Category Archives: photo

Transition From KAWO to Amazon

I am not sure of the reasons why, but Croman moved both of the helicopters used for the Amazon lift over to the site the day before the operation. They were a short distance from Arlington but apparently there was a reason to not start from the airport. Fortunately, they did this late in the afternoon after the Astar had arrived. I had moved across to a parking lot near the site ahead of time hoping to be in a good spot to get them arriving and also to see whether it would be good for the lift itself.

Both helicopters approached my side of Amazon prior to landing. This meant I got a good head on view of them and a reasonable view as they approached landing. They did, unfortunately, go directly over my head which limited the shots a little but still wasn’t too bad. The sun was more on their tails as they made their final approach which wasn’t ideal, but it was the side I was on so could have been worse. They landed behind some concrete walls so disappeared from view as they went in. The S-61 was first followed by the Astar. Now to see how the lift itself went.

Sea Lion Boys On Tour

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This winter, the area around Shilshole Bay in Seattle has had some new residents. It is not unusual for sea lions to be in the area at this time of year but this year they have taken to hanging out on the floating docks around the bay. One favorite spot for them is the barrier alongside Ray’s Boathouse. This barrier has a flat top to it but is based on cylindrical tanks. Consequently, while a bunch of sea lions might be on top of it, another one climbing on or one jumping off can cause the whole thing to rotate and, if they are not careful, they can get dumped in the water.

A lot of people have been coming down to watch them hanging out. A bunch will be on the floats, some asleep and others barking at each other or the sea lions trying to get on. More can be seen swimming around in the surrounding area. It was fun to watch them for a while but it was pretty chilly the day we were there so we didn’t hang around for too long!

My Only A330-800

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The A330 has been a huge seller for Airbus. The A330neo has not sold as well. As an upgrade of the basic jet, it didn’t get a huge amount of interest from customers. It has started to seek a bit better and it is basically a good jet. It comes in two version and the A330-900 is the larger of the two and by far the more popular. The A330-800 has not sold well at all with a few going to operators, one of which is Uganda Airlines.

For some reason, they brought one of their jets to Seattle. It arrived on a cloudy day and didn’t leave for quite a while. It’s departure was late at night and I didn’t even bother trying to be there but I did catch it arriving. It certainly got a lot of attention from local photographers. It has a bit of nice color in the livery but isn’t the most distinctive of planes. However, I don’t know when I shall next catch an 800 so this could be it for a while for me!

Federal Way Clock/Log

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The city of Federal Way between Seattle and Tacoma is the end point of a project I am working on. The transit center in the middle of the city is being rebuilt to accommodate the light rail system’s arrival and that includes the parking garage that is currently there. From the top of the garage, you get a good view of the work underway. You also get a close up view of a slightly unusual clock. It is designed to look like it is a giant log with a clock built in. It clearly isn’t wood but it is a little different!

Croman S-61 On The Ramp

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Amazon is finishing up a huge fulfillment center up in Arlington WA. I understand it will be over 600k sq ft of space. The structure is approaching completion and they needed to install the air handler units on the roof. The most efficient way to do this is by helicopter so, after my many times with helicopter lifts in Chicago, I was looking forward to this happening.

They contracted with Croman Helicopters. This is an operation out of Oregon, and they do a lot of firefighting work. The lifting is. A smaller part of their business. However, it is still a good line for them. They brought two helicopters up for the lift. One was an Astar (which might have been theirs or might have been chartered since it had a different name on it) and the other was one of their S-61s. I’ve shot S-61s a couple of times but not often, so this was something I was looking forward to. They came up ahead of the lift and parked on the main ramp at Arlington. Conditions were pretty good and I was able to get some shots of the airframe.

Most of the pictures I have seen of their S-61s have them in a yellow scheme but this one was a dark grey. It was a nice-looking finish but a bit tough if the lighting wasn’t great. The S-61 has plenty of rivets which make for some cool textures in the right light. It was also fitted with a good bubble window for monitoring the load along with some duplicate engine gauges on the outside in the line of sight of the lifting pilot. I had fingers crossed for good conditions to get it in flight…

Hatley Castle

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About half an hour from the center of Victoria BC is a large estate called Hatley Castle. It is a pretty grand place in a lot of land. Much of the land is now turned over to a university with the campus buildings spread out through the estate. The old house is still there and I think it now an administrative building for the university. I read that it is also used for a lot of filming work.

The house is quite impressive and there are also some formal gardens. We wandered around the outside of the house and up the hill a little. We could look over one of the gardens from the terrace area but it appeared the access to the gardens was restricted when we were there. Not sure whether that was a COVID issue or just for work to be done. The lawns slope down towards the sea and there is a nice view from the terrace. It isn’t hard to see why someone chose to build their home there!

Tufting The Wing

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I didn’t notice this at the time but, while working my way through some shots of the Alice taxi trials, I realized that the port wing is tufted. Tufting is a simple but effective way to see how the flow is behaving on a surface. It does need to be recorded, though, so I then looked for the camera and saw the blister up on the side of the fuselage that must contain the camera. I don’t know whether they have been paying attention to the flow visualization while doing taxi trials or not. They have had flaps down as well as up but, without the nose off the ground, maybe there has not been anything significant to see. They sure aren’t saying and have other things to address after some of the testing issues.

Kite Surfing on Puget Sound

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One weekend afternoon, we took a walk through Discovery Park in Seattle. We started up near to the top of the park and then took a trail that brought us down to the shore. The trail continued along to the lighthouse at which point we started back to our origination point. As we walked along the shore, the wind was quite brisk and it was proving to be fun for some guy that was out kite surfing. Not only was he enjoying the conditions but I think he quite liked the attention. He was very close in to the shore so was being watched by a lot of people doing the same thing as us. I shot a little video of him before moving on and here is what I saw.

Alaska’s New Special

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The arrival of this Alaska 737 on the flight line at Renton got a lot of attention from the locals. A special livery is always going to be of interest but this one is better than the average. The dark blue combined with the orcas is a really cool look. I first saw the jet while it was on the flight line at Renton ahead of a first flight. I wasn’t able to get it as it left Renton but I was able to catch its arrival at BFI. After a few test flights, it has now been delivered to Alaska so now I just have to hope I can catch it in better conditions.

Wispy High Cloud Sunset

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A good sunset requires some nice high clouds. I was up at Arlington watching the recovery of the Alice prototype after it had done some off-roading and the light was fading fast. The clouds were quite high level and not terribly extensive so they provided a nice canvas for the low setting sun to illuminate. Sunset shots always seem like a lazy shot but it looks so good so why not photograph it?