Tag Archives: jet

Team SHAR

I have spent time with Art Nalls and his Team SHAR at various events over the years but it had been a while since we had last crossed paths. Therefore, it was good to see Art and the guys again at Gary for the Chicago Air and Water Show. This year has been a busy year for the team. Not only have they got themselves well established on the show circuit but the lack of military participation has meant a relatively modern fast jet is in high demand to fill the gap left by the normal front line fighters. Add to that, the difference that a Harrier brings and you can see why their calendar has been filling up.

I caught up with Art early in the day and ended up running some errands with him for a while. However, I didn’t want to miss other acts on the ground so left them for a while to do some other stuff. I did get back later in the day and chatted to the guys for a while and watched the launch and recovery. With the jet on the ground, I also took the time to get some shots of it while no one was working on it. On the final day of the show, I did head back to the beach to try and catch it in action too.

It was, as always, great to hang out with the team. They did a great job and closed out the show nicely. I hope it isn’t as long before I next see them!

Passing Airliners

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More on the looking out of the window of airliners theme today. This time the subject is other airliners. If you don’t stare out of the window much, you might not be aware just how much other traffic is out there. Actually, there is quite a lot. At various times you might see other jets passing in the opposite direction, pacing you at a distance and crossing your path. Sometimes they seem very close. With some of the apps that are available now, if you have wifi on-board, you can even be prepared for some of them showing up.

Here I shall highlight a quality warning. The attached shots are not great. They illustrate a point but nothing more. There have been quite a few occasions when we passed very close to another aircraft. However, those were not times I had a camera handy. even if I had, the chances of getting a good shot are not great. Even when you are close, you are really not that close. It just seems a lot closer than normal – which it is. However, you are still well separated. Therefore, to get a shot, you need a medium length lens at least.

Sadly, aircraft windows are not designed for optical perfection. Moreover, since they are pressurized and scratches are a source of fatigue which you certainly do not want, the manufacturers put a nice perspex sheet between you and the window. They certainly are not optically perfect. Now you are shooting with quite a long lens through two layers of less than perfect material. This is not a good recipe for quality shots. There we go. I have made plenty of excuses.

You are now going to get a small aircraft if you are lucky and a small blur if you are not. If it is pulling a contrail, you might do better since they can make some nice shapes. However, chances are you won’t get much at all.

Sunset Into Midway

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Southwest Airlines and I are quite well acquainted. I am on one of their 737s on a rather regular basis. These days I am making the trip back and forth to the west coast a lot. Coming back from there usually means me arriving back into Chicago towards the end of the day. At this time of year, that can be around the time of sunset. I tend to sit on the side of the plane that gives you a nice view of the sunset as we are getting close to home.

I don’t always have my camera with me (although I always have the camera in my phone) and the combination of light and clouds is not always ideal. However, sometimes it just seems to work and give me something I am happy to remember. These images aren’t something that is ever going to be a big deal to anyone else but they are nice for me. No-one is going to want a wing and engine in the way either! Since you can’t change position, the view is a variation on the same theme all the time. That isn’t the point. I just have to remember to look backwards sometimes to see what is going on.

New Angles on O’Hare

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I hadn’t been out to O’Hare for a while and with a sunny Sunday according to the forecast and no other things needing to be done imminently, I decided to head out. I spent the initial time out there getting some pretty normal approach type shots. A couple of new things for me to see but nothing terribly dramatic. Then I decided to try some other places.

I headed around to the west side of the field and looked at what the departures had to offer. A level of cloud had moved in which was making the sky a little gray in the shots, even if there was still a good level of sun on the planes. The sun was causing a lot of heat haze and the backgrounds weren’t making for great shots so i decided to bag that idea and head to the approach lights. With departures off 32L, I could go to the place where the approach crosses the main road and get some head on shots of the departures.

It is a bit of a game since the planes appear quite suddenly and are soon over you. However, it offered some different views. Not something I will do every time but it was good to get a slightly different perspective on what is on offer.

Airlines That No Longer Exist

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A while back I put together a few shots of Northwest Airlines planes when it occurred to me that I had shots of an airline now departed. For some reason, this topic popped back into my head again and I started wondering what other airlines I have shots of that no longer operate (at least under the name they had at the time). I thought about a bunch of airlines that have disappeared but it turned out that I did not have shots of many of them.

