Wind Farm in the North Sea

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Tooling around at 16,000’ over the North Sea in a Voyager waiting for trade to show up gives you some time to look around. You might think that the North Sea is not going to have much for you to see and you would be mostly right. However, the refuelling track had us over a wind farm. These giant wind turbines sit out in the water generating power for the UK. There were some support vessels out there working on one of them, but the rest were just sitting their spinning away. With no other elements in sight to provide context, they looked rather strange.

Looking Down on Boeing’s Flightline

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The first flight a Boeing 737 makes will usually take it from Renton where it was assembled to Boeing Field – a short distance away – where the flight test facility is located. Here the jets will undergo production flight testing and acceptance testing before delivery to the customers. Given the rate of production, that means there will always be a lot of jets parked on Boeing’s ramp.

Last summer, when I was up the tower at Boeing Field, I had a good view straight along the flight line. Further up the ramp were the active jets while the spot closer to the tower (where there used to be a viewing area before Max problems meant Boeing needed to park jets wherever it could find space) tends to be used for jets that are likely to be stored for longer – planes that were going to a customer that went bust for example.

Cygnets at the Pub on Friday Evening

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Friday evening and we headed to The Willow Tree, a pub in Winchester. The river runs either side of the pub and the garden narrows to a point as the river comes back together. While there are plenty of birds around, it isn’t often that you see anything swimming in the river. The occasional duck perhaps. We were quite surprised, therefore, to see a family of swans come swimming up towards us. The adults had four cygnets with them. They would go off exploring but then, one of the adults would make a few low noises and you’d see the cygnets head straight back to their parents. I figured video was more fun for this so that is what you have below.

I Finally Caught the Carbon China Airlines A350

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China Airlines has a livery which is fine but not terribly exciting. When they started taking delivery of their Airbus A350s, they had one delivered in a special scheme that had a blue carbon fibre style of design, similar to that which Airbus has painted on one of the development aircraft. This plane had been elusive to me. I had wanted to photograph it for a long time.

My frustration mounted further when I had been in LA for work. I was walking from the hotel to the airport to return home when I looked to my right and saw the jet on short final just a little way north of me. I had my camera with me (in the bag!) and, if I had paid attention, I could easily have got a shot. Instead, I was caught off guard and missed the opportunity.

All of this led to me being really pleased when I was waiting in Heathrow’s Terminal 5 for a flight for work and I saw the plane was on approach. Shooting through windows is never ideal but I wasn’t going to miss the chance this time. The light was nice, and the plane was easy to catch so I finally managed to get a few shots of this cool looking jet.

Horse Chestnut Tree Blooms

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Having been gone from the UK for a couple of decades, being back is reminding me of so many things that I guess I didn’t pay much attention to when I was here before. Now I am back, I notice things. One such thing is horse chestnut trees in the spring. More famous for the conkers they produce in the autumn, in the spring they flower quite dramatically. I’m not sure what the proper term is but I think they look like candles mounted across the tree. Very pretty looking blooms. How quickly will I get blasé about them again?

Reflection Removing – Choose Settings Wisely

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A previous post had looked at what was, at that time, a development feature in Photoshop that removed reflections from images. Adobe puts development items in Photoshop first to get user experience with them before rolling them out to the software suite. Since Camera Raw and Lightroom’s develop module are basically the same, once it becomes a production item, it also makes it into Lightroom. Such is the case with the reflection removal tool.

I have used it a few times on shots, and it does work pretty well. It isn’t perfect but can be effective. I tried it out on a Typhoon that was refuelling from a Voyager. Shooting through the windows of the Voyager can be a bit tricky and the reflection removal tool can really help. I gave it a go, and the reflection was swiftly taken out. However, when I checked the rest of the image, I saw that a lot of detail in the shot was gone. It was at this point that I realised that the tool has three settings. I was on Preview. I switched to Best and, while the processing took a lot longer, lo and behold the detail was restored.

I have the overall photo above with the before and after versions for a comparison. Beneath I have two crops of the larger image with the Preview and Best settings. I won’t say which is which, but I think it should be pretty obvious. The tool defaults to Preview when you use it so, if you give it a try, don’t be put off if the initial results are disappointing. Make sure to experiment with the settings.

Another Caterpillar Web

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When Nancy and I were in Nanaimo, I took some photos of a web of caterpillars that were on a bush alongside the path we were on. More recently, we were up near Bembridge windmill on the Isle of Wight so I could take some photos of the windmill as the evening sun was lighting it up. As I walked back to the car, I could see something in the hedges and went to take a look. Tuns out it was the same thing. Seeing such a dense cluster of caterpillars is a touch surprising and I would have spent longer checking them out but the others were waiting for me, so I made it quick.

Paint Finish on the Other Bucc

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When I visited The Buccaneer Aviation Group’s event at Kemble, the second airframe was in the process of being prepared for repainting. That is well advanced at the time of writing but, on this day, the airframe had been rubbed back to prepare it. The resulting finish gave a mottled look to the jet, and I thought it could have made a cool idea for a camouflage scheme of its own. I found the patterns it made really appealing.

The jet no longer looks like this so it will be in a historically accurate scheme when next I see it. However, some of these details of the paint are definitely worth remembering.

Washing the Posh Boat

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As the ferry was leaving Portsmouth for the Isle of Wight, I saw this small boat moored up at the marina. Clearly some people like to have larger boats than I have chosen to get! No idea who it belongs to or whether it is one that you charter for events. Either way, as we pulled away, I realised that there were a couple of crew members suspended on the side of the boat cleaning things up. Clearly a nicer time to do this when in port rather than underway. I hope they got everything looking spiffy before the boss showed up!

Amelia, You’re Breaking My Heart

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Okay, maybe it should be Cecilia, and you aren’t really breaking my heart, but I just liked the thought of the song. I had never heard of the airline called Amelia. It is a small French airline that does a bunch of charter and government work as well as operating some wet lease services. They had an A320 parked up on a gate a couple down from my departing flight from Lyon. I know someone whose daughter is called Amelia, and he is quite partial to aircraft. Surely, he didn’t name her after an airline? At least he didn’t name her EasyJet!