Tag Archives: aircraft

Finally a VLJ Makes It

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About a decade ago, the very light jet was the hot idea.  Everyone seemed to have a design and they were bringing tons of investment in to make the planes and sell them in quantities and at prices that had previously been unthinkable.  As it turned out, there was a good reason why it had been unthinkable and the projects either never made it to production or made a few before bankruptcy followed (sometimes more than once).  Eclipse did better than most in making jets before they folded, later re-emerging in a slimmed down form.

Cirrus is one company that stuck with it and didn’t go bust.  It did benefit from a lot of Chinese investment and the fact it had a successful piston lineup to generate some income didn’t hurt.  Their approach was the SF50 Vision, a single engine jet.  It was a slightly unusual design but not a bad one and it has finally made it to certification and production.  This example is a regular at Boeing Field so maybe it lives there?

DoJ SAAB

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Unmarked aircraft are conspicuous by their effort to be inconspicuous.  I saw this SAAB 2000 parked up at the Clay Lacy ramp and, before too long, it taxied out and departed kindly backtracking passed me in the process.  SAAB 2000s are not overly common anyway so that was the first thing to notice but, since it was completely white, I figured it might belong to someone not advertising their presence.  Sure enough, it belongs to the Department of Justice.  I wonder what it was doing here?

Low Level Departure by Learjet 31

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This Learjet 31 was heading out of Boeing Field on a lovely afternoon.  The pilot obviously liked a bit of speed because, after rotation, instead of climbing out, he kept it on the deck and built up some speed.  Then, as he got further along the runway, a more aggressive pull into a “zoom” climb.  I appreciated the effort because it meant the jet had some ground behind it as it came past which is a pleasant change.  The color scheme was pretty cool too.

Aussie P-8

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With the progressive retirement of P-3 Orions around the world, the Boeing P-8 Poseidon is starting to take over as the dominant maritime patrol aircraft.  The US Navy is the principal customer, but Australia was relatively quick to order the type too.  They are now in the process of being delivered and I happened across one coming back to Boeing Field at the end of a test flight.  Since it was operating from their military ramp, it taxied back along the field after landing and right by giving me a good look at the configuration the Aussies have gone with.  India has been another customer and, before too long, the first of the RAF jets should make it through production.

More FCLP at Coupeville

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My buddy Mark let me know that some more FCLP training was scheduled for Coupeville on a day with a good weather forecast.  Sadly, the wind suggested they would be operating in the opposite direction to that of my last visit (as discussed here and here) but there was the possibility of some morning flying which might mean the sun was on the right side for a while, even if a bit on the tail of the jets.  Unfortunately, the unit didn’t get the memo and they showed up in the middle of the day for the first round of flying so, while the conditions were okay, they were working against us.

Still, there are a lot worse things to do than watch Growlers bouncing through FCLP training.  You can move along the fence line at Coupeville to try and vary the angle, so Mark and I were zipping to and fro in order to try and find something different.  There are some bushes on the field that can be a touch inconvenient when looking to capture the moment of touchdown but a little experimentation and you could get a good result.

The jets appear to come through a tunnel in the trees as they are on final approach and the trees provide a nice backdrop for touchdown.  As they power up and away again, the light angles are most favorable so you can get a few good shots.  However, they end up pretty samey pretty quickly.

We expected a second batch of jets in the early afternoon so headed to the other side.  Here you are a lot further from the runway so the jets on the ground are rather distant and heat haze is a bit of a problem.  We got a few movements and then headed back to a nearby park where the jets tend to turn over the top of you as they enter the downwind.  The light is a bit better here but, again, the shots are pretty repetitive.  The only change is when the jet is done and it climbs straight out cleaning up as it goes.

With a decent amount of shots made, we decided it was time to try our luck elsewhere.  The Growlers would get back to Ault Field pretty quickly but we were going by car so it was a little longer for us.  However, there was much to justify the trip and that will be apparent in some upcoming posts.

