Tag Archives: flight

Royalty Lands in a 737

I nearly missed this one. A JAL 737 was taxiing in at Haneda and the guy next to me seemed very interested in it. He was shooting it when it was still a long way off and I didn’t know why. As it got closer, I could see two Japanese flags flying from the cockpit windows. I figured it must be something so grabbed a few shots. As soon as it was gone, he packed up and left. Talking to someone the following day, he told me that JAL currently has the royal transportation contract and that includes some flights on the narrow body fleet. I guess someone royal was on this flight.

RAT Noise

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UPS is buying a bunch of 747 freighters at the moment. I have shot a few of them including examples here and here. The route back to Paine Field takes them across our area when the pattern being flown is a northerly. I grabbed the camera to see this primer example heading over. As the plane flew by, there was a lot more noise than would be normal for a jet on the approach and it had a vibrational element which made me think the RAT might be deployed. Sure enough, when I checked the shots, the RAT could be seen under the wing route. This is a normal flight test requirement so nothing to be concerned about but this was the first time I had heard a jet at speed with the RAT out and I was surprised how loud it was.

Pegasus Testing with the Hornet (and it’s not raining)

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My luck with KC-46s and bad weather broke recently with a Pegasus launching out of Boeing Field on a glorious day. It was carrying out trials work with a US Navy Hornet. This jet was the subject of its own post. The KC-46 followed it down the runway. It rotated in a good location and the light was so much nicer than I have had recently so I was very happy to get shots of it as it climbed out and headed off to the airspace set aside for testing.

Delta Bids Farewell to the QOTS

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The disappearance of the 747 from the world’s airline fleets continues apace. The most recent company to bid the Queen of the Skies farewell is Delta. Delta did operate 747s in the early days but its current fleet was acquired as a result of the takeover of Northwest. Northwest has operated plenty of 747s over the years and was the launch operator of the 747-400. They continued to operate older generation freighters for a number of years too.

Delta carried out a farewell tour for the type and it included a visit to Seattle. Prior to going to SeaTac, the plane stopped off at Everett, the place where it, and every 747 before or since, was built. It was a dismal day with low cloud and rain. The plane emerged from the clag on final approach and zipped low over the threshold to touch down before reversing thrust in a cloud of spray. It parked up at the Boeing facility next to the Future of Flight Museum where it stayed for a few hours before heading to SeaTac.

Here are a few shots of the Northwest/Delta aircraft I have photographed along with the farewell tour jet as it landed at Everett.

Qantas Dreamliner Delivery

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Delivery flights from Paine Field are good news because the jets are going to be a bit heavier and will use more of the runway. This brings them closer to where you can be to photograph them. Qantas were taking their second Dreamliner and it was delivering early in the afternoon of a winter Saturday. The winter light is just so good when the clouds have parted. No harsh shadows and a low sun angle are great conditions to be shooting in. I hope the crew had a good flight. It was long enough!

It’s a Long Way to Bole

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There are plenty of widebody flights out of Paine Field. Since the flights are normally not very long compared to the capabilities of the aircraft, they tend to be light and get off the ground quickly. A delivery flight is a different proposition if it is for an airline based a long way away. Ethiopian was taking delivery of a 787. The flight was a direct one from Everett to Bole. Consequently, it was fueled up well. Still, it didn’t have much payload and I was surprised to see it get off the ground pretty quickly. They had a long flight ahead of them.

Thai Delivery

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Before the time changed, it was possible to get some evening departures from Everett in nice light after work. I saw that a delivery flight was scheduled for a Thai 787 and a Dreamlifter was due out shortly afterwards. I figured this was a good one to go for. The Thai delivery actually slipped a bit from its scheduled time and I was more than happy for it to do so as the light was getting better and better. By the time the jet started rolling, the light couldn’t have been nicer. It was also a heavy jet and rotated not far from me so I got a great angle on the takeoff and, as it climbed away, the purple in the livery seemed to glow.

Off to Warsaw

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If you buy a car, you go to the dealer to pick it up. If you buy an airliner, there might not be a dealer but you will still go to pick it up. After the production test flights have been completed, the customer gets to carry out their own test flights. If all squawks have been dealt with, time to pay and take the “keys”. Then a crew from the airline will fly the plane to their home base. This 787 had been handed over to LOT and the crew were flying it back to Warsaw. Delivery flights are often obvious from the takeoff roll. Fueled up for a long trip, they use a bit more of the runway than the test flights do. In a short while, this jet will be busy plying the LOT route structure.

Easy to Guess Who You Work For

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At was at BFI awaiting the arrival of something and I was checking FlightRadar24 to see what was coming in. I saw a Learjet 60 on the screen south of SeaTac and tapped on it. As soon as I saw the flight path, it was clear who the jet belonged to. The shot below was what I saw and the repeated patterns around SeaTac suggested it was an FAA aircraft undertaking calibration flights for the airport instrumentation.

I stopped thinking about it for a while until I saw a jet appear on the approach to BFI that I hadn’t been aware of. Sure enough, it was the FAA Lear 60. They plonked it down right on the keys and quickly exited to the FBO. I imagine that flying repeated sequences of approaches is not the most exciting way to spend the day so they were glad of the break.

Pleasure Flight Robinsons

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If you wanted to get a bit of an aerial view of Half Moon Bay and the Dream Machines show, one option was a helicopter flight. Two Robinson R-44s were running flights all day. The flights were not long and not particularly cheap but that obviously was not a deterrent. The two seemed to be flying almost constantly all day. They barely had time to refuel and swap crews it seemed.

The two 44s were similar in appearance but my usual fascination with helicopters took over and I ended up taking way more pictures of them than was absolutely necessary. I even told Hayman to stop me if I kept shooting them! He obviously wasn’t too thorough on that one as I have a fair few shots. I even got some when we stuck in the traffic leaving as they were coming right over us for a while. When going through the shots, it is sometimes fun to see the passengers watching me watching them!