Tag Archives: bonanza

Turbine Bonanza

Any airport in North America on any given day will have a reasonable chance of a Bonanza showing up.  Them come in all vintages, shapes and sizes but they usually come!  I’ve therefore shot tons of them over the years.  However, I think I may have had a first in that I recently shot a turbine Bonanza.  It was on the approach at Paine Field and it was obvious that there was something different about it.  The noise was clearly a turbine and the tip tanks had been fitted with winglets.  Given the location, I assume they are for drag reduction since they wouldn’t add much to directional stability.  Tip tanks are probably a must given the rate at which turbines burn fuel compared to pistons.  It was a smart looking thing with the revised nose shape looking quite graceful.  Sadly the landing wasn’t as graceful but floating is fine when you have 10,000’ ahead of you!

Low Sun on the Light Aircraft

While waiting for the UPS 747, there was a bit of light aircraft traffic in to Paine Field.  With nice low sun, I wasn’t going to ignore them.  They all looked nice enough but I was particularly impressed with a Cirrus that came in sporting a custom paint finish.  It looked particularly nice.

Bonanza Camera Ship

AU0E2314.jpgThe camera ship for the majority of the photo missions at Madras A2AX (and all of the flights I undertook) was Scott Slocum’s Beech Bonanza. This is an aircraft which is certificates for flight with the doors removed. With the rearmost two seats removed, this provides a great location for two photographers to shoot back at the target aircraft. Both photographers wore harnesses that were strapped to the airframe.

AU0E3172.jpgOnce airborne, one person would sit on the floor by the door and the other would stay on the seats and shoot over the head of the other photographer. This system worked really well. During the turbulent flights, the person by the door was probably a touch more aware of how close they were to the door as we bounced around but it was all safely planned and a lot of fun. Full credit to the work Scott did as the photo pilot coordinating the aircraft as well as guiding us students.

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