A Saudi F-15SA in the PNW

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A Boeing F-15SA development airframe has been in the PNW.  The F-15SA is a development of the Strike Eagle family specifically for the Royal Saudi Air Force.  They are buying new jets as well as updating the F-15S jets they bought years ago.  Production jets have been delivered for a while now but testing activities continue.  I had heard that a jet was at Boeing Field for a while and had even seen the tails parked on the ramp as I drove by but I hadn’t seen it moving.

Military jets don’t usually show up on the mainstream flight tracking apps (but this one had when it traveled cross country) so I didn’t know it was airborne.  However, I heard it call up on approach so stopped what I was doing and grabbed the camera.  Sure enough, it came zipping down the approach.  A few quick shots and then it was down.  Apparently I was rather lucky.  A couple of days later it headed back across country.

Lake Washington Waterfront Houses

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My previous trip with Kenmore including some low flight over Lake Washington which gives a good view of some of the local houses.  Lakefront property is likely to be nice and these certainly looked like they were okay!  Here are some of the shots I got.  I was hoping to do this again soon but Kenmore has just canceled flights (as of the time of writing rather than posting) so I guess I will have to wait.

Another Star Wars Jet – At Last

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When a new Star Wars movie is released, it seems to be the thing to arrange a tie in with an airline and have them paint jets in special Star Wars themed liveries.  ANA was a part of this and I have shot a variety of their special paint scheme jets which you can see here and here.  For the most recent movie, The Rise of Skywalker, United got in on the game and painted a 737 in a black livery with special marking including one side with a blue lightsaber and one with a red.  I had not seen the jet before.  It has been to SeaTac a few times but never when I could get there (or when it was daylight).  Finally it showed up one evening when the weather was great so nice light.  Only one side to see of course but here it is!

Rowing Crews In Training

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It was a nice evening after work and Nancy was on a trip that meant she would be home later than me so I figured I would go and hang out at Log Boom Park and see what was going on at the top of Lake Washington.  It might be wildlife and it might be floatplanes so I have a chance of something.  I actually ended up seeing a bunch of crews in training.  I don’t know whether they are from the university or a local club but there were plenty of them.

They appeared one time in the distance and then paused before heading back down the lake.  A while later they reappeared and did the same thing again.  They were a fair distance away although I did wonder whether they would be in the path of the floatplanes that were taking off.  However, they were probably too far for them to be in conflict.  I will have to check out when the regattas are due to take place as I would like to see it with more planning unlike last year when we saw some races by accident.

The Second Batch of Indian P-8s Commences

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This P-8 is the first jet for a second batch ordered by the Indian government.  I have to admit that I didn’t know that they had ordered more jets.  I could tell it was different because the earlier jets had ARK written on the fin and this one has DAB.  Maybe that is a squadron thing?  The P-8I for the Indians has a number of changes from the USN standard of jet.  It has a different radar mounted on the fuselage and also includes a MAD which was not part of the USN spec.  Here are some shots of the two jets to show the differences between them.

Sunrise and Moonset

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I had to travel up to Blaine for an immigration interview early one morning.  The sun was just coming up as I headed north and the nearly full moon was setting on the other horizon.  The moon was sitting just above the mountains of the Olympics and looked stunning.  Sadly, I was on the interstate so no option to get a photo.  I did eventually manage to find a spot to pull off near Mt Vernon and was able to get some photos.  The angle of elevation made it look a little higher in the sky and this far north there were some clouds on the horizon obscuring the mountains so it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for.  However, it still looked rather nice.

Finally the Boeing T-38s Are In the Sun

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I mentioned the arrival of some USAF T-38s in this post.  They weren’t alone, though.  Boeing had both of their T-38 chase jets out on missions and they had to come back at some point.  The day had lovely weather so I was going to wait around and get on with some work to see when they showed up.  The jets have similar paint schemes but are slightly different in detail.  I had shot one of them in nice conditions once so was keen to do better.  I got both of them as they returned so finally felt like I had some success.

I wonder how long they will last.  Since Boeing has won the contest to replace the T-38 in USAF service, I wonder whether the early T-7 jets they built will find their way to Boeing Field at some point to support flight test activities.  They will probably not be a match for production jets so would be of less use for in service test activities.  We shall see.  The T-33s are still around so the T-38s may have years ahead of them.

Deer in Yorkshire a Couple of Decades Ago

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More from the negative scan archive.  Another hike we were taking and this time the wildlife is a little larger.  This herd of deer was grazing nearby and there were some impressive sets of antlers on display for some of them.  One stag was staring in our direction briefly so I got a nice head on shot.  The scan of the negative with my 40D seems to have come out pretty well.

Flight Check Lear 60 Maneuvering Around BFI

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I was driving over to Seattle a while back and, as I crossed the I-90 floating bridge, I saw a Learjet maneuvering at low level around the hill ahead of me.  I decided to see what was going on since I suspected this might be an FAA jet flying a variety of approaches.  Sure enough, it was one of their Lear 60s.  I have seen them on a number of occasions before at different airports.  Tracking them on something like FlightRadar24, it is easy to work out what they are since they fly a tone of patterns around an airport normally dealing with simple arrivals and departures.

Boeing Field is not such an airport as it has a lot of training activity but the Lear is a bit faster than the average piston single.  I didn’t know how long it had been there so it could have gone before I arrived but they still had a few circuits to do before they were finished.  These involved a different sequence of approaches from offset positions from which they could take their measurements and then break off to do it again.  It is interesting to see a business jet being thrown around like this in a way that would not keep the average customer happy!

Back to the Spheres

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Spheres visits have shown up in a bunch of posts.  When my sister visited last year, I took a different approach to my photos and focused a lot more on the weird and wonderful plants that are growing within the Spheres.  Here is a selection of fascinating looking plants that I was taking a look at.  Nature certainly produces some amazing shapes.