Category Archives: photo

Ferrari F40

Super cars have come a long way. Now they are ridiculously powerful and also very technologically advanced. A supercar from the 80s has a very sparse feel to it in comparison. Coming across a Ferrari F40 was quite a throwback for me. I saw my first F40 when I was a student. It was parked in a mews street in Kensington near a pub I used to frequent (that doesn’t narrow it down much). I was shocked to see one then and I still am a little shocked now. This one was not getting as much interest as I thought it was due but I was happy not to have it surrounded by people.

A DHL Delivery But to Them Rather Than By Them

Leave a Reply

A lot of freighters come out of Everett these days. All 747s are now freighters as are the 767s. The 777 passenger variants are a regular feature but there is quite a demand for 777Fs too. I saw one go to DHL not long ago. They have some aircraft already in service but they are in a hybrid scheme. This was the first one to be delivered in the full DHL yellow colors. It taxied out and went to the other end of the field for a northerly departure which meant we got a good view of it airborne. The short delivery flight across the US meant it was rather light so it got airborne quickly and was a long way up by the time it got to us again!

Porsche 928 Takes Me Back to My Youth

Leave a Reply

I have mentioned that I am not much of a Porsche guy but my college years did include rather a penchant for the Porsche 928. This was a car I could really have enjoyed has a huge amount of cash come my way at the time. The later models, like the S4 and the GT, were something that looked super cool to me. Seeing a rather racy looking 928 at Redmond was a very pleasant surprise. Annoyingly, a lot of people seemed to be around it while looking in the opposite direction so I struggled to get some shots of it but managed to find a way to get a few. I wonder if it goes as well as it looks?

Lots of Max Jets in Storage

Leave a Reply

The grounding of the 737 Max fleet has resulted in plenty of parked jets. I have shown them at Paine Field but Boeing Field seems to be a big storage location. The employee parking lot has been turned into a 737 parking lot. I have seen jets over there before either awaiting engines or from customers that can’t pay but nothing on this scale.

I took a trip to South Park so I could walk across the bridge and get a good view down into the storage area. I made a rough count and think there were probably over fifty jets stored there. While Boeing cut the production rate after the grounding, they only took it down to 42 a month so jets are still coming out at a prodigious rate. This area is full so, aside from Paine Field and Renton, I believe they are flying them to other storage locations.

Staring at an Escalator

Leave a Reply

I was waiting for some visitors at the airport. At SeaTac, you stand at the top of the escalator waiting for people to come out from the shuttle station. I was starting at the escalator for quite some time and decided to see just how slow a shot I could take with the cellphone. Using ProShot, I have a lot of shutter speed control but the brightness does eventually overwhelm things a bit. However, it was still possible to play with some interesting effects with the steps blurring out along with anyone standing on them!

Reverser Close Up

Leave a Reply

When you get lots of similar jets arriving, you can mess around a bit. The 500mm was far too long for the touchdown shots for most aircraft but, when you are getting a bunch of Air Canada A320s, no harm in cropping in really tight on some of them. The CFM-56 reversers are a bucket type so they splay out from the nacelle. With the evening light, you can see lots of detail in the structure. I played with a similar effect on some of the other jets too.

One of My Dream Rally Cars

Leave a Reply

The 80s was a time of some crazy cars in the rally world. Rallying was a big deal in those days and the impact it had on car sales was significant. The hot hatches were heavily influenced by rally based marketing. One car that was a big success in WRC was the Lancia Delta Integrale. The road cars that came from homologation of rally cars were hot property. Coming across one now is even more exciting than it was back then. This Integrale was part of Exotics @ RTC. It wasn’t getting a whole lot of attention (plenty of supercars on display to attract the visitors) but there were probably a few guys my age that recognized it and appreciated what it was.

Fatigue 777X in the Test Frame

Leave a Reply

Having seen the fatigue test 777X emerged from the production hangars (as I covered in this post), I assumed it had moved to the test area. I once made a drive around the back of the factory at Everett to see some of the discarded airframe structures that they have stored once they are finished with. I wrote about that in this post. The fatigue test area is in the same place so I thought a drive around was a good idea. Sure enough, the 777X was in the fatigue test rig. I guess it will be there for quite a while as they push and pull it to simulate many cycles of loading and see whether the structure has any long term issues to be addressed.

Another Boat Out of the Water in Anacortes

1 Reply

During a vacation trip to Anacortes, prior to moving to Washington, I posted some pictures of a large vessel out on the dockside being worked on. I was quite taken with seeing it so high out of the water. That post is here if you are interested. We were passing through Anacortes again recently and I decided to go back to the same shipyard to see if something else was there. Sure enough, another large vessel was sitting in the yard undergoing work.

Seeing a ship this large out of the water is impressive to me. I got a few photos. It was an interesting shaped hull. I think it had propulsor units of some sort based on rotating vanes rather than traditional propellers. They were a bit hard to see but I think that was what was back there. My friendly marine engineers might step in here and help out.

How Did I Miss the Radar Testbed?

Leave a Reply

I was walking around the new Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Tukwila after the opening ceremonies had concluded. A few things took off while I was there but nothing caught my eye. Then I heard another jet get airborne. I looked around and saw a CRJ climbing out. However, this was no normal CRJ. It was one of the Northrop Grumman radar test beds. These have replaced the BAC1-11 jets that are now all retired. I got the camera up late (settings weren’t ideal either) and shot it as it disappeared into the distance. I had no idea it was on the ground (and would have gone looking for it had I known). Oh well, win some lose some!