Tag Archives: civil

End of the Brasilia?

wpid12753-QB5Y8919.jpg“You don’t know what you’ve lost ‘til it’s gone” as the song goes. These days a number of aircraft types are fading away and the previous lack of interest shown when they were commonplace gets replaced with a sudden wish to make the most of their final days. One type that is likely to be disappearing from the skies around here before too long is the Embraer EMB120 Brasilia.

wpid12757-QB5Y2814.jpgIt isn’t disappearing in total but the largest operator of the type around here is Skywest. Skywest uses the Brasilia for their services and for those of United Express. However, the relatively small capacity of the type is making them uneconomical to operate – something the age of the airframes is probably not helping. I think I have only flown on one a couple of times when I was connecting on Comair from Cincinnati to Greenville-Spartanburg (and back) in 1990. I recall it being a rather noisy beast inside.

wpid12749-QB5Y2707.jpgAs Skywest draws down their fleet, they will soon be gone. Ahead of that time, here are a few shots I have gathered over the years.

More Head On at SFO

wpid12556-C59F3378.jpgAfter my visit to the Peninsula was done, I decided to head back to SFO. This time I wanted to have another go at head on shots. In my post here, you can read about my first efforts at this and how the heat haze was a problem. Winter has better chances since the sun is lower and the heat haze reduced. However, the sun does go down earlier so there are fewer flights departing while you can still shoot. They do tend to have nicer light though.

wpid12554-C59F3244.jpgThe Emirates and Lufthansa A380s were the main things I got while I was there. A British Airways 747 was scheduled out but the sun was dropping out of sight as he taxied so I didn’t wait. He actually took off over me while I was at the gas station. He had nice light once up high but the runway would have been in shade by then so I don’t think it was a mistake.

wpid12543-C59F3089.jpgI also got some corporate and rotary wing movements while I was waiting. Unlike last time, the 01s are now back in use so only the heavies departed my way. It was fun to look back up the approach at some parallel arrivals and also to see the departing jets as they crossed in front of me.

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SFO from the Bay

wpid12523-C59F1849.jpgWhile not a specific trip to shoot planes at SFO, I did have some time by the bay to get some shots of the planes as a result of being on the peninsula for another purpose. It was earlier on a Saturday morning that I found myself there. Winter is a better time to shoot at SFO since the heat haze is less of an issue. Even so, I was surprised to see how much haze there was for shots that were looking back towards the approach. I’m not sure if this was a result of the tide being too far out exposing the mud flats or not. The angle of the light early is also a bit far back but still there were some options.

wpid12533-C59F2607.jpgI was pleasantly surprised by my luck while I was there. Despite there not being too much traffic, I had a couple of parallel approaches take place. One was a China Eastern A330 with a United A320 in close contact. This was a very cool thing to see. A couple of United A319s also were quite close together on another approach but they had just slightly more offset.

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BAe 146 Demonstration at LCY

wpid12386-0503.jpgIn my youth I had one of the coolest jobs I have ever had. I spent a summer working for the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in London as part of their noise measuring unit. I spent a lot of time traveling to various different airfields to make noise measurements of the air traffic. I often took a camera along with me on these jaunts.

wpid12376-0401.jpgOne trip was some weekend working – overtime! At that time, London City Airport was relatively new and was a turboprop only airport being served by Dash 7s, principally of Brymon Airways. Very different from its current role, it was still a relatively new airport with a shorter runway.  There was a lot of interest in adding jet service to the airport with the BAe146 seen as the type that could meet the requirements of the glideslope as well as concerns about noise. This is where we come in!

wpid12380-0403.jpgA demonstration was set up one weekend with a couple of 146s operating from the airport. We were there to take some noise readings to compare them to the turboprops. (As an aside, I felt the noise from the Dash 7s was far more intrusive, even if the readings were actually lower than for the jets.) We went along with our noise measuring gear and took a bunch of readings. There was a period during the day when the flying wasn’t taking place and we were allowed to go to the airport to get fed. Since we had CAA passes, we also got to head on to the ramp.

wpid12374-0304.jpgThese shots are what I got that day. Nothing too impressive as tends to be the case for my old stuff.  The original scans showed up a lot of damage to the negatives which required much time in Photoshop to take out the worst of it.  Still not the cleanest of images but a day that won’t be repeated which is enough to justify a post and a chance to share an old experience.

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Deutsches Museum

wpid11619-IMG_8691.jpgA friend of mine was discussing his imminent travel plans. Part of this is taking in Munich, a city we visited a few years ago when another friend was living there. The Deutsches Museum is on the itinerary for my friend’s current trip and it brought to mind the aircraft collection there. The museum is a marvelous place covering a wide variety of industrial, technological and scientific subjects. A day is required if you visit but you will still leave much unseen. The location of Messerschmitt and succeeding companies nearby means they have access to many great aircraft and the collection is outstanding.

wpid11995-Dornier01.jpgOn a previous visit in the early 90s, they had some other aircraft, some of which were outside. Some of these have now moved to another location where a second museum facility has been established. I was unable to fit in a visit there but if I ever get back to Munich, it will be on my list.

