Category Archives: photo

Beaulieu

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A spot of Sunday lunch with the family meant a trip out to Beaulieu.  Located in the New Forest, it is well known as the home of the National Motor Museum.  However, that was not our destination.  Instead it was the Montagu Arms for some food and then a stroll around the village.  It seems the place is also a destination for people with old cars as a few rumbled through the place while we were there including what I think is an MG-A that I did happen to get a shot of.

The swans that were swimming nearby seemed pretty interested in us when they thought there was food involved but rapidly realized we were of no use to them and went back to what they were doing – also eating it seemed.  We did notice a house across from the pub with conspicuously red doors.  It attracted a lot of people who were having their picture taken outside so I wonder whether this is a location that is popular on Instagram?

Piaggio Doesn’t Just Mean Avantis!

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I am a big fan of a certain Piaggio aircraft this this post is not about the Avanti.  This is an older generation of Piaggio aircraft and a piston powered one at that.  However, it still goes with the theme of interesting configurations and it is a pusher.  The P.166 is an interesting looking plane and this one appeared at RIAT.  Apparently, it is a regular for the show but a first for me.

I didn’t see it arrive so my first look was in the static display.  It was parked up at the end of the field but this was the end where I was parking so I got to see it each time I arrived.  It was fenced off on the Friday but was easier to see after that.  I was hoping to get a good look at it on departures day but it only backtracked a short way and then took off away from the FRIAT stand.  That was a touch disappointing but there were a lot of planes to get out that day, so I guess there was no point making it use all of one of the UK’s longest runways!

Bring a Couch to the Fireworks

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Fireworks displays attract lots of people and they come prepared in all sorts of ways.  Some will come with a blanket to sit on.  Others will bring folding chair and tables and maybe a bunch of food to go with it.  It may be that they just come as they are ready to sit on the grass and keep it simple.  However, I haven’t seen anyone bring a couch – until now!

Some Other Evening Arrivals While Waiting for Cathay

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Earlier this year I went out to get the Cathay Pacific A350 arrival later in the evening when the light was still good due to the longer days in summer.  Of course, Cathay wasn’t the only airline coming in at that time.  Some of the regular visitors also were arriving and even using the inner runway that is often only used by the heavier jets.  Here are a few shots from the other arrivals in the nice light you can get late on a summer evening.

A Nice Boulevard Led to a Temple!

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Walking back through Kamakura, we ducked down a back street to see what was on the parallel roads.  We came to a street that had a really attractive tree lined boulevard feel to it.  At the end of the boulevard, there appeared to be a big arch so we headed up to take a look.  It turned out to be the entrance to a quite large temple.  This wasn’t something we had planned on so we weren’t going to spend a lot of time there but it would have been churlish to ignore it!

There were lots of visitors to the temple so it seemed a bit odd to have just stumbled across the place.  There were ponds to one side with large numbers of lily pads, the leaves of which people seemed to have taken to throwing coins on to.  The main temple was up a large flight of stairs.  We had other things to do so skipped the trip up there and in no way was this as a result of the excessive heat of the day and the way it looked like it would make us even hotter!

Trislander!

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I have written on the blog about the family connection to Bembridge on the Isle of Wight.  Bembridge Airport was, for many years, the center of operations for Britten Norman – manufacturers of the Islander aircraft.  The Islander has been a very successful twin engine piston that can get into all sorts of strips around the world.  It remains in production in small numbers and can be found at remote strips all over the world.

It has a less well known sibling though.  When you want to increase the capacity, you need more power.  You could go for more powerful engines – or you could add a third.  Where to put it though?  How about at the top of the fin?  That is what led to the Trislander.  I used to see them a lot as a kid but now they are less common.  Aurigny operated them from the UK mainland to the Channel Islands until relatively recently but they have now been retired.  Duxford has received one of their planes so I was really happy to see it there.  I guess this is a plane that only a mother can love but there is something about it.  Apparently one used to be in the Pacific Northwest but hasn’t been seen for a few years.  I would love to see one fly again.