One of the Early F-16s

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The early versions of jets are often repurposed throughout their life.  They serve a role for testing but they are not configured like production jets and to make them so is too expensive to be worthwhile.  Besides, they are instrumented to some extent so they can be useful for carrying out alternate tests.  As a result, they often get used for trials, research tasks or development of alternate concepts.  The early F-16s did a lot of this sort of work and ended up in some odd programs like the AFTI effort.  Sitting outside at the Frontiers of Flight museum is one of these test aircraft.  It spent its life with General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin) at Fort Worth and, once it was done with, it found a new home at the museum.  Compared to the average F-16, this jet will have had a lot of interesting experiences!

Max7 Number Two

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The first Max7 test aircraft got a blog posting here but I have now seen the second in action too.  I think I first saw it on the ramp at Renton but I didn’t see the registration so can’t be sure.  Now it is engaged in testing and flying regularly out of Boeing Field.  It actually departed as I pulled up, so I only got to watch it rather than get a shot.  It was a bit overcast then anyway.

Later in the day it returned and this time the light was a lot more favorable.  I have yet to be able to gauge it against a 700 series and see the increase in length but the bigger engines are pretty obvious.  Still not a huge number of orders so we shall see whether it becomes a success but, in the meantime, we shall see them testing in the area for a while.

Flying Pancake

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A long time ago, I was part of an ISAP symposium held in Dallas.  During the field trip day, we went to a number of locations, all of which were very interesting.  One of them was the restoration facility at what was then the Vought factory, now Triumph I think.  This was run by volunteers that had retired from the plant and was working on a number of projects including painting an F4U while we were there.  Another project that was a work in progress was the Flying Pancake.  At the time is was skinless and in a rotating frame to allow everyone to work on it more conveniently.

Roll forward to now and I was at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Dallas Love Field.  The museum is the home of the finished restoration.  The aircraft looks fantastic.  The restoration team did a great job.  To see it completed including the huge propellers is something special.  Fortunately, there is a mezzanine level above the plane so it is possible to see it from a number of angles.  Great job everyone involved.

My First Latitude – Now They are Everywhere

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This post is a little late in coming to fruition but it is even more the case now than when I first wrote it.  The corporate jet market has been in a bit of a slump for a while but one thing that is likely to provide a boost is a new model.  Cessna launched the Latitude jet a few years ago.  An evolution of their existing line, it took parts of the Sovereign and combined them with a new fuselage.  (As an aside, I have never been a fan of the Sovereign.  The fin looks like a barn door on it.  The larger fuselage of the Latitude actually suits the fin size a lot better so things are a bit more in proportion.  Still, not many of the Cessna jets are that elegant in my mind.)

The one at the top of this post was the first Latitude I got to photograph.  I did see a test jet take off from Wichita Mid Continent when I was there visiting friends but I didn’t have a camera.  They are easy to identify with the gently upcurved wingtips.  Having seen this one, I have since come across a bunch of them.  It appears that the arrival of the new type attracted a bunch of customers and Cessna was ready to build to meet that demand.  Now I don’t consider them particularly noteworthy.

Skyray – Or Is It?!

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The A-4 Skyhawk had a long and illustrious career in many air forces around the world.  It has a close cousin that didn’t fair so well.  The Skyray shared a few design cues with the Skyhawk but it was designed as a fighter rather than an attack aircraft (although the Skyhawk spent a lot of time as an adversary fighter over the years).  I find the Skyray a more attractive aircraft than the Skyhawk (not that I have anything against the Skyhawk) but that might be more about the rarity value.

I thought I had come across one parked in the parking lot of the Evergreen Aerospace Museum in McMinnville Oregon.  I was surprised to find it there at all and more so to see it sitting outside.  I am not sure what the future is for the jet – obviously some parts are removed for the time being – but I hope it will make it in to restoration.  It certainly is worthy of a good home.  That is even more true because it is not a Skyray.  It is actually a Skylancer.  This was a development of the Skyray that got so modified that it became a new type.  It never got to production and this example was used by NASA before retirement.  In this location, it is possible to get up on the earth bank behind it to get an angle that might be trickier if it ends up inside the museum.