Category Archives: Travel

Car Transporter

The movement of cars around the world requires a specialist type of ship and, while they may be functionally effective, they are not good looking ships. They have the appearance of a box on the water. The large rear loading ramp allows the cars to be loaded and then they get driven around the multitude of decks for storage. This example was coming up the Solent and heading in to Southampton. A similar example had a shift of load in this area and was put aground on the Brambles Bank to avoid sinking. No issues in this case, of course.

Aldeburgh Lifeboat

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Our UK trip had a bit of an RNLI feel to it. We spent some time at the Bembridge lifeboat station as showed up here and here. When we got to Aldeburgh, it turned out that they also had a lifeboat station. It was quite a modern facility and very different to the Bembridge station. Bembridge has a boathouse with a slipway straight in to the water. Aldeburgh has a trailer mounted boat with a tractor unit to take it down across the shingle to the water’s edge.

The building has space for the boat on one side and the tractor on the other. There is also an inshore boat. The facility seems to be pretty modern with some nice space for the crew to keep their equipment and change when they need to go into service. It was a lot quieter than the Bembridge station with only the occasional visitor but worth a look if you happen to be on this part of the Suffolk coast.

The Conflict of Sharpness and Prop Vortices

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Damp days can make for great prop vortices on takeoff. However, I have been feeling less than satisfied with my results recently. As I was going through some shots, I made a discovery that should probably have been something I worked out before. I like to have a good amount of prop blur so drop the shutter speed down when I can. I go with a high frame rate with the aim of getting a good sharp shot amongst the more blurry examples.

As I go through the shots, the sharp ones have okay prop vortices but not great. Then I will come across some really nice vortices but the shot is otherwise not sharp. It seems that, in panning with the plane to get a sharp shot, the trailing vortex gets blurred out. If I am not panning well, the vortex can be the thing I have tracked better and it shows up well. I have seen shots from others with the props almost frozen with a high shutter speed and the vortices easily seen.

Consequently, I am going to have to make a decision in future. How much prop blur do I want versus the ability to see the vortices well. A little trial and error will be involved. At least it is fall/winter so the Pacific Northwest will probably provide me plenty of damp days on which to experiment!

Tokyo Station – Home of Different Shinkansen Fleets

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I have posted a variety of pictures of the Tokaido Shinkansen system from my visits to Japan. Tokyo Station is the end of the line for JR Central. However, it isn’t the only Shinkansen service from this station. JR East Shinkansen services also serve the station. They head north out of the station while JRC heads south. The lines are not connected so this is a terminus for both companies. However, when you look down on the station, you can see both operators. I took these pictures from our office window looking down on the station and you can see a variety of Shinkansen equipment on the JR East Platforms as well as a JRC train passing underneath.

Founders’ Plaza at DFW

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I had heard about Founder’s Plaza at DFW before but I had never been there. I took a couple of trips there during my free weekend in Texas. It is a nice place to watch the planes and had a steady stream of visitors while I was there. Not only are there seats with sunshades, but there is plenty of grass on which to hang out and kids can run around without parents being too worried. You are close to the approach path for the western runways at DFW and there is a lot of traffic to watch.

You also see the planes taxiing out for departure on this side but the shots of those planes are sketchy as heat haze is a bit tricky for most of the day. It does appear that you are able to walk around towards the centerline of the outer runway but I didn’t try heading over there on this occasion. As the evening light settled in, the conditions got better and better. I imagine it gets a bit repetitive if you are a regular but, as a visitor, it was great to try somewhere new. I did end up with a lot of American Airlines jets, of course.

Fort Worth Stock Yards

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A work trip to Texas included a weekend where I was free to do some exploring. I decided that the Stock Yards in Fort Worth would be worth a look. I knew a little about it but not much. There were the buildings left from the time when the yards were actively trading cattle. These are now repurposed for the tourist business. They also have some of the surrounding buildings like the hotels and bars that probably are still serving much the same purpose as they always have.

A lot of exhibits were set up with people in costume cooking or working with traditional crafts. These were in a variety of tents. They didn’t seem to be getting a lot of visitors and I felt a little conspicuous photographing them as a result but I guess that is all part of the attraction. There was more to come but that will be another post.

Tornados and a Jag – My Old Handling Buddies

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In my days in the aerodynamics department at Warton, I spent time working on the current aircraft handling section. This included a number of types but the main focus was on jaguar and Tornado work. When we were walking around the hangars at Duxford, there were examples of both jets on display. The Tornado was a big part of what I worked on and I had always loved the jet as it was coming in to service at the time I was getting interested in aircraft. The GR4 version is on display.

The Jaguar had been around a long time when I was getting into planes and the Tornado ended up replacing the Jaguars in the RAF Germany strike role. The jet continued for a lot longer though and got some decent upgrades late in life. I had a great time climbing over a jet in the hangar at Warton as we were looking at clearing a new store on the overwing pylon. A lot of fun!

Gastown Steam Clock

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One of the tourist attractions in Gastown in Vancouver is the Steam Clock. Sitting on a street corner, this looks like a giant grandfather clock with steam whistles on the top of it. It was surrounded by tourists and the number of selfies being taken was substantial. We were there close to the top of the hour so we waited around to see what happened. Below is some video of the lock striking the hour if striking is the right word.

My First A350-1000 – Thanks Qatar

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The A350-1000 has started to be delivered in some numbers. However, none of the operators that I get to see regularly has any in their fleet at this point. Some of the early deliveries went to Qatar Airways and they have been flying them to Dallas. Since I had a free weekend in the area on a work trip, I decided to catch my first examples.

Things conspired a little against me, though. On the Saturday, the weather that had just passed through had left some northerly winds which meant the approaches were coming from the south which is not so handy for getting shots. I did find a location but it wasn’t a great spot. Heat haze was still a bit of a problem and the angles were rather limited.

On the Sunday, normal service was resumed with a southerly flow. However, just before the A350 showed up, they decided to do a sweep of the runway. They moved arrivals to the inside runway which meant it the Qatar jet was a bit far away compared to everything that had been arriving on the outer runway a short while before. Still, I got the shots. It also taxied out just before the sun went down. However, they crossed to the other side for departure so not much of a shot opportunity.

Not Sure This Bunker Would Have Survived

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Perched above the beach at Lepe in Hampshire, overlooking the Solent, is an old bunker. It is surrounded by fencing and there is signage about the purpose of the bunker. You can see the hatch to access the bunker as well as some of the vents for the space below. I’m not sure what the bunker was designed to survive. It is close to a huge oil refinery and close to the headquarters of the Royal Navy. In a shooting war, there would have been some large detonations nearby. I doubt it would have provided sufficient protection to its occupants.