My quest for a Virgin Atlantic A340 had an unintended side benefit. It turns out that Lufthansa also run an A340-600 in to SFO around the same time of day as Virgin Atlantic. While the Virgin jet was on final, the Lufthansa jet was coming over the top before turning in for approach. Why not hang around for a few more minutes and get another 340? Lufthansa are not getting rid of them so quickly but they won’t be around forever so I might as well make the most of the opportunity.
More window shots today! I usually end up sitting on the same side of the plane depending on which way I am heading in order to be on the shady side. However, I was on the opposite side on one flight back to Oakland recently and ended up with a good view of Yosemite National Park as we came home. The light was a bit harsh and I was a long way up so nothing outstanding here but it was still a cool view with Half Dome being the easiest landmark to pick out from this angle.
I got a few other shots of the Mammoth Lakes area and the area near Mono Lake (although the lake itself was almost underneath us so hard to get a shot of). Here is a selection.
While I was down by San Francisco Bay, a bird came flying towards me and I took some shots purely for panning practice. I thought it was a gull or a tern so I was only bothered by trying to get steady shots. However, when I look at it, the bird has the beak of a raptor. I have no idea what it is. Does anyone out there know?
Part of the entertainment at the Sonoma Skypark Family Fun Day was some skydiving. Some lines were marked out on the grass and Joey jumped from the Cessna flown by Trevor and targeted the landing zone. People could guess which line he would hit with a prize for the closest guess each time. Skydiving looks so cool to me so getting some shots of Joey seemed like a good plan.
He was great fun to hang out with as were the rest of the guys. His first jump came in a bit hot and he landed a little long compared to the marked area. That was not a competition jump, though, so no-one lost out. After that, he was on target for the remaining jumps. I started out staying well back but, as I built confidence in him and he knew I wasn’t going to do anything stupid, I was able to get in a better position to show him coming in. It is a quick transition from a long lens for the aerial shots to a wide one for the touchdown. He is coming in pretty fast. With a few jumps, you can try a different approach each time.
Once on the ground, Joey certainly knew how to keep the crowd happy. He stopped off to chat with people on his way back to repacking the chute and the kids seemed to love talking to him. I need to get more shots of these guys. They were fun and they look cool too. A couple of the group are also in to paragliding so now I have something else I want to check out. I also created a few animations of Joey’s departure from the Cessna so they are included below.
A Rolls Royce is some people’s idea of the pinnacle of motoring. I have ridden in a couple and, while they were comfortable, they never really floated my boat. Cars and Coffee had two examples that I was looking at and the comparison was amusing to me. One was a brand new car that a dealer had brought along to show off. It was fitted with all of the latest toys and certainly would help relieve you of a chunk of your bank balance. However, the current Rolls styling is not to my taste and they look rather inelegant.
At the opposite end of the spectrum was a far older model that has been customized. Apparently, this had been a labor of love for a guy but he had sadly passed away. Not had been finished off by his family but they had then sold it on. It is a strange vehicle for sure. The classic Rolls shape is clearly identifiable but the cut down bodywork and the lowered suspension are a big deviation from the norm. I have no idea how much it cost to modify and I’m sure the value was to the guy rather than anyone else but it is a great example of creativity and commitment. I hope he was happy with it.
If you are going to shoot at LAX, one spot that is worth a visit, even for a short while is the In’n’Out Burger. Just north of the runways, the approach comes across the street just beside a small park and you can sit and watch the planes on their last moments of the approach. I ended up there when I had a few minutes to spare before meeting a colleague. The sun was heading down and the marine layer was already blocking out the best of the light so it wasn’t the perfect time to take shots. However, who cares? I had some time and I wanted to see what was coming in.
You get a lot of similar shots in this location. Trying to find something different is a little limited but you can still have a go. The standard approach shot is the obvious one. You can go tight and get details on the planes. You can go wide and get something that shows the area and how close the planes are. Sadly, this one never really shares the feeling you get there since it makes the planes seem a lot further away than they feel in person.
You can also get the shot through the landing lights as they get close to touchdown. There is a lot of crap in the way for this but you can still play with it. No-one seems bothered if you are taking shots here since it is so popular. Years ago, I had a cop stop and talk to me but he was only interested in comparing notes on lenses. You can wander across the street and further down to get head on shots if you like too. I have done this in the past. On this occasion, it was a quick visit so no time to go exploring.
My recollection of Volvos as a youth was of boxes on wheels. They never struck me as impressive cars and the interiors seemed to match the exteriors in their boxiness. I even have a less than favorable memory of driving a 740 through France overnight to try and make a morning ferry (which we did). It was not always thus. The P1800 was quite a smart looking car and a TV star in the original version of The Saint.
This example showed up at Cars and Coffee. It was in excellent condition. Whether it has been kept well or restored beautifully (or even a bit of both) I don’t know but it looked great. It wasn’t the only example around either. However, it did stand out as the one to see. I have no idea what they are like to drive but that wasn’t the point at an event like this.
