Tag Archives: airplane

Thunderbirds and the Missing Pylon

A discussion on Facebook between a few people I know recently turned to a discussion about the USAF display team, the Thunderbirds. While I can’t now remember how ended up the way they did, at some point, there was discussion about the time the Thunderbirds touched in mid-air with one aircraft losing part of the wing tip missile rail. This occurred at the Chicago Air and Water Show and I was there that day.

At the time, not many people knew anything had happened. Indeed, for a while they flew on before pulling out of the display routine and orbiting overhead and then eventually returning to Gary to land. No-one on the ground had any idea what was going on. I did not capture the contact between the jets. However, when I looked through my shots afterwards, I realized I had a shot of the four ship formation with one aircraft missing the rail and another showing some signs of damage on the tailplane where the rail had impacted. Below is one shot to prove they started out intact!

Some T-38s Sneak By

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A trip to the beach can only be improved on by one thing. Fast jets! A four ship of T-38s flew over while we were walking on the beach. What more can I ask for?

Scimitar Tips

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Aviation Partners Boeing has been very effective over the years in getting their technology into mainline airline service. The winglets they developed for the Boeing 737 have been very widely adopted with installations on 300 Series, 700 Series, 800 Series and 900 Series jets around the world. The BBJs have also had them extensively. I don’t think any new 737s are delivered without them. The programs for the 757 and 767 have also been well adopted.

The 737 Max is going to have a new winglet design that Boeing have created. However, it is a way from flying. Meanwhile, APB has not stood still and they have created a new winglet design that has a downward portion mated to an updated winglet under the name scimitar. This is now making an appearance on a lot of jets as a retrofit. Southwest, United and Alaska have all started rolling the installation out.

I like the look of the new design. The tip seems to be a bit of a styling effort. The downward facing portion is well aligned to avoid creating a drag inducing choke area at the root. The configuration is actually quite reminiscent of the original winglet designs in the paper Richard Whitcomb wrote when first proposing the concept. I suspect we shall be seeing a lot more of them in the future.

V-22s But No Air Force One

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The President was visiting the Bay Area for a couple of days recently. This meant the arrival of Air Force One, the VH-3D helicopters, the C-17s to transport them and the V-22s that support the VH-3Ds. What more could an aviation guy want? I took a look at the temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) listed online to see when the airspace was going to be shut down. When the president flies, the airspace around him is shut down for security purposes. These closures are published (otherwise, how would the other pilots know not to fly) so it means we know when to expect things to happen.

Sadly, the arrival was on a day I was at work and was timed to come in to SFO around sunset so, even if I could be there, there was a chance that the light would have gone. (As it was, the arrival was just before the light went completely and a friend of mine did get some good shots.) The departure, on the other hand, was scheduled for Saturday morning. That I could manage. I figured that getting there early would be wise since I would not be the only one trying this so getting somewhere to park might be tricky. Plus, if they went early in the slot, I wanted to be ready.

I checked the TFR the night before and got up early the next morning. I had some breakfast and headed out. I arrived in plenty of time but did need to park quite a distance away. I got to the bayshore trail and found a few other guys with cameras. However, word quickly reached me that he had gone. I bumped into a friend of mine and he told me that he had checked the TFR earlier that morning and saw that it had been brought forward. He rushed out and got there just in time. I arrived about 20 minutes after they took off. Curiously, as I had been driving across the San Mateo bridge, I had seen a large jet airborne near the airport and wondered. Now I knew.

There was a silver lining to this disappointment. With Air Force One safely on its way, the V-22s were free to head out. The three of them took off in close succession and turned in our direction to head off down the peninsula. They didn’t come terribly close but I did get my first shots of them since they replaced the CH-46s that used to provide support. (Many moons ago I did see the CH-53Es that used to be undertake this role. They looked fantastic!)

SFO Night Time Lapse Take 2

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Last summer my friend Paul had been across and we had hatched a plan to shot some time lapse and night streak shots of SFO from a hill that overlooks the airport. The plan seemed like a good one but it was thwarted by two things. First, there was some cloud in the area which obscured some fo the view. Second, it doesn’t get dark until late in the summer and Paul was on UK time so was pretty worn out by the time we could do anything.

Instead, we concluded that a second attempt would be made when he was over during the winter. So it was that we found ourselves back up on the hill. We had come well prepared this time with sturdy tripods and good cable releases. The only thing I had forgotten was the chairs since you have a lot of time to hang around on a dark hillside taking shots like this. I took a long sequence of shots that would be edited into the time lapse. When I got home, some quick work in LRTimelapse and the video was together as you can see below. I also decided to see how well the sequence would blend together to get a streak image. I have never tried to work with quite so many layers in Photoshop before. It certainly struggled with it but it did work. Unfortunately, there must have been some very slight movement on the tripod because the ground lights did not exactly align which made for a blurry foreground when using the Lighten blend mode. To counter this, I duplicated one of the base layers and masked that back in to give the ground a clearer image. The blended version is the one at the top of the post.

My First Poseidon

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The Boeing P-8 Poseidon is not a new plane. In fact, it first flew in 2009. Why is it, then, that I have never seen one in flight before? I have seen them on the ground at various times. This has included air shows and seeing them on the flightline at Boeing Field. I have come close a number of times there including some of the Indian Navy Ark variants that have been undergoing testing. Despite all of this, I had not seen one fly.

