Tag Archives: Boeing

Second Weekend Flyover – Super Bugs

The football season includes both college and professional games. I shared some shots of some US Navy F-35Cs that had been in Seattle for a UW football game flyover. They were not alone, though. The Navy also brought some Super Hornets for the Seahawks game on the Sunday. Nancy had come along with me to see the F-35s depart and I was ready to move on, but she enjoyed the departure of the first jets and was happy to wait for the Hornets to go out too.

The nice thing about flyovers is that you know that they will go on time because the game will start to a schedule. They often depart early and fly around locally until the time comes for the flyover. I assume this also builds in some capacity in case they have an issue with one of the jets. We watched them blast out of Boeing Field and then headed on. The return would have been okay, but I wasn’t that bothered, and it was a nice day to be out.

Cargolux Turns on to the Approach

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The joy of the 200-800 lens is the ability to get some really distant shots of something when a spontaneous opportunity presents itself. I was in Seattle at the locks in Ballard when I saw the familiar shape of a 747 approaching. Since passenger 747s are few and far between these days, I figured it would be a freighter and, sure enough, the Cargolux colours were on this example. It came close overhead as it headed for the approach path to SEA.

It was well beyond our location when it started to turn south on the approach but, courtesy of the long reach of this lens, I was able to get a decent shot of it as the topside came into view during the turn. It was a bit of a gloomy winter day, so the conditions weren’t ideal. However, no big heat haze issues to reduce image quality too much – although you aren’t getting great clarity at that range. How nice it is to see a 747 these days.

A Quick Evening Stop at Heathrow

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I made a visit to Kemble for a Buccaneer event that will get a separate post. As the day went on, the weather got nicer and nicer. I took a look at the weather at Heathrow and saw that they were operating on easterlies. I figured that, since I had very limited time photographing at Heathrow and that there would be the chance to shoot from Feltham Park which I had never tried before, I would make a brief stop off there before heading home.

It was a bit late in the day which has its pluses and minuses. The light was a bit lower and would be on the jets that were turning south after getting airborne. However, I had missed the busier time for the long haul departures. However, this is Heathrow so there are always going to be some long-haul flights heading out.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I managed to catch in a relatively short period. I did just miss an Emirates A380, but I got Saudia, Cathay, American and Royal Jordanian along with the local BA and Virgin traffic. I did focus more on the widebodies but there was a Lufthansa neo and my first Air France A220-300. I needed to get home so this was a quick stop off for me but it was fun to try a new place to me, even if it is one that has been used by so many.

The Ride to the Next Phase

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This is just another British Airways Boeing 787-10 so maybe not something too exciting. However, this was the plane that was going to take me and Nancy to the UK as we wrapped up our time in the US. The plane was just another plane making another trip but, for us, it was the transition from one phase of our lives to the next. I have occasionally wondered about the journeys people are making when I see a plane coming from a long way away. It could just be a work trip or a vacation but sometimes it is a really significant transformation. This flight was that for us. Onwards!

Comparison of a Couple of Edits

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Every once in a while, while I am searching for something specific in the Lightroom catalog, I will come across a previous shot that catches my eye for some reason. This might be because it was something interesting, something I had forgotten about or just something that I think might benefit from a re-edit. Sometimes I have changed the way in which I approach edits and in others there is a new tool that has been added which I think will benefit the edit. This image was exactly that. I thought that the masking tools now in Lightroom would make for a more flexible approach to balancing the different parts of the image. I played around with it for a while. Because Lightroom allows you endless virtual copies, you can try something new out without having to lose what was there before. I then created a combination of the two edits to show how differently the same raw file can end up.

An Apache is a Surprise Visitor

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While waiting for the Ethiopian Cargo 777F at Paine Field, I saw a helo heading in from the south. I realised it was an Apache. Sadly, the light had already started to go away and, while this was okay for a white airliner, the green paint of the Apache really sucked any remaining light out of the shot. A bit of processing helped to improve things a bit but it was still rather gloomy.

Twisting the Clouds

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I posted some shots of the Ethiopian Cargo 777F in another post. What I didn’t include in that was the lovely effect as it came down the approach. There was some low-lying cloud to the south of the airport and, as it came through this, the trailing vortices twisted the cloud up beautifully. Stills down’s always show this as well as you would like so I did shoot some video to try and capture the effect.

Sunset Ethiopian Cargo Return

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Shortly before we left the Pacific Northwest, I made one of my final visits to Paine Field at the end of a day. Boeing was testing a 777F that was due to go to Ethiopian Cargo and the jet was due back at the end of the day shortly before sunset. I was hoping that I might get some stunning colours at that time of day but, by the time the jet came on to approach, the sun had slipped below the low cloud on the horizon.

Even so, the remaining light did provide some nice illumination on the jet as it was on short final and touching down. I was about to pack up and head home when I heard the sound of the engines coming back our way and, sure enough, they were taxiing back for a high-speed taxi and abort. There was a fair bit of moisture on the runway surface and, as they powered up, they were spraying clouds behind them. This time they were done and headed back to the ramp. I shall miss seeing the interesting variety of operators that you get from the factory.

Maersk Delivery Day

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The dire situation with Boeings 777X programme means that Boeing hasn’t delivered a passenger 777 for a very long time. The only jets getting delivered from the line are freighters. The good news about freighters is that you get some different operators to the norm. Maersk is a shipping company that has taken some 777Fs and, while I missed the first one that they took, I was able to catch the next one although only just. I was there on the day it was delivered. It was heading in a northerly direction which isn’t my preference for Paine Field departures but, because it was a delivery flight, you had the advantage of it being pretty heavy with a decent fuel load to take it home. That blue paint scheme is a cool one to catch. Maybe I will see one in service at some point.

Gridiron Air and Their 777s

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Sports teams started acquiring their own jets a long time ago. An older, heavily depreciated jet could make a relatively cheap investment which meant the limited usage for specialist purposes – i.e. moving a sports team to events – was viable compared to chartering a jet from an airline. You could also customize the interior. Older jets have been replaced by 767s and 777s with some NFL teams buying their own jets. I’m not sure how the ownership transitioned but some of these 777s have ended up being operated by Gridiron Air. They used to have more specific liveries but now they seem to have transitioned to a neutral paint job. Even so, a private 777 is a nice change so I got this one when it was bringing a team in for a game in Seattle. I wish I had seen it with something a bit more interesting on it though.