Tag Archives: aircraft

That Rare Beast, the 109

The Bf-109 was built in huge numbers but a very small number of them survive. The Hispano Buchon was a 109 fitted with a Merlin engine and they served after the war and ultimately made their way into collections in bigger numbers but real 109s are a lot thinner on the ground. They also look so much meaner in my mind courtesy of the thicker nose for the DB engine. FHCAM has a 109 and it flew during the European Theater Day.

It went out for a run in the morning and I got a couple of quick shots of it then. It flew again in the afternoon, this time paired with the Mosquito. Sadly, there were limited times when they were alone and the Mosquito was a priority for me that day so the 109 did not get my focus. I did get to shoot a few frames of it and, with a sunny day bringing out the camouflage nicely, I was quite pleased with the results. Obviously there are better conditions to shoot it but I had very few 109 airborne shots before this day so I expanded the collection quite a bit.

BA 747 Formation with a Cessna?

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The path of jets into SeaTac from the north takes them right over Boeing Field. Sometimes, when you are watching something on one path, something going into the other field gets in your field of view. Either that or a British Airways Boeing 747-400 decided to sneak up on a Cessna. Knowing some guys who fly for them, I wouldn’t rule it out.

FedEx Canadian Style

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I saw something at Vancouver that I hadn’t seen before and that was a FedEx jet that was not registered in the US. I had assumed that all of their fleet was N registered but, apparently, that is not the case. A number of the jets are on the Canadian register and the 757 that departed while I was there was one of them. My first commercial flight was on a 757 with British Airways and many of those jets ended up with FedEx. I don’t know the origin of this example but it was good to see it still providing good service.

Anyone Know a Paint Shop Around Here?

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Portland International is home to a paint facility owned by Boeing and operated under contract to them. It provides additional paint capacity for their jets assembled up in the Seattle area. One of the jets landed at Portland while I was there for the ANG open house. It was a 777 freighter. It landed on the runway closest to us and turned on to the taxiway just in front of where we were standing. It then taxied back to the opposite end of the field where the paint facility is located. The only clue as to what airline it was destined for was the rudder which had a small element of the future colors. My guess is Qatar but I’m sure someone can put me straight if that is wrong.

Row Faster, He’s Gaining on Us

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One evening after work I headed down to Kenmore. It is a short distance from my office and, sitting at the top of Lake Washington, it has a nice waterfront park including a pier. I walked out on the pier to see the arrivals of the Kenmore floatplanes at the end of their workday. They are not the only arrivals, though. Various boats were out on the lake including some rowing crews carrying out their training. One of the crews was heading in when a floatplane came in to land. I suspect they had plenty of space but the plane did seem to adjust its course a bit to avoid them. Taxiing in after touchdown (landing seems to be the wrong word) they did seem to be chasing the crew down a bit!

Finally I Get to See the Mossie

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I last saw a Mosquito in flight in the early 1990s when the BAe operated example was on the air show circuit prior to its loss at Barton. I had assumed at that time that I was unlikely to see another one fly. I never saw Kermit Weeks’ example fly and it has been on the ground for a long time. I hadn’t counted on the recent interest from collectors in getting rare aircraft rebuilt. The Mosquito has been a popular project and there are a couple now flying in the US and, I think, another one in Canada. It is great to see people with the available funds getting these aircraft back in the skies (even if these are pretty close to totally new builds).

One of the Mossies is part of Paul Allen’s collection and the Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum (FHCAM). It had flown a few times since we moved to the area but I had not seen it fly until they held their European Theater Day. I was determined to see it this time. I had forgotten just how large an aircraft the Mossie is. It flew with a bunch of other fighters and included a number of passes with a 109. The Mossie is huge when next to the 109 and it really has presence. It is a bit of a pain to photograph because the color scheme has camouflage upper surfaces and black undersides. With the sun high in the sky, this makes for a very contrasty subject.