Crunching Concrete and Steel

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Removing the viaduct takes some specialized machinery.  This one piece that was working near Pike Place Market had a couple of different attachments for the task.  The process of switching heads was interesting in itself.  A drilling head was used to punch holes through the deck of the viaduct and to remove the material from between the beams.  There was also a head that was a cutting jaw.  This would grab the side barriers and rip them from the structure.  It would crunch through sections and break them in to manageable sizes.  The effortless with which this seemingly solid structure was crunch into small pieces was intimidating!

Ukrainian Sukhois

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Non-Western jets are always a strong attraction at a Western air show and the appearance of the Ukrainian Sukhois at RIAT was no exception.  The SU-27 is a beast of a jet and quite an impressive performer at a show.  The arrival was cool and the practice display was welcome.  I was a bit annoyed as I didn’t have the camera to hand when the jet thundered off the runway and turned towards us and blasted over our heads at the Western Park and View.

The light wasn’t great for any of the times I saw the jet fly but the sky blue camo scheme it wore seemed to do a good job of picking up the light as it maneuvered around the display.  Plenty of blasts of power for the engines combined with a damp atmosphere allowing a bit of vapor to be pulled from the air was pretty cool.  The front fuselage shape is a little odd and this shows more so when on the ground where it droops down.  Once airborne, things are different.

Something photos don’t show is the way in which the auxiliary inlet doors on the underside of the intakes flap around in certain flight regimes.  Looking through the viewfinder, you could see them oscillating a lot but only video would show that off.  It was a long time since I had last seen the Ukrainian jets at Fairford and this was my first time to shoot them digitally.  They were accompanied by an IL-76 and I suspect that will get a post one day!

 

Bruce and Brandon’s Last Resting Place

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I don’t want to look like I spend a lot of time visiting the graves of the famous but Seattle has a few on offer.  Jimi was covered in this previous post and today’s is about a couple of other famous Seattle performers.  Bruce Lee is buried in Lakeview Cemetery which is up on the hill between Lake Washington and Lake Union.  Alongside him is buried his son Brandon.  Brandon died during the filming of The Crow.

Their grave site brings a regular stream of visitors on a sunny day such as the one that took us there.  The location is very pleasant with rolling hills and views to the water in both directions.  We took a walk around a bit more of the cemetery and the following shots are of other locations we saw during our brief visit.  It seems like somewhere that it will be worth spending longer to look around at a later date.

An MRJ Comes This Side of the Cascades

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A lunchtime jaunt up to Everett was the result of ATS carrying out a test flight of a Janet 737.  I got to the field with a little time in hand and was looking on FlightRadar24 for the position of the inbound jet when I saw something orbiting north of me up near Concrete.  It turned out to be one of the Mitsubishi MRJ90 test aircraft.  It was flying a series of patterns up there.  Since they carry out the test flying from Moses Lake, I wasn’t so surprised.  More importantly, I figured that they would head back to base when they were done.

Imagine my surprise when the radio burst to life with their callsign setting up on the approach.  A Janet was worth the trip but the MRJ was truly a bonus.  I have only seen one before and that was a delivery flight from Japan to Moses Lake that staged through San Jose and was in the blog here.  I hoped it was a different jet, but wasn’t going to gripe if it wasn’t (and I was pretty sure it wasn’t based on recollection of the registration).

The jet hummed its way down the approach and landed in front of me (and a few others that either knew or had got similarly lucky).  It them taxied back and held in front of FHCAM.  There was a departing Embraer in front of it so I figured it was waiting for them.  However, they departed and it didn’t move for a while.  I needed to head back so was desperately hoping it would go soon.  Just as I was about to give up, they released the brakes and taxied to the hold.  The departure was pretty quiet with the Pratt GTFs not making much noise at all.

The original colors of the jet appear to have been overtaken by test markings.  There were some details around the engine inlets and the upper rear fuselage had been painted black.  I suspected this might be for testing of water ingestion to help visualize the water flow but if anyone knows better what the purpose is, please do let me know.