Tag Archives: Boeing

Royal Air Maroc 787 Delivery

After some time in Seattle with Nancy, I persuaded her to allow a brief detour to Paine Field. Royal Air Maroc was taking delivery of a 787-9 and I wanted to see it go. That assumed it was on time which is never guaranteed with delivery flights. Two of their jets were parked up at the delivery center although I was only hoping to get one moving. I don’t think the other was leaving but, if it was, I didn’t want to test patience by finding out. The conditions were a bit gloomy and the jet would be airborne a long way from me so I decided to go with video instead. The results are below.

Lovely Light if Only for One Day

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I think it is safe to say that we have had a pretty gloomy winter in the Puget Sound region. The grey and damp conditions have predominated, which shouldn’t come as a great surprise since the area is rather known for that sort of thing. However, there are occasional days when the sun has shown itself and they are all the more special when they arrive as a result of their rarity. Even better, I was able to spend some time at Boeing Field on one day when the sun appeared. It was later in the day which, of course, is beneficial from the point of view of getting the better light. The flow was southerly, which is not the best since it is only sky-based shots rather than something with a background but, in the middle of winter, beggars can’t be choosers. Whether it was a Boeing Max on test of a Cirrus Vision, they looked great in the soft winter light.

Honeywell’s Testbed Takes a Diversion Which Really Ends Up Helping

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Honeywell has a 757 testbed that I have seen a number of times but it was die back to Paine Field late last year and I was keen to see it again. I headed up there for its arrival and it was getting close to Everett while I was nervously looking at the sky. The weather was a bit crummy and I feared it would come in when the light was awful. Then the jet headed off in a totally different direction.

I don’t know what was going on but they turned off towards Puget Sound and ended up maneuvering in the area to the northwest of the airfield. Meanwhile, the conditions started to improve. Now I started to welcome the time they were spending doing something unknown out over the water. As the sun started to poke out from behind the clouds, I was willing them to wait a little longer. Not too long, of course. It’s the Pacific Northwest and things can change again rapidly.

Finally they turned back towards Everett and it was clear that, this time, they meant it. The light was now really nice and I could see the jet turn in to the approach from a long way out. As they came down the approach, I realized that my initial impatience with them disappearing off into he distance was misplaced and that I was going to get some better shots as a result. Before long, they were on short final and we had some shots. I did then head around to the ramp overlook at the FBO to see if I could get a good shot of the jet which I could!

Sun Greets the Talon’s Return from California

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For a while, I saw a lot of the Boeing T-38 chase jets but, it had been quite a while since I last saw one. Then I saw one had been in use for a couple of flights. I wondered what had been the cause of this but didn’t follow up on it. Then I saw that one was coming back to Boeing Field from California. I don’t know what the test activities were down there but, with it heading back and the weather being pretty decent, I figured I would try and catch its return. Since it was coming up late in the day, I was going to be able to be there.

I wondered whether the good weather would give up before the jet made it back but things held together nicely and the sun was out when it touched down. Since the T-33s went into retirement, the Talons have been the only chase jets to see and they have, as I mentioned, been a bit rare. I don’t know how long they will have. Maybe Boeing will ultimately replace them with T-7s – perhaps the early jets that will not be to a production standard and can take over chase duties. Since I am now gone, I won’t get to see either one so this was a nice catch before I departed.

Metrea Defeats Me Again – Sort Of

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I was heading to a meeting south of Seattle when I got a message from the person I was joining that they were running late. I stopped off at Boeing Field to wait for their call and to see if anything cool was around. One of the Metrea KC-135Rs was on the Modern ramp. It was the nicest of their paint schemes and the winter light was lovely. Naturally I grabbed a shot as I waited. They were looking ready to go and I hoped that they would take off before the call came through. I was to be disappointed. I heard from my contact that he was en route, so I left. About ten minutes after I did so, the jet took off. I can only imagine how good it looked in that light.

A few days later, I was back in Georgetown to meet some friends, and I saw that the jet was out again on a mission. It was due back shortly before sunset so I hoped I might get lucky with the light clearing up. It certainly wasn’t as nice as it had been previously, but you never know. As it turned on to the approach, conditions were getting better but not what I was hoping for. Despite that, the jet still looked okay as it came into land. It could definitely have been better but not a total bust.

