Category Archives: Pacific Northwest

Concrete Fly In

1 Reply

The time between me doing something and its appearance on the blog can vary wildly.  Sometimes, I will aim to get something squeezed in here soon after it happens but that is the exception.  Usually, I have stuff posted out quite far in advance.  As I come up with new topics, they get added to the schedule and, if a topic doesn’t get written about promptly, it can really disappear into the distance.  Such is the case with the Concrete fly in of 2023.

There will be several posts that make it on here from that event in the coming weeks.  I have started writing them up but some of the specific topics will take a while to appear.  However, I shall start things off with a more general post about the fly in.  Held at Mears Field in the interestingly names town of Concrete, it is a popular gathering of planes from around the region.  There is a single runway running east/west in the valley and the planes park up on either side of it.  You are able to walk across the runway at a couple of locations (or further away from them if you want to avoid the air cadets) so just keep you head on a swivel.  The wind seems to change midway through the day, so arrivals were from the west in the morning and the east in the afternoon.

We set up at a spot near the threshold on the eastern end of the field and it provides a good location to watch the landings and the takeoff rolls.  Sometimes, it is easy to forget that you can walk around, and you find you have stayed in one place for ages getting similar shots.  I did try and mix it up from time to time but it was rather sunny and warm and the shade under the wing of a 170 was pretty appealing.

Since I was shooting a lot of light aircraft, I decided to try and make the shots more interesting by keeping the shutter speed low to emphasize speed.  The downside the this is that you are very close to the runway so the parallax effect is quite pronounced.  You can also just miss a ton of shots but why not have some fun.  Few of them are ones you can’t afford to miss.  It does mean a sharp nose is probably combined with a blurry fin.  This will really annoy some viewers and others will never notice.  Since I am shooting for me, I’m the only one that has to care!

More to come of some specific planes and events from the day out with a regular crew of aviation loons.

The Honeywell Demonstrator Comes Back to Seattle

Leave a Reply

Honeywell’s Boeing 757 demonstrator has been on the blog before.  I caught it at Paine Field during some awful weather.  More recently, it was back in Seattle and I managed to get it again.  This time the weather was a little better.  It was actually getting a bit of a tour of the region in with passes at Paine Field, SEA and Boeing Field.  I thought I was going to be in the wrong place for it but I was fortunate enough to catch it twice in one flight.

I was at SEA as it came in on the outer runway.  A little bit close in on the underside but I figured it would show off the unusual pylon for engine testing that is mounted on the upper side of the front fuselage.  It wasn’t landing there, though.  It then continued on and headed for Boeing Field.  They changed the flow direction around the same time so I was actually able to make it back to Boeing Field before it landed there.  It did then park up at Modern for the day.

Covering a Local Soccer Tournament

Leave a Reply

I was asked back to cover a soccer tournament between different regions of WSDOT.  I went to the tournament last year when it took place on a very hot day with smoke in the air.  This year there was no smoke but it did turn out to be a warm and sunny day.  I was pretty worn out pacing the sidelines to get shots so I imagine the competitors were done by the end of things.  My goal was to try and get shots of most of the participants in reasonably interesting actions.  Not always possible but people want to see a shot of themselves so hopefully most of them will find themselves in there somewhere.

There is a web gallery I made for them which you can check out below should you be interested.  However, unless you know the people, you probably won’t be.  However, I did get a few shots that I thought were not bad as stand alone images and they are included here.  Shooting footie is not my specialty but it was a reasonable way to spend a day.

Www.robedgcumbe.com/client/wsdotsoccer2023

Almost Directly Under the Approach

Leave a Reply

Photographing airliners can be a little “samey” since there are lots of very similar jets and getting a shot of them from the side looks much like any other shot unless the aircraft is specially painted or the lighting is particularly unusual.  Consequently, every once in a while, it is fun to try and shoot from a different angle.  The approach to SEA when the planes are on a southerly flow brings them in over a part of Burien where you can get yourself pretty much under the flightpath.

