I posted some shots of the Ethiopian Cargo 777F in another post. What I didn’t include in that was the lovely effect as it came down the approach. There was some low-lying cloud to the south of the airport and, as it came through this, the trailing vortices twisted the cloud up beautifully. Stills down’s always show this as well as you would like so I did shoot some video to try and capture the effect.
A group of swans was swimming up the Itchen as I was out walking one Sunday morning. Suddenly they decided to get airborne, and I was almost caught out by them. The first two were by me before I was able to get a shot, but I was very close to them and struggled to get something framed. The third was close behind them and I was able to pick it up earlier. A swan at low level over the water is a graceful looking creature. I suspect I will be out and about trying to get more swan flying shots before too long.
I mentioned in a previous post that I had been to Lee on Solent and seen and AW189 on the coastguard ramp. Chatting with a few of the locals, I found out that this one was due for delivery to the Irish Coast Guard that day. I was in the café and thought I would notice it as it fired up for departure. Sadly, I was wrong about this. While eating some lunch, I look at FR24 and saw that it was taxiing. Just as I stood up, I saw it out of the window as it lifted and flew off. I was a bit annoyed with missing it but went outside anyway. The guys told me it might be back shortly and, sure enough, it flew a brief sortie and then came back.
After it touched down, the word was that they were finalising some last-minute snags and that it would depart to Ireland. The team seemed to be loading up some items and the beacons were still on so I hoped it would not be too long before they got going. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long for them to fire up. There was a small rise between where I was and where they taxied which was a little frustrating but, before too long, they were ready to lift and then a quick turn and they climbed out before turning en route. No sign of them returning this time and they were gone. Nice looking helicopter and the normal style of coast guard colours was improved by the nice green stripe.
The station in Winchester is the start and finish for most of my workdays at this point. The station is on a long straight section of the main line to Southampton. From the platform, you can see a long way in either direction. Looking south, there are a number of bridges across the track before it curves out of sight. On a misty afternoon, the view looks quite pretty.
I headed back from the UK to Seattle to finalise our move out process and arrived into SEA after the fun ten hours sitting and watching films. The IAF includes the bridge across the taxiway. I have crossed this a few times and normally I am with Nancy so stopping to look around doesn’t happen. This time I was on my own so, rather than head straight across, I figured I would have a look at the various planes on the ramps. Here are a few shots from above of what was there that day before I headed to immigration.
I had been down to Carkeek Park to see the salmon on my way home from Seattle. I told Nancy about it and suggested we should go and have a look at the weekend. What I hadn’t counted on was that the park was having a festival that day to celebrate the salmon run. The place was absolutely heaving. The traffic was heavy yet, but some lucky break, we managed to get a parking spot relatively easily.
There were a load of stalls out for local groups and plenty of people around to explain the background to the salmon run and the impacts it has on the local ecology. Some were cleaning out some of the carcasses to gather data on the health of the fish (if you put aside that they were now dead). There was also a group of what looked like Morris dancers from the UK. One person was dressed as a salmon too. I guess the UK doesn’t have a monopoly on quirky behaviour!
A few years ago, I posted quite a bit about Eviation and their development of the Alice electric aircraft. They had a bunch of issues while I was watching them including a time that they took the plane off the runway into the grass. Eventually they took the aircraft across to Moses Lake for its long delayed first flight. That proved to be the only flight as they talked of an updated design being developed. Recently, they announced that most of the staff were being released and that the programme was being paused. I’m not surprised but it is disappointing. Here is a sunset image of the one airframe which seemed appropriate.
I was taking a walk along the River Itchen in Winchester and there were some swans swimming up the river towards me. One was swimming along quite normally but a second was following it and was swimming in a strange way. It had its head low to the water and was swimming in a surging motion rather than the regular paddling. I don’t know whether this was some sort of mating action or just a weird swan! Video seemed to be the best way to record this.
I may have paid a visit to Lee on Solent to go to the Hovercraft Museum as will appear (or might already have done so) in another post but it does happen to sit on the edge of an airfield. Airfields often provide an airport café, and I was after some lunch, so I made the short walk to theirs. It was a bloody cold day so the idea of being in somewhere warm overlooking the field, even if nothing much was happening seemed like a good plan.
The hot food was good, and the windows looked out over the field. There was an AW189 sitting out on the coastguard ramp but more of that another day. Meanwhile there were a few light aircraft and helicopter movements. I did head out to the viewing area outside the café on a couple of occasions to see some of the aircraft. I didn’t get everything moving, though. It was pretty cold and being outside all of the time didn’t look like fun.
The R44 arrival occurred while I was inside but, when I saw the occupants heading back out, I thought I might get the departure. However, if I was going to make my connection home, they would have to go swiftly. That didn’t seem like it was happening, and I didn’t want to wait an hour for the next connection. Eventually I bailed and as my journey home took me by the airfield, I could see them still on the ramp, so I am glad I didn’t wait.
When I first moved to Winchester, I was initially staying in a couple of Airbnbs before we moved into the house we are renting. One of them was up in the roof of an old school building. The view out of the windows was across the rooftops of the neighbouring houses. The chimney pots caught my eye. One of them seemed to have a serious branch growing out of it. I think it was dead, but it did look like it had done well to get established in the brickwork.
