Tag Archives: jet

A Better Perspective at BFI

Oh how good it is to know people that know people.  My friend, Annie, called to ask a favor.  In return, she would be able to get me on the tower at Boeing Field on the Sunday of Seafair.  Her friend, Reed, was king enough to allow me to tag along and the lift Annie needed hardly seemed that much of an effort when compared with getting to spend an afternoon on the tower walkways!  I have photographed at many locations around and on Boeing Field over the years but the tower just provides a better view of things.

The arrivals and departures of the performers are obviously the high points of being there but it is also great to get a different perspective on the airfield as a whole.  The stockpile of Boeing jets either in production flight test or stored awaiting a customer delivery is great to see from there.  Looking across the various ramps and hangar areas is also cool.  Even looking at the locations I might otherwise be occupying was fun.  Was I looking down on the other photographers?  Literally, yes.  Metaphorically, well probably yes too!!

I will post a variety of shots of specific performers in future entries but, in the meantime, here are some shots of a more general nature.  The team from the tower were very welcoming.  I spent quite a while chatting with the boss and hearing about the various things that they do.  I would love to go back and see the operations rather than just to photograph (although let’s not kid ourselves, photography from there is definitely welcome!).

Tango Really Does Like to Get Those Jetpipes Close

Those that have seen photos from the air show scene in 2024 may well have seen the spirited departure that the Royal Canadian Air Force Hornet demo includes.  The CF-188 gets pulled aggressively to the vertical and the speed of rotation is chosen carefully so that the engine nozzles get very close to the ground, but the airframe is already lifting and climbing so that no contact is made.  It makes for some cool shots.  At Abbotsford and Comox, I was nowhere close enough to get a good look at the moment of rotation, but Bremerton provided a better chance.  Rather far away so a bit hazy but still pretty cool.  Shame the special demo jet broke again, and we had the twin tub instead.

What Sensors Are Behind These Panels?

I was working through some shots of the 777X development aircraft as it landed at Boeing Field and I noticed a couple of the front windows were blanked out.  One was a conspicuous sensor of some sort but not far behind it is one blank that looks a lot more normal but also seems to have some sensor protruding from it.  No idea what they are sensing but I imagine it is important.

Shooting Deliberately Tight on Arriving Airliners

The arrival of the Starlux A350 has already appeared in a previous post.  I got there a little ahead of its scheduled approach and, since I was playing around with using my longer lens, I decided to try shooting some of the preceding arrivals with the same lens from head on to get some tighter compositions and see just what would work before the planes got chopped off by the limited field of view.  I had a variety of types coming in from the little E175s to 777Fs.  They gave me some things to work with and I quite like how some of them came out.  A bit of variety is good when the subjects are very repetitive.

Burning the Runway Surface

I got a sequence of shots of the F-35B as it was taking off for its display at Seafair.  I was a long way down the runway from it so the image quality is not all I would like but what caught my eye was the effect of the afterburner plume on the runway surface.  From shot to shot, there was either this red glow or nothing.  I was wondering whether it was a function of material on the runway like rubber that was burning in the efflux of the engine.  Interesting effect, whatever the reason.

Getting the Collection of GlobalX Liveries

GlobalX (also known as Global Crossing Airlines) seems to have a variety of ways in which it paints its airliners.  Not sure what the strategy is with the liveries.  Maybe they are used for different roles or clients or maybe they just can’t make up their minds.  Whatever it is, there are some interesting ways to brand the airline.  Here are the ones that I have seen so far.

Evening Raptor Demo at Last

The “at last” in this title is not that I haven’t seen an F-22 demo in the evening.  I saw one once at Chino and it was very cool.  This is more about the fact that the Raptor demos in recent years have not strayed far west very often.  They did a demo in Australia but only had one demo west of the Mississippi for one season.  However, Canada did attract the team, and Abbotsford provided a chance to see them for me.

The pilot for the demo for the last two years is a guy that was a regular attendee of air shows in the Midwest when I lived there.  I know some of his friends, but he was quite young then and I can’t claim to know him.  Even so, it is rather cool to see him have made it to his chosen airframe of the F-22 and then to become the demo pilot.  Only near the end of his second year did I finally see his routine and it was a good show.  I know he has used flares at a number of events, but warm dry weather probably has meant that the fire risk precluded that.  Even so, the evening light made for a great show.

Nicely done, Sam.  Excellent performance.  Hope you have enjoyed it for the last two years.

Starlux Arrives in Seattle

The increase in air traffic post the pandemic has been significant and international travel has been boosted.  Seattle Tacoma International Airport has been adding to its international destinations with new operators on a pretty regular basis and the most recent new addition has been Starlux.  Starlux is a Taiwanese airline operating services to Taipei with its fleet of new Airbus A350-900s.  I had seen that they were operating to San Francisco and was a little jealous of not getting to see this new fleet but, now they are coming here, I can see them too.  Here is one of their jets on approach to SEA to inaugurate the service.

Can Even More Harriers Be Allowed on Here?

After posting about the possible last encounter I would have with Harriers, I have since posted more shots of them coming through Seattle on their way to Alaska.  Of course, they had to come back at some point and Boeing Field was the stopping off point again.  Consequently, I have even more shots of them.  The arrivals were pretty straightforward, and I was pleased with the results.  When it came to departing, they were going early in the day and so I had to try something different for a location.  As it turned out, they weren’t going home when I took these shots.  They recovered back to BFI after I had left.  They did eventually head east, though.  Maybe that is it at this point?

My First USMC F-35B Demo

The Marine Corps F-35Bs have been in service for plenty of time now and I have had the opportunity to photograph them on quite a few occasions.  However, I had not, until this year, seen their air show demo.  I have seen the RAF F-35B at RIAT on an occasion, but it was not a full demo but a brief flyby and hover.  Consequently, when the jet was slated for the Seafair schedule this year, I was interested to see the performance.  It turned out to be an interesting combination of things although maybe not intentionally.

The displays at Seafair are a bit tricky.  The alignment of the lake and the populated areas means the show box is a bit distant from the shire.  Consequently, the flying takes place quite a way from the crowd.  This is not ideal for photos.  However, the Marine demo did seem to approach the box from some interesting angles that included coming almost along the shoreline at one point.  Not sure if this was intentional but it did make for some closer shots.

Sadly, the hovering portion was quite a way offshore.  I had hoped that this might be closer in given the lack of speed but that wasn’t to be.  Even so, it was fun to watch the jet doing its thing and looking to see how much the surface of the lake was being disturbed by the efflux.  Hopefully, I’ll get to see the demo again at a location that allows some closer passes.