Fortunately, I have finally overcome this shortcoming, if only briefly. I found myself at Boeing Field on a recent trip to Seattle where I was eating my lunch between landing from a flight and heading off to a meeting. A pretty narrow window in which to hope to get anything interesting but, this time, I was lucky. The P-8 taxied out shortly after I got there and lined up. He wasn’t going for a takeoff at first. A surge of power and acceleration down the runway followed by an application of the brakes and the rejected takeoff test was done. This meant a trip back down the taxiway and right past me to get back to the threshold.

The second time was supposed to be the full takeoff and the lightly loaded jet was promptly airborne and heading off to carry out its tests. It would be gone for a few hours so I wasn’t going to catch its return but it was great to finally see one moving and flying.

NASA T-38

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As the visit to McCarran was getting towards the time we needed to leave for the Red Flag launch, we checked Flightaware and saw that a NASA T-38 was inbound. This was worthy of some attention. The question was, which runway would it land on? We hopped in the car and headed off to a spot near the 25 threshold. This was the direction it was coming from. If it made a straight in approach, we would catch it here. If it was directed to the 01 approach, it would need time to reposition and we would be able to move to a more suitable location.

We tracked the plane online and a look at the line of airliners up the approach told us it was going to 01. A hasty change of locations followed and we got to a suitable spot. An Aero Commander landed first which gave us an idea of the approach path. Then, the T-38 came into view. As is the case with the Talon, it was motoring down the approach. A quick adjustment and a few shots and then it was gone. All rather brief but a nice way to wrap up the visit.

McCarran Morning

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I have never actually shot at McCarran International Airport at Las Vegas. My only time shooting nearby was the hunt for the Janet jet last time I went to Red Flag but I had never tried the many spots the airport has to offer. With a quiet morning and Chris Wood as my guide, we went to the airport to shoot the morning arrivals and departures.

There are, apparently, many good places to shoot at McCarran. As the day progresses, the useful locations change but there is always somewhere that can work and Chris has checked them all out at various times. This time we were at the parking garage watching the traffic on the 01 runways. This gives the classic Las Vegas shots with the casinos in the background.

Nothing special to talk about for this shoot. Just a chance to try out a new place for me. I was surprised that, despite the strong sun and reasonable distance to the aircraft, the heat haze was really not a problem. The traffic was pretty predictable stuff but a new place always means it is a bit more interesting. Then something more special did show up but that will get its own post.

Night Launches

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When the daylight flying activities are over, there is still the night and Red Flag has a night mission that is flown on most days. Therefore, after dinner, you can head up to a spot north of the speedway where there is a great view over the base with Las Vegas in the background. It is dark up there so there are not many good chances for shooting the jets but you can sometimes get some shots of stuff flying over if it lights itself up.

However, you can get some shots of the base with the launching jets showing up either from their afterburners or from the heat distortion they leave behind.

The other thing is to run a time lapse and see the jets moving around on the base and then streaking off into the sky. I ran a couple of them over two nights. Below is the result of one of them. Two things to note. First, the launch was very spread out. The main jet launch was actually quite late and I was tired and cold so cut short the sequence while they were still heading out. The second is that a weird optical effect shows up in the video. It is a movement of the image a bit like heat haze. However, since the shots are taken over such a long period of time, you would think that would not be an issue. Something is going on though so if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to comment with your thoughts.

B-2 Quest

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The B-2 has been around for a long time now. However, with only 20 of them around, they are still a rarity and good to try and catch. We were having mixed luck with them during Red Flag. We were late to the runways and so missed the launch. I got an iPhone shot and that was it. They were almost the last aircraft to recover so, again, we were on the bus when they landed. This was more frustrating since the sun was low and right down the runway making them look amazing. I was on the wrong side of the bus so just watched what I could see through the opposite windows. My colleague, Chris, was on that side so did get some shots for the feature.

The following day I saw them launch. Early shots at Nellis from the speedway are not the best. They are quite heavily backlit so getting a good shot is not really practical. They also launch the B-2 from the far runway so it is a bit further away as well. When they were coming back, I had an idea. There is a location a lot further out which is quite good at night for looking over the field. You are in line with the runways so I thought it might be a good spot as the B-2 recovered. They would be relatively low since they were landing and the great evening light would be right on the nose.

As the recoveries wound up, I packed my gear and left the rest of the guys on the speedway and drove off. I was getting quite close to the time I needed to leave for the airport so I was ready to get going as soon as they came in. First I got the tankers coming back. They did a bit of pattern work which was a bit disappointing but not the end of the world. I could see the crews de-rigging the cables since the B-2 and Sentinel cannot trample the wires. Then the Sentinel came into view. The runway still wasn’t clear so I wasn’t surprised when it broke off the approach and flew a pattern. Again, a bit disappointing but not too bad.

Finally the B-2s came into view. Time was now passed when I really should be gone but I had waited this long so I wasn’t going to quit now. The jet came down the approach and right over me as planned. It looked great. It was being followed by the other which then broke off its approach. I figured I had tried my luck enough and started to pack up. Then the first jet flew a go around and went into the pattern. I can only imagine how good the shots were that the guys at the speedway got as it flew around in the lovely evening light. I hope they were good. I was pleased with what I got so all was well. A dash to the airport went well and I made the flight without too much trouble.