The US Navy brought a couple of E/A-18G Growlers from Whidbey Island to the open day at Paine Field. The pair showed up in the morning and were parked up on the ramp at Heritage Flight Museum before they left later in the day. We got a good look at them as they landed and departed. Hopes of a nice low approach and go around were sadly not fulfilled but it was still cool to see them visiting.
An older airframe is always a pleasant surprise. While I was at Everett, Honeywell had some people making a visit to Paine Field and they came in the company’s old Convair. This is not the sort of plane you see around much anymore so I was rather pleased to see it show up.
The wings for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner are not built in the US. They come from Japan and they make the journey in the 747-400LCF Dreamlifter. The process for unloading them is very well practiced. The aircraft lands and is parked up. The tail is then swung open to expose the cavernous hold. A transporter pulls up behind the lane and elevates its deck to level with the aircraft. The wings are in a cradle that then slides out of the plane and on to the transporter. It then backs away and lowers down before driving the wings into a storage building.
While this was going on, other fuselage parts could be seen inside. With production running at a high rate, this process is repeated every few days. I have never yet seen the Belugas at work for Airbus doing the same sort of thing but I would like to some day. Their new aircraft are currently being assembled so they will soon have more capacity. I don’t know whether Boeing will need more of the Dreamlifters at some point but the current fleet seems to be kept busy.
Everett is a busy production facility. 787s are being built at a fair rate while 777 production continues, albeit at a reducing pace. There are some 747s and 767s coming out as well. The flightline for their testing is consequently rather full. I figured a panorama was a good idea but they are hard to put on the blog without making them too small. Time for zoomify again. You can pan around and zoom in to see what was on the line this day.
Grumpy got airborne using the Doolittle technique I posted about here. During the takeoff, there were some puffs of smoke from one of the engines. Initially I thought this might just be some oil blowing through but, as they climbed out, the output from the engine was clearly not as it should be and the one engine was clearly not healthy. They cut short the flight (although not as short as it could have been) and brought the plane back down. I saw Grumpy fly a few weeks later so I guess they dealt with whatever the issue was.
Paine Field held an open day which included some flying from the local aircraft. The Heritage Flight Museum had a number of the aircraft taking part including their B-25, Grumpy. On one of the takeoffs, they used a technique that was reminiscent of the Doolittle Raid. They applied power and full back controls to lift the nosewheel from the ground and roll down the runway in a wheelie. It was quite an interesting thing to see.
I keep spoiling Pete with some of his favorites. I hope he appreciates this one. You don’t see a lot of Piper Aerostars about. It is a quite unusual aircraft, apparently designed originally for possible conversion to a jet in future versions. However, the piston version is the only one that was produced. The empennage is quite unlike most similar aircraft. The one I saw was looking like it was very well taken care of. The paint was certainly in great condition. It landed at Paine Field and taxied off to park. I understand it is something of a regular so I will hopefully see it again.
Antonov 124s make a regular appearance at Paine Field. Boeing obviously receives a lot of shipments which I am guessing may be engine deliveries. Plenty of the flights come from Columbus OH which is near a GE plant and the GE90-115 fan is too big for most freighters when installed. However, it could be for something else. Anyway, I got one coming in to Everett recently. Paine Field is a popular field for light aircraft so you get a lot of them flying patterns on the main runway. One called up on final when the Ruslan was turning on to final. They made it in without any trouble but it was quite amusing to see the little plane on final with the unmistakable silhouette of the Antonov not far behind.
The move to Seattle meant lots of new things to shoot and that includes the Boeing 747-400LCF Dreamlifters. These transport the components for the Boeing 787s between the production locations and the final assembly lines. We were sitting indoors one Sunday afternoon when I saw one was inbound to Paine Field. I figured the light would be okay so I would head out to catch it. I had a bit of time. Did I get up there and then or did I mess around for a bit? You guessed right if you think I was wasting time.
I did finally get going. I head the scanner on in the car to listen out for it and, sure enough, as I was driving towards the field I heard them call final. As I got closer, the unmistakable shape of the jet was on short final. By the time I got there, it was safely on the ground. Crap! I was in place for it taxiing back to the base they operate out of. However, I would have been a lot happier if I had caught it in the air. Was the other stuff I was doing worth it? Since I can’t remember what it was, I seriously doubt it.
I do like coming across test aircraft. Production jets will be seen all over the place in due course but the test aircraft often show small signs of their test role no are a bit more individual. However, any test program also includes airframes that never get much coverage. This is because they never fly. Structural test specimens are vital but usually out of sight.
Boeing has a yard around the back of the Everett plant in which the remains of these test articles are stored. Bits of airframe sit awaiting any possible future use. The yard also includes a few bits that appear to have been operational at some time. The front fuselage of a 747-400 that still shows United colors is there. I wonder whether it was bought back to allow them to do a condition assessment based on the in service fleet.
Irrespective of how they got here, they are all rather forlorn looking as they sit in this space, out of the way and maybe never to be used again. Service life extension programs may require them to be brought out again although I have no idea whether the storage outdoors will have rendered them less useful.