However, there were a few that I came across as I went through the files. I got interrupted in the process and was not able to search through all of the possibilities but I did get a few from days gone by – some from quite a while back. Here are some examples. (Some might find the Continental planes barely gone but they are United these days.)

Other SeaTac Stuff

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The SeaTac shooting had a number of specific things that I have already covered. However, since it is an airport that serves a lot of destinations and carriers, it has a bunch of other things worth seeing. Long haul operators include Delta (serving a lot of routes that were once Northwest), British Airways and Icelandair. I have always seen the Icelandair aircraft on the ground when traveling through SeaTac but they seem to have a schedule that means one arrives at around the same time the previous day’s arrival departs. Not a very efficient use of the airframe but I guess it works for them.

The domestic carriers were also there with Alaska making up the majority of the movements – at least in the time windows I had.

FedEx shots

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A recent trip to Seattle gave me some time at the very beginning and end of the day to pay a visit to SeaTac. Plenty of interesting things are to be seen there. One specific area of interest for me was the amount of traffic for FedEx. They had a lot of movements with a variety of types. (A contractor operates Cessna Caravans for them which I saw but did not get any shots of sadly.) With FedEx just having announced a reduction in types in their fleet plan, this was a more interesting opportunity than it might otherwise have been.

Two McDonnell Douglas types came through while I was there. The MD-11s are busy as usual but I also got MD-10s. Meanwhile, the Airbus A300s were also in use. I don’t get to see them often and, since they are going to be retired in large numbers soon, I might not get many more chances. With movements at the beginning and end of the day, I was able to catch them several times. They were busy. I am assuming the middle of the day is quieter for them so I didn’t miss much while at work.

The only unfortunate side of shooting the FedEx jets was their departure profiles. When on the departure end of things, I was generally in a good location to catch the jets as they came by. FedEx was the exception. I don’t know whether they practice rapid climb outs due to flying into some dangerous places or just for noise abatement (they do have some aging aircraft) but the result is that they climb fast and are much higher than average by the time they reach you. Nothing much I can do about that of course but it was a bit of a shame. Approach shots were not an issue of course. The three degree glideslope is the same for everyone! Time to enjoy some of these jets before they go for good.

Cloudy KC

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Our journey home came through Kansas City. We got the airport in plenty of time so were hanging around waiting for our flight. The clouds were working their way across the sky and the beams of light that cut out of them at times could be quite attractive. An airport ramp is not the best foreground for that type of shot but you don’t ignore something because of that. Here are a couple of examples of how it looked.

NAS Whidbey Island

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The day before the ISAP Symposium kicked off, there was a smaller field trip to NAS Whidbey Island. Located on an island (surprisingly enough) north of Seattle, it was a bit of a journey to get there with a bus ride and ferry trip to get us there. As with all military bases, you never quite know what will be going on when you get there. They can be a hive of activity or have no flying at all. We did okay on this trip.

First we stopped in the hangar of an E/A-18G Growler unit. One of the officers was their to show us around and answer any questions. There was also one jet in the hangar that we could shoot. We then migrated outside to see some jets launching or coming back from trips. Then it was time to head up to the tower. We got to hang out for a short while on the catwalk outside the tower cab. This gives you a great view over the ramp area and the field as a whole. We had a couple of movements while we were there but then things got pretty quiet which would have been a disappointment for the second half of our group who were up second.

Lunch was served in the officers’ club which included some great mementos of operations and types passed. After that is was back on the journey home. A good little trip and a nice time to hang out with some folks I hadn’t seen for a while and others who were new to meet.

Under Your Nose at King County

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Hayman and I had a few hours to kill after we arrived in Seattle and before we had a ferry to catch (of which more in another post). We decided to stop off at Beoing Field to have a look around. We checked out a number of places including the excellent pilot shop they have and ended up near the end of the runway. I had looked at this location on a previous visit but not shot there. A 737 was up on a test flight and due in soon so we decided to hang around.

Before the 737 appeared, we did have a couple of corporate jets show up. Identifying them from underneath is a little hard to do, even for those of us with far too familiar a knowledge of this things. However, I was more interested in getting a slightly different shot from underneath. With power lines nearby, there was a relatively short period of time in which you could get a clear shot.

The 737 showed up shortly afterwards. We did get to shoot it as it passed overhead but I did remember to stop shooting at one point and just look. The view through a wide lens tends to make everything look small. However, having something the size of a 737 right over your head is very impressive and you need to stop taking pictures and just have a look every once in a while.