrival and got it as it landed. I went back for the morning departure and gave myself a little buffer in the schedule just in case they were prompt. They were more than prompt and were airborne quite a while before I got there. As it turned out, the trip wasn’t a waste, but I was rather frustrated at the time!

Starlux Arrives in Seattle

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The increase in air traffic post the pandemic has been significant and international travel has been boosted. Seattle Tacoma International Airport has been adding to its international destinations with new operators on a pretty regular basis and the most recent new addition has been Starlux. Starlux is a Taiwanese airline operating services to Taipei with its fleet of new Airbus A350-900s. I had seen that they were operating to San Francisco and was a little jealous of not getting to see this new fleet but, now they are coming here, I can see them too. Here is one of their jets on approach to SEA to inaugurate the service.

Getting Eye Level With the Rabbits

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There are times when I just seem to want to take photos of something, irrespective of what it might be or what I might do with the images afterwards. I was sitting out on the deck behind our house and there were some rabbits eating our grass (as there often are). I had been watching some videos on wildlife photography and they had been emphasizing the need to get the camera angle low to improve the focus on the animal and separate it from the background. I had the camera and a long lens and there were some rabbits so why not give it a go.

Unfortunately, the rabbits are rather skittish, so some patience was required to get down on the ground without scaring them away. Then I had to wait until they looked in the right direction. Meanwhile, I was struggling with the angle being so low that the rabbits were partially obscured by the ground. (I might also mention, that wasn’t the only struggle. Lying on the ground for a while was making me quite uncomfortable and, when I did finally get up, it wasn’t elegant.) These were the results of my experimentation.

Can Even More Harriers Be Allowed on Here?

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After posting about the possible last encounter I would have with Harriers, I have since posted more shots of them coming through Seattle on their way to Alaska. Of course, they had to come back at some point and Boeing Field was the stopping off point again. Consequently, I have even more shots of them. The arrivals were pretty straightforward, and I was pleased with the results. When it came to departing, they were going early in the day and so I had to try something different for a location. As it turned out, they weren’t going home when I took these shots. They recovered back to BFI after I had left. They did eventually head east, though. Maybe that is it at this point?

An Aero Engine in a Boat

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The hydroplane races at Seafair were not much of a focus for me although I have posted some images of qualifying runs. However, one of the boats really caught my ear when it was out on the course. The noise it made led me to think it might be an older boat powered by an old aero engine. Looking at the images I got of it, that would seem to be the case as the front of the hull seems to be dominated by a large engine. Don’t know what type it is and maybe some of you are familiar with these boats generally or this boat specifically. Was it a competitor or was it out as a historic boat as part of the event?

My First USMC F-35B Demo

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The Marine Corps F-35Bs have been in service for plenty of time now and I have had the opportunity to photograph them on quite a few occasions. However, I had not, until this year, seen their air show demo. I have seen the RAF F-35B at RIAT on an occasion, but it was not a full demo but a brief flyby and hover. Consequently, when the jet was slated for the Seafair schedule this year, I was interested to see the performance. It turned out to be an interesting combination of things although maybe not intentionally.

The displays at Seafair are a bit tricky. The alignment of the lake and the populated areas means the show box is a bit distant from the shire. Consequently, the flying takes place quite a way from the crowd. This is not ideal for photos. However, the Marine demo did seem to approach the box from some interesting angles that included coming almost along the shoreline at one point. Not sure if this was intentional but it did make for some closer shots.

Sadly, the hovering portion was quite a way offshore. I had hoped that this might be closer in given the lack of speed but that wasn’t to be. Even so, it was fun to watch the jet doing its thing and looking to see how much the surface of the lake was being disturbed by the efflux. Hopefully, I’ll get to see the demo again at a location that allows some closer passes.