State of the Pegasus Fleet

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January 2019 brought a milestone for the USAF.  They accepted their first KC-46 Pegasus.  Admittedly they accepted it with a number of deferred issues that Boeing has been given a few years to resolve but that are Category 1 deficiencies.  I guess this should mean we will see a lot of deliveries in the coming weeks and months.

The backlog of jets parked up is substantial.  There are jets parked at Boeing Field on both the military ramp and the flight test ramp.  There are more scattered around the Boeing ramp at Everett.  More of them are in the conversion area at the south end of Paine Field.  More still are parked up across the cross runway.  It’s a lot of jets and, if you are an accountant, this is a level of Work In Progress that must make you squirm.  We should see them start to head on their way before too long.

Printing on Glass with FractureMe

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I do like to experiment with alternative printing options and, when I heard an ad on the radio for FractureMe, a company that prints on glass, I was curious as to how it would look.  I decided to make a print with them and to see how it came out.  Their approach is pretty much how it sounds.  A print is created on glass with a what backing sheet to provide the base and that is it.  Nothing tricky about preparing the files so I uploaded an eclipse shot I had and placed the order.  I did this just before Christmas and the lead time was three weeks, probably as a result of a bunch of holiday orders.

I sort of forgot about it for a while.  When I got the shipping notification, I was quite excited until I realized it would be a week for the package to make its way across the country.  When it did arrive, I was quite impressed with the way it had been packed.  The image was recessed into a cardboard mount that was supported by a thick sheet of corrugated card.  All of this was wrapped together and then slotted into mounts on the edge of a far larger box.  It was stable and well away from potential dings.  It arrived in great shape along with a mounting screw for the wall.

The image looks great.  The eclipse shot is not a standard type of image so I haven’t tested color reproduction with this but it does look nice and the darkness of the shot seems to work with the glass well.  The first thing I had to do was clean it.  It seemed to have acquired a lot of dust – presumably in the packaging phase.  Now it is time to find a spot to keep it long term.  For now it is sitting on the mantelpiece.

Damp Air Brings the Vortices Out at KPAE

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Damp and cloudy days are not always ideal for aviation photography but they can provide some interesting options.  One weekend I was up at Everett when they were approaching from the south.  The jets broke out of the cloud at quite low level but there was some light from the side coming under the clouds.  The damp air meant that the jets were pulling some conspicuous vortices as they flared for landing.  They were a long way off but it was possible to get some shots of them.  The 747 produced vortices that were easier to see but the 787s didn’t do too badly either.

Cormorant Take Off

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It’s been a while since I had a cormorant post on this blog so time to have another one.  This one is to showcase something I love about watching cormorants but that I hadn’t got good images of.  When cormorants take off from the water they start flapping and running across the surface.  They take quite a while to get up to a speed at which they can sustain flight.  This trip across the surface usually is too far away to get a good shot of, even if you do spot them in time to get the camera on target.

However, if you are in a boat and the boat approaches the cormorant, you might spook it into taking off.  They are pretty resilient creatures so may just float on by and ignore you but sometimes they will take off.  Then, if you notice in time and the camera is to hand, you might get the takeoff sequence.  They hop from wave crest to wave crest as they flap and accelerate and then they are flying. You can also lose a little weight before take off to improve performance!

How Long for Lufthansa A340s?

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The A340s are disappearing from the fleets of major airlines pretty quickly as the 787s and A350s come in to service.  Lufthansa is one airline that still has not only the A340-600 in service but the A340-300 too.  I shot a 600 on approach to SFO last year and it got me wondering just how long they have remaining in service.  While fuel prices are relatively low, they may hang on but higher fuel prices could accelerate their demise.  We shall see.  In the meantime, here are some of their fleet in service across the years.

V2V Express (I Guess)

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During our visit to Victoria, there was a fast catamaran ferry moored up in the harbor.  It was named to the V2V Express.  Based on the name, my assumption is that it provides a fast connection between the downtown harbors of Vancouver and Victoria.  However, at no point while we were there did we see the thing move.  I don’t know whether the service is seasonal, not yet implemented or has failed.  The boat just sat there during our visit.  If anyone knows the story, do let me know.

PJC-2, What Are You?

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I went to Paine Field to get the Air Tahiti Nui 787 which I wrote about in this post.  As I walked up to Future of Flight, there was an unusual looking plane sitting at the hold running up the engine.  I grabbed some shots of it doing its engine run and then as it lined up and took off.  I couldn’t work out what it was.  I thought it might be a Bellanca but I was wrong.  A search when back at home tells me it is a Harlow PJC-2.

With lovely light, I was hoping to get it when it came back in.  Unfortunately, it timed its return such that it coincided with the arrival of the 787 so they went to the left runway instead of the right.  Never mind.

Riding the Streetcar for Myself

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I picked up the Oklahoma City streetcar from the stop across from my hotel.  There are two routes in the city – one that runs around the downtown area and another shorter loop that goes from the convention center development area back to Bricktown.  The car I got was on the Bricktown Loop and, since I wanted to do the full run, I hopped off at the next stop and waited for the next car.

I got on board along with a guy that had come to check it out despite his skepticism.  He ended up meeting a few people he knew and seemed pretty impressed by the whole thing.  The vehicles have a battery system on board which allows them to run for periods without overhead wires.  This is particularly helpful where the line runs under the main railroad.  The bridges there are too low to allow for overhead wires so the system involves periods on battery and periods on wire when the batteries can be recharged,

Lots of people were out making use of the free introductory period.  Given that it was a Friday, this was a good indication.  Hopefully the system will prove to be a success.  It is part of a number of measures that the city is implementing to improve the live ability of the area.  I wish them well.

Nice Light on Korean 777

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Korean Air 777s are hardly a rarity so would not normally warrant a blog post.  However, this one arrived at a time when the light seemed to be particularly appealing and I was pleasantly surprised by the shot.  I figured it could have a blog post on what is probably a cold and rainy winter’s day.

Seattle Pano from West Seattle

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With our visitors, we took a trip to West Seattle.  The afternoon light on the city looked nice and a pano seemed to be in order.  Here is a Zoomify version of it so you can look around the city at your leisure.