A Vietnam Airlines 787-10 Might Catch the Sun

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The run up to the end of the year can be handy if you want to see jets on test flights because Boeing is looking to get as many sales completed as possible before the end of the financial year. While it wasn’t built at Everett, a Vietnam Airlines 787-10 was there for rework/modification and then delivery. I love Vietnam Airlines because they have an interesting livery in a time of white planes with limited color.

I was able to catch it taking off one Saturday morning. The light was great as it rotated and climbed away. Later in the afternoon, Nancy and I had been out to see the salmon run and she was fine with a small diversion to Paine Field to catch the return. The light had faded a little compared to the lovely morning conditions, but it was good to catch the returning jet. I think it was delivered not long after this.

Refueling the Hornet

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Two quite different versions of the same thing here. The Comox Air Show this year included demonstrations are aerial refueling with the RCAF Hornet. The first of these was perfectly sensible because it was the Hornet formating on the C-130 Hercules fitted with refueling pods. The Hornet took up station behind the drogue units to demonstrate how refueling would be done.

Later in the show, there was a slightly odder version of things. A USAF KC-135R Stratotanker (which was carrying Kadena tailcodes which might be a first for me) was airborne and the Hornet formated on this too. Some KC-135s do carry hose drogue units on the wings or a drogue adaptor on the end of the boom but this was not one of them. Instead, they simulated the boom refueling. The Hornet can’t refuel from the boom but, since it was just an airshow, I doubt too many people were bothered by this.

The Lifespan of an Airliner

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Recently, Eastern Air Express brought a 737-300 to Seattle. They had not long had the airframe, and it was freshly painted in their colors. Before they had it, this aircraft had been operated by iAero. They ceased operations so I guess Eastern picked up the airframe as a result of the asset disposal process. The registration is one that shows the history of this jet having been originally with Southwest. I knew I had shots of iAero operations and thought I might have this jet and, sure enough, I do have some images of it.

The thing I didn’t anticipate was that I also shot this plane when it was with Southwest. Just a single shot of it landing at Midway in snowy conditions and the image quality is far from impressive. No winglets fitted at this point either so just the original wing configuration. I am pretty sure that Southwest was the original user, so it is now on (at least) its third operator. Did it go anywhere else before iAero? I don’t know. Will it have another owner after Eastern before it becomes spare parts? We shall see!

Sentry Heading Overhead

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Another overflight video to follow on from my A380 video from a while back. I saw a USAF E-3 Sentry show up on FR24 heading directly towards Seattle. I did have some hope that it might be coming to us on its flight from Alaska (with a Denali call sign) but, as it got over the Olympic Peninsula without starting its descent, it was clearly going further afield. I was scanning the sky to see if I could pick it out and, fortunately, it was pulling a small contrail which made it easier to pick up.

As with the A380, I decided that video was the better bet. I did switch to get occasional stills every once in a while, but mainly focused on the video. The motion of the contrails is so interesting to watch and only video allows that to be seen. As it got closer, you could also see the motion of the rotordome on the pylon about the fuselage since the black and white finish makes the slow rotation apparent. It wasn’t long before it had passed overhead and disappeared behind the cloud layer that was to the east of me.

Shocking Times with the Blues

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One of the highlights of the Blue Angels’ demonstration is the Sneak Pass. The main formation heads off in one direction and the crowd’s attention follows them. Meanwhile, one of the pair comes running in at high speed and low level from the left catching many people by surprise. Just as this is done, the other of the pair comes at high speed from crowd rear and most people jump again. I am most interested in the first pass because it offers a couple of possibilities. If the atmosphere is humid, you can get some vapor on the jet around the shock waves and expansion fans. If there is a background other than the sky, the other opportunity is to have the refraction from these phenomena distorting whatever is behind.

Seafair does provide a background with Mercer Island providing the backdrop to the pass. The downside is that the display line is a long way out over the lake, so you are stretching the reach of lenses to get a close enough look at the jet. This year I did have the benefit of the long end of the 200-800 so I could get something of the shot I was after. Perhaps not the best of shots but at least there is something of the refraction to see.