Tag Archives: NAS

Demise of a NAS

Moving house means packing up your stuff and hoping it all survives the journey. Some things you have are not ones you are happy about leaving out of your control so you take them with you. Since we were driving up, we had a bit of flexibility about what we could take with us. Aside from the camera gear, I brought my two NAS devices. These have the backups of all of my stuff so, while the computer went in the truck, I had the backups. However, when we got to the new place, one of the NAS units wouldn’t fire up.

This rather defeated the purpose of taking my backups with me. The reason I have two units is that the one I have had the longest is limited in the size of drives it can handle. 2Tb drives are the largest so, as it was getting full, I bought a new unit. Originally I had planned to just use it but, instead, I kept the one going and added new data to the new unit to avoid having to buy larger drives up front.

I figured at some point I might want to retire the old NAS. It was far noisier than the new one and was probably over ten years old. It seems to have made the decision for me.

Now I was in a worrying position. The newer unit didn’t have enough capacity for all of the data. However, it could handle most of it. I immediately backed up what I could. Meanwhile, I ordered new drives to expand it. The price of drives has dropped dramatically so the 3Tb units are being replaced by 8Tb items. That should provide plenty of capacity for a long time! As the drives get swapped out sequentially and the NAS rebuilds and syncs everything, I gradually got extra capacity and set up the full back up process. Now I am back to normal. It does make me wonder about the life cycle of a NAS though. (As an aside, I do have a tertiary backup of the images to BluRay so, while some elements were vulnerable for a while, the majority did have a fallback option.)

Guarding the Gate That Doesn’t Exist Anymore

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Over the years, many military installations have been closed down. In what form they get handed back to the local community varies. Close to us is Alameda. This was once a big base for the Navy with many ships based there and an airfield that was home to many operational aircraft. The whole thing is now closed with the runway having garnered most attention as the location for many a stunt by the Mythbusters. The layout of the base is still much as it was beforehand though. The hangars are still there now being home to local businesses.

The aviation theme shows itself in some relics of the past. Gate guardians are common at air bases and Alameda has a few. Drive into the old base along one main road and you go around a grassy circle which has an A-7 mounted on a plinth in the middle. It is loaded up and looks pretty dramatic. Another gate near the water has an A-4 Skyhawk mounted just inside. It has the name of some local dignitaries painted on the side.

Another Skyhawk is not far away. This one is not on the base itself. Instead it is mounted outside a local school. The Jet is not as dramatically painted as the others but it is still a pretty cool thing to have outside your school if you are an aviation nut like me. It actually looks like it could do with a repaint before too long. It’s good to see that they are still on guard duty, even if the thing they were guarding is no more.

More Oceana

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The ISAP theme continues! In a previous post (that you can read here if you missed it) I talked about some shooting I did with some friends outside NAS Oceana, the premier fighter base for the US Navy on the east coast. Well, the field trip from the symposium included a visit to Oceana as well although this was to be on the flightline. VF-31 was the Squadron that hosted us. They provided us with an excellent visit.

The squadron was not undertaking operations that day so their part of the ramp was occupied by planes but nothing was moving. This gave us a great space in which to move around. We were basically free to go to the end of their line where it met the taxiway and to shoot from anywhere in there. The only restrictions were the normal ones on a Navy base. No shooting open panels and no shooting Super Hornets down the inlets.

There was a fair amount of activity on base and the weather was very nice (if a little breezy). Since we were there in the morning, we had the sun pretty much behind us which worked out well. The squadrons that were flying that day seemed to have a steady stream of jets on the move. They would taxi passed us on the next taxiway from the one we could get to the edge of so we could see the jets coming by easily and when they were in the hold they were easy enough to shoot.

The warm weather meant that shooting anything too far away was going to be fruitless if using a long lens since the heat distortion was too much. However, if you went a little wider, you could minimize the effect of that, at least for the size of shots that are going to be posted online. They wouldn’t stand up to too much enlargement I suspect but they certainly show what was going on.

Interspersed with the regular jets were a few in special schemes. There were a number of the squadron specials up and flying as well as one of the CONA marked aircraft. We also saw a few jets that were in the aggressor colors but that had moved to a new squadron so we a combination of new and old markings. I am sure they will be repainted in gray before long so that is something good to have seen while it was around.

The VF-31 special aircraft was at the end of the line up and the squadron kindly provided some steps to allow us to get a higher look at it. These were originally for us to get a group photo in front of the jet but, once they were there, most people took the opportunity to get a few shots as well. These things tend to work quite well with everyone taking a turn but occasionally, as with people who linger very close to a subject, you get a few people who forget that they aren’t the only person involved. Thankfully, he majority are very considerate and “help” the less fortunate to play well with everyone else!

The next squadron along the ramp was VF-213. They did have some operations underway. One of the things they were doing was providing experience flights to midshipmen who were yet to decide their career path in the Navy. Additionally, they appeared to be in the process of training up a number of the ground crew. Consequently, when one of the jets came in for a running change of backseater, we got to see the midshipmen swap over and the ground crew being shepherded through the process of turning the jet. It was fun for us but I wonder how much they enjoyed having their early work being watched by so many. Many thanks to them, though, for tolerating our presence.

Our stay was slightly extended since our bus driver had been taken ill while we were on base and a replacement had to come in and help out. I didn’t hear the final outcome but hopefully he was feeling better later on. With a new driver in place, it was time for us to move on. Considering the size of the group we had, the team at Oceana did a great job of hosting us. Many thanks for everything.

NAS Oceana

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The recent ISAP symposium took me to Norfolk VA. It is a short drive to Virginia Beach and NAS Oceana – the home of the east coast fighter squadrons for the US Navy. The field trip for the symposium was going to include a visit to Oceana but, since I was there ahead of the event, I decided to pay a quick visit after my arrival. A slight delay due to travel complications and then the passing through of a pretty significant storm meant I was a little later than planned but no great problems resulted.

The weather was not great so the light was a bit sparse. Combined with a cloudy sky, photographing grey jets is always a challenge but I was meeting up with a friend from FenceCheck.com who lives locally so there was always time to chat even if nothing was happening. However, after a pretty quiet period, a few more jets got up and started flying. I was supposed to be leaving to go and pick up a friend from the airport but the storm that I had come through was not alone and his inbound flight was significantly delayed. Therefore, I had the time to see what else would fly.

The activity kept going for a bit was the light was fading fast and my ISO settings were getting higher and higher. Since the time to pick up my friend was now approaching, I decided to pack up my stuff. Another jet arrived as I did so. This didn’t bother me until I realized it was one of the CONA painted aircraft so the kit was rapidly extracted again and a few shots taken. Then it really was time to go.

Thanks for the advice on the spot to those concerned and also for the chance to catch up. Maybe not the most ideal conditions but still a fun way to kill an hour or two.