Tag Archives: california

Cormorant Takeoff Run

My like for the cormorant is no secret if you read this blog. I think they are a cool bird with a prehistoric look to them. One thing I enjoy when seeing them is watching the way they take off from the water’s surface. They run across the water getting some speed up as they flap. I have wanted to get good shots of this for ages but they usually do it a fair distance from the shore. When they onshore, they launch from whatever they are on. Fortunately, when out whale watching, we got a cormorant that was very close to the boat before it decided to take off. I happened to be looking the right way at the time and got something close to what I had been after. It was backlit but still close. I’ll still be hoping for something better but this was a good result for me.

Shipwreck

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I stopped off at Coyote Point in the Bay for a short while. It hasn’t been so long since I was last there so the new addition I saw must have occurred pretty recently. It appears that someone has had a little incident with their sailing boat. I don’t know whether they had a problem making it into the channel to the marina or whether the boat broke loose from a mooring somewhere else in the bay. Whatever the origin, it is now lying on the rocks just outside the marina. I didn’t get closer to see how bad the damage is but I am guessing that it is not in great shape!

Who Do You Want to Rescue You?

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Two rescue helicopters were on show at Heli Fest. The 129RQW from Moffett Field had brought along one of their Pave Hawk helicopters while head the other way up the peninsula and you get the Coast Guard based at SFO with their MH-65 Dolphins. If you find yourself in need of helicopter based assistance in the Bay Area, one of these units will probably be sent to help you. The Coast Guard unit will be the first to respond. However, if you are further offshore, the Pave Hawk may be the one tasked. If they are training nearby, they may just be the easiest ones to send.

Whichever unit and aircraft it is, you will, no doubt, be really pleased to see them. Both helicopters were popular with the visitors. They had long lines of people waiting to take a look and talk to the crews. I was chatting with the Coast Guard guys about their planned departure time. They were way too optimistic. The line of people was still big when they originally planned to go. Eventually, they had to put someone in place to mark the end of the line. They were still turning people away but they needed to clean up, check the airframe and get going at some point!

The Pave Hawk did a nice job of taxiing out of the confined space in which it had been parked. Both of them made nice passes prior to heading off. The Dolphin is a sleek looking airframe so it looked pretty cool as it made its pass. Good job by both crews for having dealt with so many visitors during the day.

Sunset Over the Central Valley

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While out shooting the aircraft in the evening at Eagle Field, I also got to enjoy quite a nice sunset. The sky was turning a variety of lovely colors and, once the sun had dropped below the horizon, things really did light up nicely. Whether focusing in on a distinct part of the sky or going for the wider scene, it was a nice place to be for a while.

Cottonwood and Truckee at Night

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We headed back in to Truckee one evening for dinner. We were eating at a restaurant called Cottonwood. It is only a short distance from the center of the town but it is up on a hillside so has a great view down to the main street. The sun went down while we were having dinner which was taken out on the terrace. The restaurant has a cool sign that illuminates when it gets dark. Meanwhile, the town lights up beneath you. It was a bit chilly – they didn’t turn on the outdoor heaters – but you could have a blanket if you wanted. We did fine without but, if it had got much colder, I might have taken them up on the offer.

Some Nice Evening Light on the Planes

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During the evening of the Eagle Field fly-in, there was a dinner held in the hangar. I took the time to wander around outside as it had become a lot quieter and the chances to shoot the aircraft had improved. As the sun went down, things got considerably better and the evening light was lovely. Not all aircraft were well oriented to take advantage of it but there was still plenty of scope.

Park at Your Own Risk

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Pacifica is a town built on cliffs that are not terribly resilient. The water progressively eats away at the base of the cliffs and, inevitably, things end up falling in to the ocean. I recently heard about a couple of apartment buildings that have been evacuated because of their proximity to the edge. I passed a building that had signs up in the parking lot advising you to go no further. As I got further around, I could see why. You can park there I guess but you might not have a car to come back to!

Waiting for Amtrak

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While we were walking around Truckee, a UP freight train pulled in to the town just short of a grade crossing. At first I assumed it was going to head into the pass but it didn’t move. We then figured out that an Amtrak train was due in from the opposite direction but was running about an hour late. (The flight only started in the Bay Area so I have no idea how late it might have ended up being by the time it got to Chicago.) Since there is only a single track, the UP train had to wait until the route was clear. We left before it did so I hope they got on their way before too long.

National Guard Chinook

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San Carlos Airport is home to the Hiller Aviation Museum. In times past they used to have an event called Vertical Challenge. It was a big gathering of all things rotary winged. Sadly, the challenge ended but the current team is trying to reestablish something similar. They have a smaller gathering called Heli Fest and I went along to shoot with the team for this year’s event. It was a normal day for admissions to the museum but the arrival of a lot of different airframes provided a lot more to see so the visitor numbers were significantly up.

The biggest visitor was a Boeing CH-47F Chinook for the National Guard unit at Stockton. They carried out a few passes before landing. Since the airframe is a little large and has quite a rotor diameter, they shut down on the ramp and were towed in to their parking spot. Once in place, they were open t visitors to come and look through the helicopter and talk to the crew.

No surprise that there was a steady stream of people checking out the Chinook during the course of the day. It is a great looking machine and the crew was busy answering questions throughout the day. When things were wrapping up, they taxied out and took off. A flyby was a necessity prior to going home. The Chinook is a very fast helicopter to the pass was pretty zippy!

: A US Army Boeing CH-47F Chinook taxis out for departure at San Carlos CA.

Squaw Valley Aerial Tram

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If you want to go the top of the mountains, you might as well travel in style. An aerial tram (cable car for the Brits out there) runs from the center of the resort to the top of High Peak. We went in to buy our tickets only to find out that they were running a special for the last weekend of the ski season and both of us could go up for less than I was expecting to pay for one of us! Nice result.

Whenever I see these contraptions, I can’t help but think of them in the context of so many movies I saw as a kid. Invariably, someone would end up on the roof in a perilous situation. The real thing is of course a lot less dramatic. The larger these things are the smoother the run seems to be. The only disturbance is when you pass over the towers but this one was large enough that the transition was very gentle. The swing was nicely damped too so it was really a non-event.

The thing I find quite amusing is how the cables sag under the load of the car. As you get towards the steepest part of the climb, the car seems to head straight for the cliff face before it pulls up to the next tower. It is all very simple really but it still looks cool. Our trip up was pretty quiet because we were early. By the time we came down, things were quite a bit busier. I liked the display screen in the car that had all of the key parameters for the service so you could see that the loads and wind speeds were well inside limits. Just as well!