A little while ago, I posted some images of the Indian Air Force Rafales that transited through JBLM on their way to Alaska. They didn’t come alone, though. They had some support aircraft with them including some tanking resources. I’ve seen the occasional IL-78 in the past, so this wasn’t a first for me, but they are still a relatively rare occurrence so catching this was a nice result and the light showed up enough to make the images a bit nicer.
There is a lake at Bloedel Reserve that sits near the main house. The grass leading down to it makes for a nice spot to rest but it also seems to have made for a good habitat for dragonflies. There were loads of them scooting around at the edge of the water and, while they were easily spooked as I got closer, if I sat for a while, they would resume their normal activities. Getting the camera to focus on them was not always reliable but modern autofocus is a wonderful thing. These were some of the results. I don’t have an image of how damp my pants were after sitting on the grass for a while, thankfully.
Vancouver and Vancouver Island are busy with floatplane activity. It should have occurred to me that, when we were staying in Nanaimo, that there would be floatplanes to see. It didn’t, though. When we took a walk along the waterfront, I had only taken a camera with a short lens attached. This was not ideal for getting images of the planes in motion but it worked out just fine when they came in close. We walked along one of the breakwaters surrounding the harbour and, when one of the planes taxied in, it came right by the end of this breakwater. Sometimes a short lens will do the trick!
This Kitsap ferry left Seattle shortly after we had departed on the ferry to Bainbridge Island. We did see the same ferry later as part of our return journey. What caught my eye was its name. It is called Solano which was a location in Northern California. Turns out this boat used to provide services across San Francisco Bay and, when Kitsap County bought it, they didn’t decide to change its name. Consequently, it is quite different to the other ferries in the region that have local names.
For the benefit of my Canadian friends, I will get this out of the way first. Despite what the operators say and what is written on their signage, this plane is a Canso, not a PBY Catalina. Okay, with that out of the way, the plane came to the Olympic Air Show in Olympia. It looked excellent in its dark grey painting and had plenty of people around it on the ramp before it flew its display. As with many planes of its vintage, it has lots of lumps and bumps. I decided to spend a little time looking at some of the details rather than the whole plane.
Of course, you have to get some larger shots of the plane. You can’t just stare at the rivets. Also, I knew it would be flying and I would aim to get some shots of it then but that can be another post at some point. For this, the bulbous curves of the nose area and the details of the bits that make it a flying boat were the focus.
Walking through Juanita Bay Park with mum, we saw and heard a small bird nearby. When we got a clear look at it, mum asked what it was. Now, I am not a bird specialist, but I do have two things on my side. One, I can get a photo of it and two, I have a very big book of North American birds at home so we can look it up afterwards. Mum thought it looked like a wren based on the shape and angle of the tail and I thought she had a good point. Sure enough, get to the book at home and it was indeed a marsh wren. Cute little thing.
The introduction of the Kingfisher to Canadian Air Force service has been a bit drawn out and is not yet complete. This version of the Airbus C295 has some customization which has yet to be fully worked out. However, there are a number of the aircraft delivered including at Comox AFB on Vancouver Island. For the air show, there was one on the ramp and another was up and flying in the morning. It was not performing a demo, but it flew a lot of patterns before the show got underway. Therefore, I had my first exposure to a flying Kingfisher. They should be a more regular sight in the Pacific Northwest in due course.
A previous post covered a recent Westwind arrival at SEA one weekend. As I mentioned in that post, I was shooting from a new location for me. Having not shot there before, I didn’t want to make the Westwind the first thing I photographed. I used some of the preceding airliners to try a couple of spots to see what the angles were like and how much the surrounding trees obscured things. These shots are from the experimenting.
Seafair is mainly about the airshow for me. However, there is a lot more to it than that and the hydroplane races have long been a key part of proceedings. I didn’t worry too much about the races as I was only planning on getting to the lake in time for the flying. I did have an easy journey and got to the lakeshore earlier than expected and there appeared to be some qualifying underway on the water. I was not well positioned to see the course, but I could still see them as they ran around the southern part of the track. Consequently, I got a few shots and here are some pretty serious look hydroplanes.
The Comox AFB air show was the first public display of the special anniversary painted CF-188A Hornet for the Canadian Air Force’s 100th birthday. There had been some photo sorties undertaken in the weeks before the show to support some upcoming appearances, but this was its first public outing. They pulled the jet out to the center of the crowd line for crewing and start up and it returned there after its display was complete.
The paint scheme is really impressive, and I hope the aging jet can stay serviceable throughout the season, so air show attendees get to see it in the air. It does look very good. The RCAF does seem to have a good history of painting demo jets really well and they must be very pleased with this one. The light was a bit variable while it flew but I was happy with some of the shots I got of it. One the ground it also looked great, particularly close up.