Mustangs Day

wpid11915-AU0E8990.jpgAnother day out took me to Vacaville to visit Nut Tree Airport for their Mustangs Day. While I wasn’t planning this as a feature for Global Aviation Resource, I did end up putting together a BloGAR piece for the site about the day out. A slightly less formal write up which is more about my day than the event. If you want to check it out, the link is below.

http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/11/14/bloggar-rob-edgcumbe-nut-tree-mustang-days-2014/

wpid11921-C59F8876.jpgIf you don’t check that out (please do though), here is a smaller sample of the aircraft that were around that day. I was getting a little silly playing with very slow shutter speeds so some things did not come out as planned but it was fun all the same.

Red Bull Air Race

wpid11851-C59F5780.jpgThe Red Bull Air Race series was restarted for 2014 after a three year break. I have to admit I thought it wouldn’t come back when they stopped previously but I was wrong and this year seems to have been a successful one for them. The neutralized engine approach has certainly made the competition a lot closer. I was covering the event for Global Aviation Resource and the link below will take you to the article I wrote.

http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/wp-admin/post.php?post=40015&action=edit

wpid11879-AU0E8665.jpgThe Red Bull team provided a great facility for the media. We had three rooms with power and internet connectivity and food was provided throughout the day. Needless to say, if you wanted something to drink, there was plenty of Red Bull available! It had been a while since I had drunk it (and previously it might have been close to some vodka) but it was actually pretty good stuff. Doubt it shall be a regular feature for me though. These shots are some of the racers combined with a few of the other parts of the event that didn’t get so much attention in the feature.

Wings Over Wine Country

wpid11836-C59F8602.jpgAfter a bit of a dry patch for GAR, I have been able to put together a number of pieces for them. Some are more interesting than others to me. I prefer to be able to tell a story about a person or operation that is not something people will normally see. However, I will have the odd report from an air show if I end up going to one – something that I do less than I used to.

wpid11832-AU0E0156.jpgOne show I did get to was Wings Over Wine Country in Santa Rosa. The link will take you to the piece I wrote on the show. It was a good little show. It had a pretty reasonable selection of performers for its size. Some were of more interest to me than others. Photography was tricky since the lighting gets progressively worse as the day goes on. http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/10/06/airshow-review-wings-over-wine-country-2014/

wpid11838-C59F9236.jpgI did enjoy shooting the finale of the show. A USMC V-22 Osprey wrapped up proceedings. It was not a very dynamic display but it did give me a chance to try a lot of shots of the tilt-rotor in flight. The slow turning rotors are a nightmare for photographers since they appear frozen at all but the lowest shutter speeds. I took the chance to see just how low I could go!

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Straight Down the Runway

wpid11233-C59F7309.jpgOne of the things I have been contemplating for a while is getting some shots at SFO from straight down the runway. I have been to other locations and blogged about them here and here. However, I wanted to try a view that included the runway itself. With a day free to play, I decided to explore the options.

wpid11229-C59F7034.jpgI ended up with a spot that was reasonable. It isn’t perfect with fences and lights in the way to some extent. A parking lot between me and the runway has the double effect of being visually intrusive and also providing lots of heat haze. In truth, heat haze was a big problem while I was there. This was something I had anticipated being an issue. However, I was more interested in understanding the possibilities there so I could come back at a different time of year when heat haze is less of an issue.

wpid11231-C59F7185.jpgEven so, as the sun got lower, the problem did reduce a lot and, of course, the lighting got a lot nicer. I am thinking a visit when the timing of the departure peak combines with the lighting is going to be in order.

wpid11235-C59F7372.jpgOne other thing that will change is that my visit occurred during the time in the summer when SFO was working on two runways and all operations were on the 28 runways. That meant I had a lot more departures coming my way than will be the case when the 01 runways are taking the majority of the departure traffic.

A380 Row

wpid11067-IMG_2061.jpgI was on a flight home that stopped in LAX en route. I hadn’t planned anything for where I was sitting but we happened to land on the south side of the field and, being Southwest, the terminal was on the north side which meant traversing the field. This took us past the Bradley International Terminal. It was quite full as we passed with plenty of heavies. It had taken on a bit of an A380 theme so I grabbed the phone and got a few shots as we came by. Phone pictures through an airplane window may not be the best but it was what was to hand and they were hardly arranged for a great image anyway. If you like to see big planes from around the world, this will be for you. There are a couple of other visitors to LAX that day below.  If not, come back in a couple of days and see if I have something better for you.

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