Tag Archives: military

A Couple of Military Hovercraft

No shock to regular readers that I might swing by the Hovertravel facilities when on the Island. A pleasant surprise was to discover that it wasn’t just the Hovertravel craft that were present. A couple of smaller military craft were also parked up. I had seen pictures of these online but didn’t realise that they were still present. I don’t know whether they are ex-military that are being repurposed or new builds for the military. Whatever the story, here they were. It would be better to see them moving but it was the weekend so not a surprise that they weren’t going anywhere.

Inside the Spacious Vulcan Cockpit

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I remember reading a piece about the cockpit of the Vulcan a long time ago that focused on just how cramped a space it was. The B-52 cockpit was a spacious place while the Vulcan was incredibly tight and had very limited glazing. Despite this, the jet was flown at low level and would be thrown around at air shows.

The two pilots up front are sitting on ejection seats while the three crew behind them are not so, if things go south (and they did sometimes), those three were out of luck. However, until I went to the Bournemouth Aviation Museum, I had never been in to the cockpit in person. They have the cockpit section of a Vulcan that looks out over the approach road to the museum. You can climb the ladder into the cockpit and stand right behind the two ejection seats. It is unbelievably cramped in there. Looking back at the three fixed seats, I was struck by how claustrophobic it could feel and wondered what manoeuvring in the jet would feel like back there. Might be a touch nauseating!

Second Weekend Flyover – Super Bugs

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The football season includes both college and professional games. I shared some shots of some US Navy F-35Cs that had been in Seattle for a UW football game flyover. They were not alone, though. The Navy also brought some Super Hornets for the Seahawks game on the Sunday. Nancy had come along with me to see the F-35s depart and I was ready to move on, but she enjoyed the departure of the first jets and was happy to wait for the Hornets to go out too.

The nice thing about flyovers is that you know that they will go on time because the game will start to a schedule. They often depart early and fly around locally until the time comes for the flyover. I assume this also builds in some capacity in case they have an issue with one of the jets. We watched them blast out of Boeing Field and then headed on. The return would have been okay, but I wasn’t that bothered, and it was a nice day to be out.

Distant Farewell to the Pumas

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The RAF retired its Puma helicopter fleet at the end of March after 54 years in service. They undertook a tour of various parts of the country with three Pumas. Sadly, I wasn’t able to be in place for any of the flypasts. However, one of the last legs included a flight across London using the Thames helicopter route. I was working in the London office that day and so I did head up to the roof to see if I could see them. We are too far from the river to be in a good spot, but it was better than nothing. I also only had my phone. Stills were pointless so I decided to try and get some video instead. Here is what I got.

The Thai Air Force A340 Tempts But Thwarts

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On my last visit to LA before I left the US, I was quite surprised by an interesting airframe parked at LAX. The FBO ramps on the south side of the airport often have interesting visitors but this one was quite special. The Thai Air Force A340-500 was parked up in a corner. I last saw this plane as it overflew Seattle, and I happened to see it. I was in the back of an Uber as we left the airport, and I tried to get a shot with my phone as we drove by outside.

When I got to the airport hotel in the evening, the plane was still there. I got a more distant shot but from a better angle as it sat in the same location. It did have some lights on, and I wondered whether it would depart while I was watching. Sadly, nothing before I turned in for the night. The next morning, I came back and it was gone. The lights were clearly an indicator that it was heading out that night. It must have been quite late.

Flare Doors Open on an F-35

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Early in 2024, Mark and I were down in Arizona photographing aviation in all its forms. We did spend a little time in Glendale at Luke AFB and seeing a wide variety of F-35As (if you count variety as meaning very slightly different low visibility markings). One of the jets that came overhead on approach, and it had a pair of open doors on the underside. Initially I thought that this was the Integrated Power Pack outlet but then I saw that was next to the doors. It is actually the flare dispenser and I guess the doors must be stuck open after something from the mission.

Nice Retro Paint Job

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I am not very good when it comes to identifying some of the older light aircraft types. I have some friends that will be despairing of me if they are reading this because they can tell any of these different types at a glance. Sorry about that guys. This plane took off from Paine Field one sunny evening and the old military style paint job looked lovely in that light. It looked like a Cub but I looked it up when I got home. Apparently it is an L4X and listed as Experimental. It isn’t listed as a Piper so maybe it is a home built of some sort. Whatever its origin, it did look nice with the sun on it.

Comparison of a Couple of Edits

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Every once in a while, while I am searching for something specific in the Lightroom catalog, I will come across a previous shot that catches my eye for some reason. This might be because it was something interesting, something I had forgotten about or just something that I think might benefit from a re-edit. Sometimes I have changed the way in which I approach edits and in others there is a new tool that has been added which I think will benefit the edit. This image was exactly that. I thought that the masking tools now in Lightroom would make for a more flexible approach to balancing the different parts of the image. I played around with it for a while. Because Lightroom allows you endless virtual copies, you can try something new out without having to lose what was there before. I then created a combination of the two edits to show how differently the same raw file can end up.

An Apache is a Surprise Visitor

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While waiting for the Ethiopian Cargo 777F at Paine Field, I saw a helo heading in from the south. I realised it was an Apache. Sadly, the light had already started to go away and, while this was okay for a white airliner, the green paint of the Apache really sucked any remaining light out of the shot. A bit of processing helped to improve things a bit but it was still rather gloomy.

Vulcan in the Countryside

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In the 80s, after the RAF had retired its operational Vulcan fleet, you could come across examples of them in all sorts of places. When I moved to Lancashire in 1990, there was one sitting just outside Blackpool Airport. It lasted a few years but eventually succumbed to corrosion and was cut up. It is a big beast to preserve. There are still a few around and the home of one of them is Wellesborne Mountford airfield. It is near Stratford on Avon and I had a work trip that took me within about ten minutes of it. When I had finished my meetings and was heading home, I diverted off to see if I could see it. Sure enough, pulling into the parking by the flying club meant I could see the plane clearly. I will be back in the area at various times so I will see if I can arrange a better look at some point.