Transbay Transit Center

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Our January visit to San Francisco included a visit to the park above the Transbay Transit Center.  We did walk down through the Center itself while we were there.  It was a weekend and therefore pretty quiet.  From the park, you can see the glass dome over the center below.  We peered in while we were up there prior to heading downstairs.  We also saw a pretty interesting cable stayed bridge that brings a roadway in for the buses to arrive and depart.

Inside, the use of the glass domes makes for a pretty airy feeling space.  When no one is around, it all feels pretty relaxing.  I imagine during rush hour (or what was rush hour before we stopped going to work) it would be a bit less relaxed and rather more urgent!

Phantoms

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When I first started going to air shows, the Phantom was everywhere.  The USAF was already well into the process of removing them from front line work and introducing the F-16s instead but there were still some in service.  Other air forces still had them in some numbers.  For this post I figured I would dig through whatever shots I could find of them to share.  Some are more recent including some from the USAF target program and others are a little older.  Enjoy.

Powered Surfboard

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Sitting on the pier at Log Boom Park in Kenmore gives me a plentiful supply of things to photograph.  This guy was out on what I can only assume is a powered surfboard of some sort.  I couldn’t work out what powered it exactly but he seemed to have a hand controller to manage his speed.  He was happily cruising around the north end of Lake Washington.  For those of you that are surfers, is this a good alternative when you can’t access good surf or is such a thing heretical in your eyes?

Delta A220s (Or C Series for the Purist)

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The Airbus A220 is now getting more widely established in service.  Indeed, the slightly smaller and highly efficient nature of the jet means that it is likely to be pretty popular as service gets reestablished for a lot of airlines.  Sadly, I haven’t seen any other than those with Delta.  I have seen a decent number of those, though.  As a continuation of my lockdown trawl of the archives, here is a variety of shots of Delta’s A220 flight.  If you prefer to call this a C Series from its Bombardier days, feel free but that ship has sailed!

Watching You Watching Everyone Else

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Another shot from Kenmore.  I was looking for things to photograph on the lake while someone else was looking to get photos or video of Kenmore from the air.  I watched the drone for a while and it didn’t seem to be bothered about where I was.  I wonder what they were interested in.  More importantly, this is right next to Kenmore Air’s operation with their floatplanes so, either this person had permission to be flying here or they were breaking the law.

Directly Under an A320

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I did a little positioning to try and get a shot from directly under an airliner as it was making its approach to SeaTac.  I was out near Boeing Field so they were still reasonably high.  I managed to get myself right in alignment with the jet which, in this case, was an Alaska Airliners A320.  When I first saw the shot, I have to admit I thought it was an Embraer E175 but then I read the lettering under the nose and realized it was bigger than I thought.  I like the idea of a very different view of a familiar subject.

Ice Crystals on the Armrest

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One morning during our visit to Tofino, when I headed outside, there was a heavy frost on the seats around the fire pit.  The armrest of the seat had some beautiful ice crystals formed upon its surface.  They looked so intricate and crisp.  When looking through the viewfinder, you could find yourself unaware of what you were looking at.  I liked both the wide “carpet” of crystals as well as looking close in at the details.

FedEx Caravans

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The FedEx freighter fleet is extensive and includes a variety of jets.  However, the feed of packages to those big jets is partly the role of a bunch of less glamorous types, a significant one of which is the Cessna Caravan.  These planes shuttle cargo from out stations to the larger airports and then distribute packages back out to those same stations.  It’s not the most exciting flying in the world but it is a valuable job.  Here are a few Caravans from FedEx’s fleet that I have seen (relatively) recently.  The Cessna Skycourier made its first flight recently and it is intended to replace these guys in the coming years.

Whitby

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In the early 2000s, Nancy and I took a trip up to Yorkshire for a long weekend in February.  We were staying in Pickering and we got there just before a decent snow storm arrived.  By the time the snow started, we were comfortably tucked up in the hotel bar but the following day, any chance of going somewhere was out of the question as the town had temporarily been cut off by the snow.  The day after, the roads had been cleared and we took a drive north.

We ended up spending some time in Whitby.  A historic port town, Captain James Cook first went to see from there.  It has the ruins of an Abbey on the hill overlooking the harbor and the town rises from the water in a style you would expect of such an old English town to do.  We went to a really nice pub for lunch as a recall where we had excellent fish and chips – formulaic I know but still bloody good!  I scanned these images when making a surge through my old film shots so I thought I would go back about 20 years to something from the old country.

When Will We See You Again?

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With long haul travel having almost vanished (other than a lot of use of passenger jets for freight movements), some of the regular visitors to Seattle and now a distant memory.  Virgin Atlantic was a regular visitor and they had migrated from other types to the 787-9 recently.  Here was one heading to SeaTac while I was at Boeing Field.  With the reduced size of the airline post COVID (and assuming it survives), will they be coming to Seattle again any time soon?  I hope so.