This shot looks just like a million other people’s shot of Seattle. I have been to Kerry Park plenty of times but I had never been there at night. This time I was having dinner with some colleagues and, when we were done, I figured I would pop up and grab some pictures. Here you go.
The A220 (or C Series CS100 if you are not yet ready to have it labeled as an Airbus) has been in service for a while but, until recently, I hadn’t seen one. Then, while I was on the shuttle between the terminals at DFW, we came around the terminal that Delta uses and I realized that the jet that had just pushed back was an A220.
It was early evening so the light was quite nice. The shape of the jet was quite distinctive. Aside from the cockpit shaping, the wings are quite large (giving it quite decent range capability) and the large fans of the Pratt GTFs are conspicuous. It is not a bad looking jet the Delta colors looked good on it. Sadly it taxied to the other side of the airport so I didn’t see it depart but it was nice to finally see one for real.
Dropping in to O’Hare you get to overfly lots of neighborhoods. The lower you get, the more you see each individual house. I find myself wondering about each of the house and who lives there. Since they clearly have a lot of planes flying over them every day, do they get annoyed by my passage or are they oblivious to each passing jet given the frequency with which they appear?
I have read a lot about Cape Air. They are a small operator in the New England area flying a fleet of (mainly) Cessna 402s. The reason I know this is that they have been heavily involved in the development of a new piston twin with Tecnam which they intend to use to replace their fleet. The first examples have started to show up but, for now, the 402 is still their workhorse. While I was sitting at a gate at Logan waiting for a flight home, we were right across from their ramp so I was able to watch the comings and goings of their planes. Seeing them mixing in with the big airliners was pretty impressive.
We headed to Michigan for a family event recently. We had a little time to spare and decided to check the Henry Ford (apparently it doesn’t have museum in the name but that is what it is). The museum complex includes many elements including a village and tours of the F150 factory but we only had time to try out one so we focused on the main museum building. As it turned out, we had way too little time to even do that justice. As is often the way with us, we spent plenty of time in the earliest elements and then were rushing to see the rest when time ran out.
The museum is an eclectic mix of different themes, some of which will get their own posts. It included elements about the industrialization of the country, sections on how homes had developed, examples of furniture styles, many different cars (no shock there given where we were), aviation, rail transportation, math and science and so on. I have no idea how much of it we didn’t even see. With time ticking, we had a frantic last few exhibits! I could easily have taken a full day to check everything out. With the village next door not even looked at, we had plenty left.
These types of museum have a difficult challenge. They curate a bunch of old items and new ones to provide a comparison. Of course, the newest ones are soon dated and there is a need to bring ever more in to provide some modern relevance. They seemed to have done a pretty good job of meeting this need. As we wrapped up and headed on our way, we were left contemplating how we had missed out on making a trip here when we lived in Chicago and this would have been a simple journey to make. I don’t know whether I will ever get back to the area but, if I do, I shall make an effort to go back and give it substantially more time!
Returning from Whidbey with Paul, we stopped off at Paine Field to see what might be moving. There was a bit of frustration with a delayed departure that we couldn’t catch but we got a few bits and pieces and that included a Global 6000. This one popped up on approach just as the sun was reappearing from behind the clouds so we could get some nice light on it as it crossed the threshold and touched down.
Spring is a good time for rhododendrons and there are a number of gardens known for their flowering in the Seattle area. We decided to take a trip to Whidbey Island to visit Meerkerk Gardens. I hadn’t heard of it before but Nancy had done some research so we gave it a go. While it was not in full bloom – peak blooming was one to two weeks away – it still was a gorgeous sight.
You can get blasé about the beauty of some places as each next view is as pretty as the preceding one and you have to remind yourself that this is not normal. It is a peak of color and shape that doesn’t last long and has to be appreciated while it is there. I lack the vision to come up with a good way of conveying just how pretty it is but I will have to make do with sharing some of the shots I took while strolling around.
The Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) was attending Red Flag 19-2 with some brand new F-15SA jets. These jets had come direct from delivery so had not yet even made it out of the US. I guess they had that new fighter smell. They did fly the first day we were there, despite the strong winds which was a pleasant surprise. They flew along with the rest of the jets on our second day. I have mentioned their slightly strange approach to flex departures before so I won’t go there any further but instead will share what I have of the jets from the two days I was there.
A while back I saw a Scott Kelby video on YouTube about the HDR functionality in Lightroom and that in Photoshop. I had assumed that they were the same prior to seeing his video but he showed that the Photoshop version of the HDR was significantly cleaner than that in Lightroom. I was interested in how this could be but I wasn’t too concerned. The Lightroom version was so easy to use I figured the impact was not so much that it would show up in my shots.
Then, I found out I was wrong. I was in the cockpit of the Comet at the Museum of Flight’s restoration facility at Paine Field. I took a sequence for HDR because the cockpit is very dark but the view out of the windows is much brighter. It isn’t particularly important since the view outside is nothing special but I did it anyway since I was there. The lighter shot had quite a bit of shadow noise and, when I created the HDR in Lightroom, the noise was very conspicuous on the finished version. I decided to try it in Photoshop to see what happened. The difference was significant. I include both of the full shots as processed along with the section of cockpit shadow so you can see the impact.
Paul and I were in Vegas for Red Flag but the early morning is also a good time to shoot at McCarran International. The morning light is ideal for the north/south runways and, with the wind playing ball, you can get the iconic McCarran shots of jets taking off with the weird and wonderful hotel buildings behind them. Where else will you get a pyramid and the Empire State Building in the background. Southwest has a big presence at McCarran and we saw a string of their jets head out including one Max8. We watched it climb out little realizing that the grounding order would be coming within hours or even minutes. Whether the jet continued to its destination or turned around, we don’t know but that was its last commercial flight for a while.
