Tag Archives: bomber

Ye Olde Pub Gets Closer to Home

I had been able to photograph the B-17, Ye Olde Pub, when it appeared at the show down at Klamath Falls in Oregon. That was a bit of a hike to get to. In 2024 it put in an appearance at a show a lot nearer to our then home – the Olympic Air Show at Olympia. That made for a far shorter trip to see it – its home in Madras OR is also a fair trek. Olympia is only about 1:45 away if the roads are good.

The put on a good flying display for the show. The light was surprisingly good for Olympia! It is held on a weekend in June that has a remarkable track record of delivering substandard weather. The local photographers constantly wish for it to be moved to a different time of year without any success. The plane was operating from the main ramp area which meant it was very close to you when it taxied in and out.

I wasn’t the first to spot this so I can’t claim to be the inspired person, but there is a taxiway marker board at Olympia that says B17. That made it quite easy to get a shot of the plane taxiing out with the B17 board in frame. A bit cutesy but I don’t think anyone was objecting. It seems like a lot of the airworthy B-17s are having major maintenance undertaken at the moment so having Ye Olde Pub active is great. I won’t even get upset about the use of the words “ye olde”!

Buccaneer Event at Kemble

Leave a Reply

The Buccaneer Aviation Group has charge of a couple of retired Blackburn Buccaneers that it looks after at Cotswold Airport at Kemble in Gloucestershire. They held an open day in April that included some taxiing of one of the jets and I decided this would be a good way to spend a spring Saturday. They were going to start up the jet, taxi it around on the ramp, run through a sequence of tests on the airframe and then go out to the runway for a fast run before returning to the ramp to shut down.

There would then be a break while they repositioned everything to their ramp where everyone would be able to spend some time up close with the planes and get pictures as required. The jet that was going to be taxied was one of the last Buccaneers built and is painted up in retro Royal Navy colours as worn by 809 Sqn jets when serving on Ark Royal before the carrier was retired. I don’t think this jet actually had any RN pedigree but that isn’t a big deal.

The second jet that they have is in the process of being prepped for painting in the standard RAF camouflage. Currently it is stripped back ready for paint, and I have to admit I found it rather cool looking with the random patterns that are visible. This will show in another post. The two jets were lined up together in front of the hangar to allow everyone to get their photos.

I was one of the first cars allowed through the gate to the second part of the day which meant I was able to get some images before everyone else showed up and it started getting busy. However, they did have a good level of organisation to it all so, after giving everyone some time to get up close, they pulled everyone back a bit to leave it unobscured for photos. I did notice some steps off to one side of the ramp and asked I they might be moved in to get a higher angle on things, fully assuming that wouldn’t be possible. I was wrong. They were more than happy to bring them in which made for a better angle on the shots.

The day had started out with some damp and windy conditions. It did rain a bit during the taxi section of the day. This was quite handy in that it made the grey paint look like it would on a carrier at sea, i.e. wet! It also showed up the blowing of the wing when they carried that out and resulted in a cool vortex in the inlet being visible. As the day progressed, the weather got a lot better. It was quite sunny by the time we were on the ramp with the jets.

The team were in no hurry to kick us out and, as the afternoon wore on, the number of people thinned out and the light got nicer. I hung around with a guy called Matt that I had met, and we were able to pass the time talking about planes, cameras and places. Finally, we were the only ones around and the crew started putting the jets away. The steps were still out so I was able to get a high angle as they pulled a jet beneath me. It was a tight fit, but it all worked out well. A top day out and many thanks to the tea baggers at TBAG.

Inside the Spacious Vulcan Cockpit

Leave a Reply

I remember reading a piece about the cockpit of the Vulcan a long time ago that focused on just how cramped a space it was. The B-52 cockpit was a spacious place while the Vulcan was incredibly tight and had very limited glazing. Despite this, the jet was flown at low level and would be thrown around at air shows.

The two pilots up front are sitting on ejection seats while the three crew behind them are not so, if things go south (and they did sometimes), those three were out of luck. However, until I went to the Bournemouth Aviation Museum, I had never been in to the cockpit in person. They have the cockpit section of a Vulcan that looks out over the approach road to the museum. You can climb the ladder into the cockpit and stand right behind the two ejection seats. It is unbelievably cramped in there. Looking back at the three fixed seats, I was struck by how claustrophobic it could feel and wondered what manoeuvring in the jet would feel like back there. Might be a touch nauseating!

Vulcan in the Countryside

Leave a Reply

In the 80s, after the RAF had retired its operational Vulcan fleet, you could come across examples of them in all sorts of places. When I moved to Lancashire in 1990, there was one sitting just outside Blackpool Airport. It lasted a few years but eventually succumbed to corrosion and was cut up. It is a big beast to preserve. There are still a few around and the home of one of them is Wellesborne Mountford airfield. It is near Stratford on Avon and I had a work trip that took me within about ten minutes of it. When I had finished my meetings and was heading home, I diverted off to see if I could see it. Sure enough, pulling into the parking by the flying club meant I could see the plane clearly. I will be back in the area at various times so I will see if I can arrange a better look at some point.