It won’t take too long before you are again getting a sequence of repetitive images, so it isn’t going to be useful for much time, but it is a chance to do something a little different.  Head on shots from a distance are possible.  Then you can get the shot looking up from the underside.  This might be a tight shot of a part of the airframe, or a wide angle shot of the whole thing.  An opportunity to do something a little different when you are photographing aircraft that are not ones where you care about missing the shot as you might when something special is coming in.

Air Canada Instead of Jetz

Leave a Reply

It’s not unusual to see Canadian A320s in Boeing Field.  They provide a lot of sports charters but, until recently, these were usually undertaken by Jetz aircraft.  More recently, it seems that they have transitioned to jets in the Air Canada core colors.  Since Air Canada has been taking delivery of lots of 737 Max aircraft recently, maybe they are cascading some of the older mainline jets to the charter operations.  I don’t really know.  I only know I have shot a few of their aircraft at Boeing Field recently.

What Makes One Dino Get Prime Spot Over Another?

Leave a Reply

This is a perfect example of my ignorance regarding some of the things I see.  The Italian Day at Exotics@RTC was on and this meant a bunch of Ferraris of varying vintages.  In the prime spot at the center of the event was a Ferrari Dino.  I may not know much about Ferraris, but I do know that the Dino was a famous car.  There were actually a few of them scattered around.  I don’t know whether prime spots were based on when they arrived or whether one of these is more important than another.  Is one more authentic or was it just luck?  Maybe some of you know.

Ault Field Morning Arrivals

Leave a Reply

I had taken a day off to go to Coupeville earlier this year.  Since I was heading to Whidbey Island for the day, I went to Ault Field at the beginning of the day to see if there was any traffic.  I went to Moran Beach to see if anything was coming in when the light is still favorable in that location.  I actually got pretty lucky.  There were a bunch of Growlers already up and about and they were recovering before I had to move off.  Some squadron jets including some in special schemes were coming in.  Recovering overhead me while others were on the approach, it felt pretty busy.  Here are some of the shots from that morning.

Parachute Formations Look Uncomfortable Up Close!

Leave a Reply

The Canadian Forces parachute display team, The SkyHawks, were performing at the Abbotsford Airshow.  With their Canadian flag parachutes, they carried American and Canadian flags for the show opening as well as undertaking a few formation demonstrations.  I was working my way through the images from the show and was cropping in on the shots to see which were the sharpest.  It gave me a better view of how the team members link together for some of the configurations that they use.

One of the positions involved one guy’s foot being hooked between the legs of his partner.  This looked like a pretty tough position to hold.  In a three-person formation, the middle individual was holding the other two in place.  I imagine that there is a fair bit of strength involved in making this work.  These soldiers are undoubtedly tough individuals.  I suspect you practice these positions a little further from the ground for the first few times!

Sun on the MU-2

Leave a Reply

Regular readers of the blog will know that there are certain types that I seem destined to struggle to shoot in decent light.  It might be the nicest of days, but the sun will go behind a cloud just before the intended subject appears.  I thought the Mitsubishi MU-2 was one of those types but, a few months back, I finally got lucky.  One came into Boeing Field on a day with good sun.  Not the perfect conditions but it was still a relief to finally get some shots when it wasn’t overcast!

The Craziest Abarth Cinquecento I’ve Ever Seen

Leave a Reply

When I was a small kid, we owned a Fiat 126.  My friend’s mum had a Fiat 500.  It was the old car compared to our “newer” one.  A tiny little vehicle but a cute one.  Of course, as with everything these days, the 500 made a reappearance more recently as it got a makeover.  It also spawned a range of derivatives taking it well away from the original concept.  I had never considered the original car to be too sporty so was in for a surprise.

Exotics@RTC had this amazing vehicle on display.  An Abarth Cinquecento, this thing is seriously souped up.  Forget a back seat.  Don’t expect much in the way of creature comforts.  Probably come up with a plan of how to get yourself in and out of it for that matter.  This thing is quite unlike any old Cinquecento I have ever seen.  It looked amazing.  The back end of it seemed unable to hold what was included so it was just open to let everything hang loose.  What a contrast to everything else that was on display.  That is what makes Exotics@RTC so cool.  You get these really unusual vehicles showing up.