Category Archives: Travel

Kauai Sunrise

One of the great opportunities on Kauai is to see the sunset. Sure, you can get great sunsets in a whole bunch of places but somehow it seems better when you are in a tropical paradise! This year we didn’t make the trip to the beach at Ke’e which is a popular sunset spot. Of course, sunset isn’t the only opportunity.

The sun comes up in some pretty ways to and where we stayed provides a good view of proceeding. We did get a few opportunities to see the sun come up (the time change makes for early rising) and light up the sky. However, the weather wasn’t always cooperative on this trip so it was the luck of the draw some times. However, I think we did okay!

Hawaii Time

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We recently got to take another great trip. Like last year, we were back in Hawaii and most of the time was spent on Kauai with a bit of time on Maui at the end. There is no disguising it – Hawaii is a great place to go. Whether it is the beautiful scenery, the activities to be done or the chance to just relax away from everything for a while, it is a great spot.

We did a bunch of stuff while we were there and this is going to drip feed into the blog in the coming weeks. So much to see and report you will be sick of it before too long. However, I will try and intersperse a few other bits into the stream so you don’t feel it is too one-sided. Besides, where are the planes?

Bay Area Birds

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A while back I was in in the Bay Area and was near SFO. While the area is a good one for getting shots of the airliner traffic heading into the airport there, it is also a great spot for seeing some birds. The tidal flats are a popular spot for a bunch of shoreline birds. There are also some large birds like egrets that hang out there.

Pelicans are another type that show up pretty frequently. Coyote Point is a good spot for the pelicans since they like to soar along the ridge formed by the point and come right past you. I wasn’t there to specifically take pictures but I did manage to grab some of them as they came by. Hummingbirds also hang out on the point but I didn’t get any shots of them this time. However, there is always another chance!

Dreamliner Storage

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A recent trip to the Pacific Northwest recently included a free afternoon in which I had a chance to do some exploring. When I first new I was going to be in the area for a couple of hours, I wondered what to do. I was thinking about shooting at Boeing Field or Everett. Everett can have some interesting moves but can also have absolutely nothing happening. Boeing Field can be the same of course. I was still pondering this when on the flight across and then it occurred to me that Everett had some other things I had been meaning to do for a while other than hope for wide-body moves from the Boeing plant.

Paine Field (to give it its proper name) is home to a number of vintage aircraft collections. I shall describe more exploration of them in upcoming posts. However, as an appetizer, I shall mention something that does involve Boeing wide-bodies. The 787 parking lot! I knew that Boeing had produced a bunch of 787 airframes while they were still dealing with the design and production issues and that these were stored awaiting rework for delivery. I had even seem some pictures. However, I guess I had not really thought about it until I got there.

Paine Field is covered in Dreamliners! They are everywhere. Every time you go to a different part of the field, you come across 787s parked up. Some are in areas being worked on prior to delivery. Others are sitting on spare ramp space awaiting their turn in the rework process. Some can be identified either because they are fully painted or parts of them are that allow you to work out where they will go. Others are just white and who knows what awaits them. They have large weights attached to the engine pylons to keep them balanced without forking out huge amounts of cash for the engines. If you are of an accounting bent, you will still marvel at the amount of cash tied up in these airframes that will not be cleared out for at least 18 months. No engines reduces this a bit but they are still expensive things to have lying around. Boeing ran out of their own space so they are renting space from the airport for all of this parking. I guess the airport is happy to have a bunch of cash coming in without having to suffer too much inconvenience!

If you are anywhere near Everett in the coming months, do at least pass by to see just how much is there. Of course there are plenty of new jets being readied for delivery too but that just makes it look even more amazing!

Oshkosh

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Here we go with a short post for today. EAA’s annual extravaganza that is Airventure (or Oshkosh to pretty much everyone else) has recently concluded. I was there for GAR for a few of the days. Oshkosh is a great experience and one that any aviation nut should try and do at least once.

There is way too much going on at Oshkosh to make a single blog posting out of it. Instead, you will be getting bits and pieces drip fed over the coming posts. My coverage of it for GAR also has to go out so I won’t be duplicating anything from there (well, not much anyway). However, hopefully this will give you a few views of Airventure from my perspective.

Up front, I must say thanks to all of the friends I already have that I met there as well as the new ones I made. Oshkosh is certainly something at which you can wander off for hours at a time to experience what is happening. However, it is nice to be able to know you can expect someone to be around when you come back so you can share what you have been up to and talk rubbish about planes for ages. Thanks everyone.

SFO

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My work recently took me out the the Bay Area for a number of meetings. When they were all finished, I needed to write up some notes. Tapping on the laptop is something that can be achieved wherever you are. Also, SFO has a nice diverse selection of aircraft that visit. Therefore, my decision was made to take the laptop and the camera and head to Coyote Point. During the week there are less people there so it is quite a peaceful place to get some work done.

