Category Archives: Travel

Oshkosh

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.

US Capitol

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The US Capitol topped and tailed our trip to DC. We came into Union Station when we entered the city and so the Capitol is just a short walk away. Chris went and shot some images there while I was in my meeting so I bypassed it when I was trying to catch up with him. This ended up working in my favor.

On our return leg, the weather had improved from the cloudy skies we had started out with and, more importantly, the sun was starting to go down so the light was getting a lot more friendly. Also, a third upside was that there weren’t too many people around any more. Therefore, while we were a bit bushed and also keeping an eye on the time of our train back to the airport, we stopped off and grabbed a few shots of the Capitol before heading home.

Lincoln Memorial

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Continuing the Washington tour, we headed to the Lincoln Memorial. This one isn’t an unfamiliar subject and there is only so much you can do that is new. I was also a little constrained by the time of day we were there but enough of the excuses. I still got a few shots of the memorial as we looked around. It is an impressive structure and very popular. Consequently, there are a lot of people there at almost any time of day.

With so many people there, you are not often going to get the chance to have the scene clear of people so you make the best of it. I figured I would go as wide as possible in order to make the people less prominent in the shots. Whether this really worked or not, I am not sure. I also decided to do a panorama inside the building to try and get the wide shot without the distortion the fish-eye can bring.

That didn’t stop me playing with the fish as well. It certainly provides a different look at some things but the large amount of vertical references really shows the distortion. Still, it was worth a try.

MLK Memorial in DC

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The next few posts will all be related. My nephew, Chris, was staying with us recently and, while he was here, I needed to travel to Washington DC for a meeting. Since Chris had never seen Washington and my meeting would not take up the whole day, I took him along so he could see a bit more of what the country has to offer a visitor. It was only one day but Washington is nice and compact when you are looking at some of the more obvious tourist attractions provided you are ready to walk.

It was an early start and a long day out but we covered a lot of things. Today I shall start with one that was new to me as well. The Dr Martin Luther King Jr memorial is a relatively new addition to the collection of monuments around the Mall area in Washington. I had heard about it and was interested to see how it looked. I was not alone as there were plenty of people walking across to find it.

A number of features were of interest to me. There is a quote from Dr King on one of the stones which says “Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” I am not familiar with the full quote and its context but the entrance to the memorial is a large rock from which a central section has been extracted. This section is placed further into the memorial and it is on this section that his likeness is sculpted. As I saw the relationship between the two parts, I was quite taken with it.

I know the memorial has not be universally well received but I liked this entrance feature combining with the sculpture, the wall of quotations and the general feel down by the tidal basin. I imagine that it will be a popular place in years to come. The Vietnam Memorial was controversial when it was created and it is now considered iconic so we shall see how time judges this memorial too.

Virginia Air Power Park

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Just down the road from the Virginia Air and Space Museum is the Virginia Air Power Park. This has some similarities to the Air and Space Museum and some differences. First, since it is also close to the Air Force and NASA facilities, it shares the access to some interesting exhibits. Therefore, there are some very interesting aircraft on display. This includes an XV-6 Kestrel from NASA, just like the Air and Space Museum. Strange that such a rare aircraft should have two on display in such close proximity!

The differences are more pronounced. It is an outdoor exhibition and decidedly less glamorous. Getting funding to look after the aircraft is a continuing issue for the team there and they are working hard at it. Some of the aircraft are repainted but others a in need of a new coat when they can get it. Since everything is outdoors, I imagine that the preservation task is a more difficult one. We were there on a rather grey day. It had been raining heavily and was still cloudy and dull while we were there. Some of the aircraft were standing in large puddles which can’t be good for them.

None of this is meant to be critical of the team. That they are doing what they can to keep these aircraft on display is great but it must be a struggle to make sure that they are not going to rot away. Not only are there aircraft but also some interesting missile and some rockets from the space program’s test activities. They also have some capsule hardware from test activities.

There is a building at the park as well which currently contains a wide selection of models of different aircraft, ships and spacecraft. Again, if you are passing by, I would recommend you pay it a visit but you might need to make sure you have some shoes that don’t mind puddles!