Updated AAC Apaches

Leave a Reply

The British Army bought a bunch of Apaches which were locally assembled by Westland and were fitted with Rolls Royce Turbomeca engines to bolster the local content.  Since that acquisition, the Apache has gone through a bunch of upgrades and the current AH-64E Apache Guardian is the latest and greatest.  The British Army decided to acquire these and, this time, there is none of the local content to worry about.  Their airframes have been rotated back to Boeing and AH-64E airframes get delivered.  Some might have originally been British but others are not.

Middle Wallop is not the busy airfield it once was but there is still some Army flying underway and that includes operation of these new Apaches.  While I was visiting, there were some airframes flying around the local countryside and also doing some pattern work.  They pattern is a bit distant from the museum area but I was still able to catch some shots of them.  Hopefully I will see them in more detail at some point but this was my first encounter with the updated fleet.

Car Transporters Are So Elegant

Leave a Reply

Having grown up by the sea, I always like looking at passing ships.  However, there are some that are just a little bit harder to like.  Car transporters are that type of ship.  While on the Isle of Wight, I saw this one passing by.  I was going to take a shot of it because when don’t I take a photo but this is a prime example of just how lacking in grace this type of ship is.

F-35A Demo At Seafair

Leave a Reply

The F-35’s appearance at Seafair has resulted in a few posts of departures and arrivals at Boeing Field on this blog.  However, I don’t think I have actually shared any shots of the display itself.  I quite enjoyed the demo routine that the USAF had last year.  Unfortunately, the display axis for Seafair is a long way from the shore so the shots were a bit distant.  I also didn’t know the routine and was caught out when flares were dispensed and so didn’t get shots of those that I am happy with.  However, there were a few times when the jet came in close to the shore and I got some closer views.  I do want to see the display at a more conventional location at some point.

Pipes And Valves

Leave a Reply

In a previous post I talked about the visit to the Georgetown Steam Plant.  I mentioned in that post that there are all sorts of interesting details around the plant with the old technology of vale’s and pipes – technology that probably is still pretty relevant today.  This post is a sequence of shots that I got while wandering around the plant that show some of the more interesting detail elements.

Experimental Grand Caravan That Was Lost

Leave a Reply

I was down at Renton and drove around the back of the ramp.  There was a Cessna Grand Caravan parked up and I was tempted to get a shot.  They have made that area a lot harder to see recently and I didn’t bother.  However, I was up on the other side of the field at the overlook when it taxied out for departure.  I heard the call sign was experimental which caught my interest and I grabbed some shots as it took off.

A few days later I heard of a plane crash up near Snohomish.  I had seen this plane flying patterns up there when I was looking earlier in the day and, when I saw pictures on the news sites of the crash, I could see the registration was the same plane.  I understand they were trialing something new – perhaps a baggage pod – but I have no idea what happened.  It looked as if the wing had separated in flight since it was a long way away.  The test pilot was one of the Kenmore Air staff.  He died along with one other person on board.  A very sad story.

Swiss Cottage in Osborne’s Grounds

Leave a Reply

Some kids are lucky and get to have a tree house or something in the garden to play with.  If you are a member of the royal family and the child of Queen Victoria, things are a little bit more extreme.  The Swiss Cottage in the grounds of Osborne House is quite something.  Here the royal children got to play all sorts of pretend.  I’m sure they had plenty of staff to make sure things worked out the way they wanted.

The house itself is good enough for anyone to live in.  The interior is fitted out to provide any sort of entertainment you might want.  Now it is also a museum of various artifacts from the household.  Some of these are rather suspect items to a modern eye.  Things that were taken from conquered countries and clothing from someone killed in battle make for a slightly uncomfortable viewing.

The grounds around the cottage are also interesting.  There is a fort that was built by one of the princes.  I think by looking at it that the prince had no real effort in building it.  Some military staff were apparently roped in to this process.  This fort looks a lot more impressive than the average fort a kid might make.  This is not cardboard boxes and sofa cushions.

FedEx Skycourier Arrival in the PNW

Leave a Reply

Late in 2022, an interesting arrival came to SEA in the form of a Textron Cessna 408 Skycourier.  I had seen my first example of this plane at Boeing Field as it transited from Alaska back to Wichita.  That had been a crappy weather day and this was no improvement.  This was the first example to show up in the region in the colors of FedEx.  I am not sure whether it was delivered or just coming for familiarization with the local operations but it was using an Empire call sign and Empire is the local operator of FedEx feeder services.

It was due in later in the day and the weather was already looking bad with low cloud and the possibility of snow.  It was also a little behind schedule which didn’t help.  The light disappears early in December and it is a lot worse when the weather is bad.  I was waiting watching the ISO levels creeping upwards.  Meanwhile the cloud was creeping down.  A couple of planes came in and then a few jets started making missed approaches including the British Airways Heathrow arrival.  I then saw the Skycourier change course.  I thought it was heading to the inner runway instead.  I made a quick move down the street to that location and checked again and now it had switched back left.  I had a frantic return to where I had been and it transpired that they were actually going for the middle runway.  I hadn’t even considered that.  This meant they were a bit far away but not as bad as it could have been.  Light was terrible so ISO was cranked up high.  Was it worth it?  They will be very common here before too long but that’s not the way my brain works apparently.

Vancouver Christmas Market

Leave a Reply

We took a trip up to Vancouver at the end of November.  They had set up their Christmas market near where we were staying and our hotel rate included tickets.  It was only open at peak times while we were there but I think the hours were expanding not long after our visit.  These markets are always interesting to walk around but they rarely have anything that I would actually want to buy – other than food and booze!  In this case, we were heading out to dinner with friends afterwards so we even skipped that side of things.  They are always a colorful and popular place so you can just enjoy watching everyone enjoying themselves and occasionally wonder at some of the strange things people will buy!

Wake Patterns in Clouds Over Edwards

Leave a Reply

During the air show at Edwards AFB, there was a lot of maneuvering of aircraft high above the crowds.  There was a little cloud at higher levels – not enough to stop it being almost uncomfortably hot, but enough to be visible – and the planes that flew through this level left their wakes through the cloud layers breaking them up and forming patterns where they had been.  I thought this looked really cool and, because the show was backlit, the sun was coming through these patterns and the shadows made them appear more conspicuous.  A C-17 flew across at one point which gives you some idea of the scale of these interesting patterns in the sky.

The Most Unpopular Bridge

Leave a Reply

I spent a lot of my childhood in a town called Cowes on the Isle of Wight.  Cowes was on the coast by the outfall of the River Medina.  The other side of the river was East Cowes and the two were connected by a chain ferry known to everyone as the floating bridge.  I remember as a small boy when the previous floating bridge got replaced with a newer and larger version.  This same one was in service until relatively recently.  A new one was ordered and its introduction to service has not been smooth.

I see the content of some Isle of Wight Facebook groups and complaints about the new bridge are widespread.  Like most people, I don’t know the actual details of what is behind the problems, but the online experts know everything, and the accusations of corruption are widespread.  In my experience, the most likely problem is just a screw up.  People make mistakes a lot and looking for a deeper reason is usually fruitless.  I don’t even know if it is all working properly now, and everyone is rehashing old stories or whether it is still problematic.

We did take a trip on it though.  It was working and we needed to get from East Cowes to Cowes so we gave it a go.  Everything was fine.  However, it was busy and the car in front of us was the last one to get on.  That did give me some time to get some photos of it and I also took a little video too.  As an aside, while we were in Portsmouth, I saw the old bridge laid up awaiting its fate.