Periodically, this blog gets populated with something that is disappearing be it an airline or a type of plane. Virgin Atlantic has been operating a single 747 in to SFO for years now. Recently they started up a second service five days a week. It is intended that this service will be operated with a 787-9 but the number delivered is not enough at this point. Therefore, they are using an A340-600 to start things before transitioning to the 787 in October. I have a relatively narrow window in which it will be operating and then it won’t be long before the A340s are gone from Virgin’s fleet. With a bunch of stuff coming up, I was looking for a chance to get a shot.
Having the plane was only part of the issue. Having a nice day was another. Also, it arrives around 7pm so I needed to get it before the evenings get shorter and it shows up after dark. The only problem with that is that the heat haze is bad at this time of year. Nothing I can do about that so I have to make the best of things. Fortunately, I chose a nice evening. The light was good, the timing was right and the heat haze, while present, was not so bad as to run things completely. These images won’t survive too much scrutiny but I am glad to have got them before time runs out.
Supercars are seemingly coming along all the time these days. The latest Ferrari, McLaren or Lamborghini seems to come out with slightly more power, greater technology, performance statistics and pricing to match with a frequency that makes it seem hard to believe that there are enough customers out there for such things. It was not always thus. While there were some high performance motors around, they seemed a bit more rare. For me, there was one that always stood out. The NSX.
Built by Honda and sold under that brand in Europe and as an Acura in the States, it was a technological marvel at the time. Supposedly Ayrton Senna was involved in its development and it was supposed to be amongst the best. It never sold in huge numbers but they continued to build them for many years. They would show up in movies occasionally – Pulp Fiction includes a good example – but they were not as glamorous as something like a Ferrari or a Lambo. I loved them though. I would still like to have one but now they are passing from being expensive and new to being collectable and even more expensive. I’ve no idea if they are fun to drive or not but I like to think they are. When I came across these examples, I spent a little time enjoying the idea of roaring through the mountain passes with no worries other than having fun.
When someone in Chicago needed to lift something that was too heavy for the S-58T fleet of Midwest, there was a good chance that CHI Aviation would get the job. When I first worked with them, they were known as Construction Helicopters but their scope has grown a lot and so the name has been changed. Whether it was the S-61 or the Super Puma, some big payloads could be taken up. I thought I wouldn’t see much of them once I moved to California. I was wrong.
They have acquired some surplus CH-47 Chinooks from the US Army and a number of them are currently based in California working on firefighting contracts. Some of them were deployed to help fight the Wragg Fire and I had a chance to go hunting for them while I had some free time up there recently. I had no idea where they were going to be operating. A look on Flightradar24 showed that there was a lot of activity in the vicinity of the fires including fixed and rotary wing assets but I was heading off with little real idea what I was looking for.
I took Route 128 that goes up through the hills and past Lake Berryessa. This road had been shut at one point when the fire first got established but had since been reopened. Even so, as I drove across, there were fire appliances from all over the state in any turn off I passed. There was also an orange streak on the road which, I assume, came from a fire retardant drop of some sort. As I came by the lake, I didn’t see any aerial activity. There were plenty of boats on the lake so I figured that they weren’t picking up water from there. It later turned out that was a false assumption.
I dropped down from the hills and came around a bend in the road to find myself facing a Chinook coming in to pick up water from the river beside me. Fortunately, I was able to pull off right there. For once, I was well prepared. I had figured that I might see something and need to have the camera ready so I had fitted the lens and set everything up before starting the hunt so I grabbed the camera and started shooting.
There was a pair of the Chinooks coming in for water along with a Sikorsky Black Hawk. All of them were using Bambi Buckets to get water from the river before heading back to the fight. I got a bunch of shots from the road before things quietened down. Other than an Army Chinook without a bucket that seemed to be coordinating things (and marked with purple markings over its normal camo), nothing was moving. A guy came up from the river with his fishing gear in hand and suggested I go down to where he was to get a good shot.
I did as suggested but, of course, nothing was happening now. A couple of times I wandered back to the car only to hear something coming over and rushed back. Sadly, these were flights to the lake rather than the river. Finally I did get lucky and got a few shots from river level of someone picking up a load. Then it went quiet again so I headed off for a while on an idea that proved fruitless.
My return brought me back past the same spot and things were happening again. This time there was a Huey involved and he was running a lot of lifts. He also was loading from a slightly different part of the river. One of the Chinooks still showed up but at the original spot so I had to make my choices. Eventually, I needed to head back so started off. However, the Chinook and another Huey put in another quick appearance so I stopped for them and then finally headed back.
This was a totally impromptu trip and I ended up getting a lot of time with the CHI Chinooks as well as some other types too. Obviously, it is not great that they are needed with these fires raging but it was impressive to see the crews at work providing such a valuable service. Now I want to see them again, hopefully in a slightly more controlled environment! I wrote a piece for GAR which you can see here.
