While walking along the waterfront at East Cowes, I heard the noise of an approaching helicopter. As it got closer, it turned out to be a Coastguard AW189. I hoped it would come closer and it obliged by flying almost directly over us. What I didn’t know was that another of the fleet would be at RIAT when I was there a few days later so I was going to get a closer look than this. Stay tuned for that!
With the new tunnel open under Seattle, the process of getting rid of the Alaska Way Viaduct is underway. Large sections have already gone and others are in the process of being taken own. From the viewing terrace at Pike Place Market, you can get a good view of the demolition at the moment. The sections that have gone are replaced with a space full of dust and rubble. Meanwhile, heavy machinery is in the process of drilling out the viaduct deck and the barriers. There is more to come on this one.
RIAT proved to be a lot of fun with such a variety of types to see. The shooting conditions were less than ideal but that shouldn’t take away from what was there and the effort that went in to organizing it all – I’m looking at you Tom if you are reading this. Your team did a great job. One of the stars of the show was actually a rather aged type. Romania brought a pair of MiG-21 LanceR jets. The last time I shot an active MiG-21 was at Rockford many years ago and that was privately owned. These were very definitely active.
Their arrival on the Thursday certainly got everyone excited and the display itself was great. The jet is from an era when the current levels of maneuverability had not been achieved but the jet can still put on quite a show. The speed is something to behold, particularly on final approach when it fairly screams in to land. I got to shoot it from a couple of locations including being at the departure end on the Sunday of the show and getting slightly closer to the jet as it taxied out. I understand that they will disappear before too long to be replaced with something more generic – F-16s I think – so it was time to enjoy something old school for perhaps the last time.
On our first 4th July in the Seattle area, we watched fireworks from Kirkland. In the distance we could see the fireworks over Lake Union and we figured at some point we should make the effort to go and see them more directly. We did so this year. We based ourselves in Gas Works Park at the north end of the lake and we had a great vantage point for enjoying them. I took the camera along because the nice thing for me about fireworks is that I can enjoy them and shoot at the same time courtesy of the cable release.
My normal result with fireworks is that I get a lot of shots that are just not that special and a few that I really like. For some reason with this display, I had a far higher hit rate. I am not sure whether it is a function of their sequencing of the fireworks or just good luck but running through the shots I found so many I was pleased with. I won’t bore you with tons of shots but here are a few samples of what was a fantastic display. The coordination with music was great and my only gripe was that the finale was put to a piece that rather peters out instead of having a crashing ending. This seems to be more appropriate to fireworks. However, a minor gripe and a very impressive display.
Departure day at RIAT was a bit overcast, much like the majority of the show. The damp atmosphere did have the positive effect of meaning many of the more powerful prop aircraft were pulling vortices from the tips of their propellers. This was most obvious earlier in their take off runs but you could get a pretty good view of it even head on from where I was sitting in the FRIAT stand. Here is one of the Hercs that was beating the air into submission.
I have made countless trips between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight over the course of my life. Things change but most of the landmarks are remarkably consistent. I was therefore quite surprised to see some very large posts that had appeared in the approaches to Portsmouth Harbour. I knew that there had been dredging work undertaken to allow the new carriers (see this post) to enter the naval base. I suspected that these new large posts might be connected with the same project. Sure enough, some research after our returned confirmed that navigation lights have been installed to allow the carriers to navigate their way in. These light are mounted on top of large posts sunk into the seabed. They aren’t the most attractive things but I guess they do the job.
RIAT is known for putting together formations of different types to celebrate certain events. The fiftieth anniversary of the first flight of Concorde resulted in two display teams getting together. Concorde was an Anglo-French collaboration and so was the celebration in this case. The Red Arrows and the Patrouille de France both fly formations to represent Concorde so, for this joint effort, both teams got airborne and flew their two Concorde formations in line astern. They made passes in each direction with the national anthems of each country playing – one on the first pass and the other on the second. It was a simple demonstration but an impressive one all the same.
The Red Funnel ferries have made appearances on the blog after previous UK trips including this one here. While we were on the seafront at Cowes, we saw one of the ferries coming in but it looked pretty odd. It actually looked a lot like the old style of ferries from my youngest days. There was little upper superstructure and it looked like it was designed for trucks only. The name was Red Kestrel so a quick google confirmed that this is exactly what it is. By taking freight traffic, it leaves more space on the main ferries for the car traffic. Apparently, it has space for about 12 passengers so I guess it is not well appointed!
A quick post from my visit to RIAT. There are going to be plenty of things from my time at the show that will show up on the blog in the coming weeks but this is an intro even though it comes from the last day I was there. Departure day included some more energetic maneuvers from some of the participants including this M346 heading back to Italy. It waggled the wings to give us a nice top side view. Thanks chaps.
There are a few readers of the blog that like trains so this is a quick view of some UK passenger trains. We stayed in Chichester for a while and were very close to the station. We had to walk past it in to the town. There were tons of trains running along this coast route so I saw several as we were finding out where things were. Here are two of the trains. They are both EMUs, one of which is relatively recent while the other is a pretty old vintage of train that I didn’t even realize operated in this part of the world.