The Lancaster Progress is Good, But It Will Be a While

Leave a Reply

Jim and I made a trip to the BC Aviation Museum and one of the things he was particularly keen to see was the Lancaster restoration project that they have underway. When we got to the area where the Lancaster restoration is underway, we were disappointed to find the area was closed off that day. We were peering through the entrance at the front fuselage when the president of the museum wandered up with a guest. He asked if we were interested in seeing it and I don’t think it will take great insight to know we said yes.

He was only going to be there for a short while but was happy for us to come in and have a look around while he showed his guest what was underway. The front fuselage was looking very good and much work has been done on it. I was allowed to climb inside and seeing the pilot’s position exposed at the top of the plane was fascinating. The engines are undergoing work and they were in different parts of the museum. The centre wing structure was at one side of the hangar and you could see the work done on it and the engine mounts waiting for the return of some engines.

We didn’t have a long time there but were grateful for the fact we got in there at all. When we went outside, you could see the outer wing panels in storage alongside the hangar. I don’t know what their condition is and whether being exposed to the elements is causing much trouble but I am sure they have considered this as part of their overall restoration effort. It will be a long time before everything is done but then the Lancaster will be displayed in the colors it wore when it was operating as a search and rescue aircraft for the RCAF. Should look fantastic.

Fifi Ramp Tour

Leave a Reply

While Fifi, the B-29 Superfortress, was in Seattle, they opened her up for ramp tours. Since they didn’t get to run their normal rides, this was one of the few opportunities to get some revenue while in town. I had not done a ramp tour with her before (putting aside the time I met with the crew in DuPage for an article I was writing. It isn’t a speedy process to get through her and so a good amount of time was spent in line under the wing while we waited for our turn but that was fine.

We started out going underneath into the bomb bay where there was a guide to explain about the plane. Then we climbed up into the cockpit and spent some time looking around and hearing more of the stories of the team. Then it was back outside and time to wander around and see the aircraft up close. She is a lovingly maintained aircraft and I was glad I finally bothered to do the tour.

Fifi Shows Up in Seattle

Leave a Reply

Since we have lived in the Northwest, we have had a visit from a B-29. That was Doc with Fifi’s previous visits having predated my arrival. I had seen Fifi elsewhere in the US but, when I heard that the CAF was bringing her up, I was looking forward to seeing her. She was due to arrive early in the week and then sit around until undertaking some rides at the end of the week. She was coming up from California and arriving at the end of the day, which meant I had a chance to be there.

A B-29 is not speedy so you can track her progress and know you have enough time. When they arrived, they did request an overhead break by ATC was unable to comply. When we saw her out on the approach, she seemed to be doing something odd. Apparently, they had got too close to the preceding aircraft (although it was a bizjet and she is a lot slower, so I am not sure how that happened). The result was that they broke off the approach and made an orbit before resuming the approach.

After that, things were pretty normal. She came down the approach with some nice evening light. The rumble of those engines as she came by was impressive and then she was flaring for landing. I was optimistic about trying a variety of angles the following weekend when she was due to undertake the rides. Directly under the approach path was one I had in mind. Sadly, one of the crew had to return home and they didn’t have enough for the rides to be carried out, so she sat on the ground for almost the entire visit.

The A-26 Makes a Long Trip in the Rain

Leave a Reply

During the holidays and just before New Year, my friend Paul was in town for a day, so we did some exploring. The weather started out being less than ideal. We had swung by Renton to see if there was anything of interest and the A-26, Sexy Sue, was out on the ramp looking ready to head off. We debated which direction they would depart and which would be most suitable for shots. In the end, we stayed where we were figuring it would be too high at the lake end of the field. (That proved not to be the case with a very low departure!)

Our chosen location did give us a good view of start up and taxi out of the plane. They were flight planned to Oakland CA which struck me as quite a long trip to take in an A-26. Sure, in combat people would have done that and when they were corporate transports it would have been normal but there are more comfortable ways to travel these days. Anyway, before long, they were lined up and powered off. There was plenty of vortex action from the props in such a damp atmosphere but it probably looked better from other angles. With them gone, we jumped back in the car and decided to continue our adventures elsewhere.

Re-Editing a B-2 Shot

Leave a Reply

Periodically, when I am looking through my image catalog for a specific subject for one project or another, I come across some images from a while back that look okay but might benefit from some of the more recent approaches to processing that I have adopted. This doesn’t always help but it can be fun to start from scratch on a raw file and then see whether the final version is any better than the previous attempt. I created a new virtual copy in Lightroom and zero out all of the sliders, upgrade to the latest processing version and give it a go.

I did this a little while ago on a shot of a Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit. I shot this jet at Palmdale many years ago on a visit with my friend, Paul. The shots were okay, and I was happy with them at the time. Here I shall show you the current version first and then the next one down is the previous result of my processing from when it was shot. Do you think it is a significant change?

Different Angles on Sentimental Journey

Leave a Reply

A jump back to the visit of Sentimental Journey last year. Because she was here for a while, I was able to shoot from a variety of locations to try and get some different shots of her. The weather played ball while she was in Seattle unlike the conditions at Arlington the following week. It was fun to try some different angles on the same plane since I had got the initial shots I wanted.