Of course, whenever something interesting made its way in to the approach, I could look up and grab a couple of shots before returning to my tasks at hand. SFO is like many hub airports in that it has a lot of the same things coming in and out. However, it has a lot of long haul traffic as well which provides an opportunity to see something a little different. This can include newer aircraft as well as those that are on their way out.

Lufthansa is now operating A380s in to SFO so catching that on the approach was a nice new thing to see. Meanwhile, the number of 747s arriving is gradually going down as they get phased out. Cathay brought one in as I was arriving. I imagine they won’t be around for much longer.

The sun was bright but the air temperature was relatively low. This meant that the heat haze was not too much of a problem. I could even get reasonable shots of the airport itself as the aircraft landed (nothing that would be publishable but not bad). A buddy was coming in with a BA 747 later in the day so I decided to move to the area on the shore near the Marriott to get some different shots. Unfortunately, this was not a good move. The heat haze to the runway at low tide was quite bad and most shots do not survive too detailed scrutiny. One to remember if I find myself back there at any time.

Tucson F-16s

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I recently was in Tucson AZ for a piece I was working on for the magazine. Since that is yet to be public, I will have to hold off on putting anything from the visit on here. However, I did have a morning free before my flight home and decided to check out the F-16 operations that take place at Tucson’s international airport. I hadn’t visited the airport before so I checked in with my friend Jay to find out what the options are for shooting at the field.

Jay gave me some suggestions on locations as well as the times of day that things are likely to happen. This was focused on first thing in the morning since it is a little warm in Tucson at this time of year. 105F is not just uncomfortable to be out and about in but it does cause lots of heat haze issues which makes for tricky shooting conditions. Besides, I did have a plane to catch.

I got the the departure end of things and the timing of the first wave of F-16s was pretty much as predicted. While you have a good view of the aircraft on their takeoff run, most shots before they get close are pointless since the heat haze is very strong. That didn’t stop me trying some of course. However, there are a lot of shots of that type that did not make it through the first cull of bad images!

With the first wave away, I moved to the other end of the field to get the recoveries. Not only was Jay’s suggestion well placed for getting the aircraft as they came in but it also provided a measure of shelter from the sun. This was very welcome. Depending on the pilots, the jets turn in very close to you and provide a nice angle that you don’t often get. Some pilots turned a lot further out although I did notice one jet which was a two seater do that on its first pass and it was a lot tighter on the second pass. i wonder what the conversation was like in that jet.

I got the recoveries of the jets that had launched earlier along with a few civilian arrivals before deciding that it was too warm. Then I did a little exploration around the field but that will be a different post!

WWII Memorial

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The World War II memorial opened a few years ago, after we were no longer living in DC. However, I have been to DC a number of times for various work tasks and have had a chance to visit it before. It is a very large memorial and impresses you with the scale of itself which is probably appropriate given the scale of the conflict and the loss of life it represents.

There are two halves to the memorial, one representing the Pacific conflict and the other the Atlantic. Each of the states are represented on columns around the site and there are several water features. On a hot day, the large expanses of light colored stone can make the temperature a little hard after a while so the running water and the areas of shade can be a welcome respite.

The whole design is very classical in its approach. Whether this is a reflection of the response to previous monuments to conflicts on the Mall or whether it is just what seemed appropriate to those selecting the bidding architects I don’t know. I think it works well and sometimes you don’t have to be different. Since the whole installation is so large, a classical approach seems quite appropriate. It is interesting that it took so long for this memorial to be built but now it is there, it adds an appropriate element to the Mall.

Albert Einstein

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Just across from the Lincoln Memorial is the National Academy of Sciences. On the grounds in the front of the building is a sculpture of Albert Einstein. It is a great sculpture since it is quite sizable and impressive yet is in a style that is very relaxed. It gets a few visitors at a time but isn’t very busy so is a nice distraction from the business of the rest of the Mall. It is also just the right size to encourage you to sit in his lap. I include a picture of Chris doing just that so you can gauge the scale.

Korean War Memorial

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The Korean War Memorial opened around the time I lived in DC in the 90s. I thought it was really cool when I first saw it and I still think it is an impressive monument. It is particularly good to see in the rain since the outfits the soldiers are wearing in the sculpture are big ponchos and, on a dull and wet day, the image of the guys out on patrol is particularly evocative.

It was sunny this time so the effect wasn’t quite the same but the sculptures are still very impressive. I had not remembered the water features around the memorial as much as the sculptures so this was a bit of a discovery for me. The number of visitors was very high so it was hard to get the alone feeling that seems appropriate for the whole place but it is still a very interesting place to visit.

It was not long after Memorial Day when we were there so there were a lot of flowers around the memorial and many personal messages that people had placed. This always adds a personal feel to any memorial.