Tag Archives: civil

Sunset Dreamlifter

Scrolling through some shots for something else, I saw these two shots of a Dreamlifter departing Paine Field one evening. I think I actually posted about that flight on another day but I guess I ignored the view of the jet as it headed in to the distance. The sky was beginning to develop a nice color and the air was very clear giving a good view of the Cascades mountains in the distance so why not share them now – particularly as it is a time when I am not getting much aviation photography done!

Janet on a Blustery PNW Day

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Crummy weather and a lack of light is not usually a recipe for heading out to shoot planes. However, I was up in Everett getting the car serviced and, as I prepared to leave when the work was done, I figured I would have a quick check on what was moving up the road. Turned out ATS had another Janet 737 out on a test flight.

I have shot the Janet 737s at Paine Field in far better conditions but I figured it was worth a quick diversion before heading home. The wind was very strong and from the southwest. As the 737 came down the approach, it was pointing in my direction as it compensated for the crosswind. A short while before it arrived, we had experienced some nice sun poking through the clouds but, sadly, this had gone by the time it arrived so it was dull lighting. This somehow made the airframe paint seem a little warmer than I recall previously.

Landing the Balloon Where You Can

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I posted about the hot air balloon over our town in this post. At the end of that post, the balloons was descending behind the trees for a landing and I was driving off to find them. It turned out that I had forgotten about a field between the rail tracks and the highway. I came around the corner and the ballon was on the ground but upright sitting in the field. It looked pretty incongruous.

I was clearly not the only person intrigued by this as a bunch of vehicles had gone down the normally quiet road alongside the field. The team was actually still burning as they maneuvered the ballon to the edge of the field to give themselves space to deflate it. Most people got bored with the view, but I decided to try and get photos and video of the whole sequence of deflating the balloon. The light was fading rapidly at this point.

A bunch of the crew grabbed the lines to the top of the balloon as the top vent was opened up. The balloon started to sag rapidly but, once they pulled it over to a certain point, the vent was too low to let the warm air out. Then they waited while another person gathered up the envelope and squeezed the remaining air out. Finally, it sagged to the ground and the final gathering up was quickly completed. By now it was quite dark, and I figured it was time to go home. I am not aware that they use the field to land normally. I wonder if this was a bit of an urgent landing as the light was fading fast and the low winds were limiting options.

747s Over Kenmore

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A sunny but cool Sunday afternoon with a bit of spare time on my hands meant I headed over to Kenmore to see whether there was any floatplane activity. The answer was not much. However, I did get something a little larger overhead. Traffic in to Paine Field was running on a northerly flow. A Dreamlifter made an approach and was followed a little later by a 747-8F destined for UPS once test flying is complete. They both turned on to approach overhead the north end of Lake Washington so I got shots of them both.

Hot Air Balloon in Woodinville

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Heading home on Sunday afternoon, I saw a hot air balloon overhead Woodinville. Passenger flights are a regular feature here but I was interested to see if I could work out where they were routing. I decided to follow them. I managed to get a couple of places where I could stop and get some shots as they flew above. One of these was not far from home. At this point, they seemed to be descending quickly. As they dropped below the trees, it was clear that they were landing. I wasn’t sure where this could be but jumped in the car again to see. Where they ended up. More to come…

Turbine Bonanza

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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!

More To Love A321 Shot for Work!

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I had a brief visit to Seattle Tacoma International to get some images for work. These images were not of the aircraft but the configuration of the roadways in to the airport. Not a great opportunity for photographing an aircraft. However, you could just see some of the ramp area and, as the sun came out, the Alaska Airlines A321neo in the More To Love markings taxied in. It was just visible above the terminal buildings so it would have been rude not to get a shot!

Under the American Max

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Production of 737 Max jets is underway again and that means some flight testing of new jets. I was heading back from Boeing Field but stopped at the approach end to get a shot from the underside. I almost didn’t get there in time so was not exactly where I wanted to be to take the shot but it still worked out reasonably well. I do like a different angle every once in a while and underneath is certainly worth a go every once in a while.

Kodiak Buzzing the Pattern at Paine

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Unusual visitors to an airport are obviously welcome and give you the chance to get something new. However, that also means you want to make sure you get the shot so you don’t want to experiment too much with settings. Having someone bashing the circuit for a long time and flying a variety of different approaches means that you can take as many shots as you like and try all sorts of different things.

My Sunday at Paine Field included a pretty smart looking Quest Kodiak doing some training flights. Lots of approaches, some straight in and others curving. All the opportunity I could want. Wide shots, tight shots, how low will I dare go with the shutter speed? I had the 1.4X teleconverter on the 500mm so shooting at 1/100^th of a second at 700mm is going to have a pretty low success rate but I was pleasantly surprised how many came out nice and sharp. Not bad to have a day of panning practice.

The Kodiak is an interesting looking plane. Having a turbine means a nice high prop speed on approach which certainly helps but it is also something that can be thrown around easily so the training flight included a bunch of different approaches. I appreciated the effort they made on our behalf. Now to get the light on the prop to show it up nicely!

Omni 767 Visits ATS

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The Omni Air International 767s are a regular feature at Boeing Field. I have even blogged about them recently when I caught one actually flying as opposed to the usual being parked up near the Kenmore ramp. However, I have not seen one up at Paine Field before. Having one arrive while up there at the weekend was a bit of a surprise. I believe that it was heading to ATS for some maintenance work. I guess it was a bit if an unusual thing for the crew too since, once they had run all the way to the far end of the runway, they seemed to struggle a bit with where they were supposed to go next. They worked it out eventually, though.