I probably got a little overenthusiastic photographing the plane. It was parked on the ramp before and after the flypasts although not well positioned for the light in either case. That didn’t stop me though. When it was flying it got my maximum attention – a little bit of a compromise since the 109 it was partnered with was also something worthy of some shots. I did get a few of them and they will be in an upcoming post. It is nice to have finally shot a Mossie though after all of this time. I look forward to seeing it again, particularly on its own and in more of a display format.

Open House at the 142nd

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The 142^nd FW of the Oregon ANG is based at Portland International airport. They held an open house one Saturday morning and I figured a trip down was worth it. I put together a piece for Global Aviation Resource on the visit which you can see here if you want. The event was aimed at sharing the work the unit does with the local community that is probably well aware of their presence courtesy of the regular launches of F-15s from the runway at the international airport.

They had a couple of the jets for people to take a look at. One was out on the ramp and you could walk around it. Another was in the hangar with an access ladder to the cockpit (devoid of ejection seat, just to be on the safe side). They also had missiles and engines available to look at with people on hand to talk about them. Meanwhile, the unit launched a few waves of jets. They taxied out from the shelters a short distance away and, given the distance to the threshold of the runway, the F-15s were airborne well before they even came in to sight. Fortunately, they did keep them low and fast until they came by our location. Then they pulled up rapidly. Each departure was appreciated by the spectators!

A Change of Location Makes for Locals That Are of Interest

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I made a stop at Vancouver International on my way to the city for a few days. It was the end of the day when I got there and I met up with my friend Mark who gave me a few pointers of what to look out for. The arrivals were in the opposite direction to that we had expected which messed up things a little but there were still options. Besides, I hadn’t shot there before so I was keen to see what was going on.

When you live near an airport, you can get blasé about what comes and goes. The same things every day can be a bit dull. For someone who has never been there before, though, all of this stuff is new and interesting. WestJet may be a familiar sight in Canada but I don’t see them very often. Dash 8s may be very old hat but they have largely vanished where, replaced by the Q400 derivative, so I am pleased to see them. It is this variety that makes somewhere new so interesting. These shots are some of the items that sparked my interest that day. Some more specific planes will get their own time on the blog in due course.

EVA 747s Are the Next to Have Gone

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I have documented the demise of some of the fleets of Boeing 747s as airlines progressively send their planes to a new owner or a recycler. The latest airline to join the trend is EVA Air. Based in Taiwan and owned by the Evergreen shipping line, the airline was originally launched under the Evergreen name. However, there was another airline called Evergreen at that time so they had to change the name to EVA Air. Now Evergreen have gone bust, I guess they could change their name but at this point there seems little reason to do so.

I don’t know whether the retirement of the 747s includes from the freight services or whether it is just passenger use but I suspect the latter. These shots are just of the passenger jets that I have seen over the years. They have been harder to see as the 777-300ERs took on more of the routes and now they will be harder still!

The Spooks Are in Town

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The subject of this post ended up getting some coverage but, when I saw it, I didn’t know about the interest surrounding it. I was at BFI awaiting the departure of another aircraft when a turboprop took off over me. I had the camera to hand so grabbed some shots of what I realized was an Airbus CN235. Painted in a dark gray scheme, it looked a little odd. A closer look at the shots showed it had a few lumps and bumps suggestive of an array of antennae. I figured it was just passing through en route to somewhere more interesting.

However, that wasn’t the case. It had been spotted flying some patterns over the city. I had seen some odd flight paths on Flightaware being flown by a plane called Spud21. I loved the name! it was flying orbits over the city but I couldn’t see anything else about it. However, when I saw the plane crop up in the media, the article identified that it was the owner of the Spud21 callsign.

I don’t know what the purpose of the flights was. It is suggested that the aircraft is owned by the US military but whether it is for their use or is in support of an overseas operator, whether these flights were for testing purposes or were checking out the residents I don’t know. I do know that it was something a little out of the ordinary though.