Tag Archives: photo

Old Porsches

Tons of Porsches show up at Exotics@RTC. There are more 911s than you can shake a stick at an I am not someone that is terribly au fait with Porsche models anyway so I can tell which ones are which. Rather than focus on the latest ones, I am often looking out for some of the older versions that show up. The late eighties had some beefy 911s like to Turbo and something like that would be good to see.

You also get some more vintage versions of the marque popping in and these are always worth a look. The standard of care/restoration is usually very impressive and, while the Porsche guys will be checking the cars out, they don’t get the same level of interest as the Ferraris and Lambos across the parking lot.

Fatigue Test 777X Emerges

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The first two flight test 777X airframes have been on the flight line. However, something different was sitting outside the production hangars at Everett. It was a 777X but it was missing a few more cosmetic parts. This was the fatigue test aircraft. It was being readied for movement around to the area of the plant where they undertake the fatigue testing. This will probably be the last time you get to see it like this. Once testing is done, I suspect it will rapidly end up in pieces for further analysis.

The Big Ships are Back

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The return of summer means the return of the cruise ships. We took a trip over to West Seattle when we had visitors to get a view of the city and there were cruise ships at both terminals. One was side on to us while two more were stern on at the further terminal. We shall have a lot of these big ships coming and going for the next few months as people head up to Alaska on a voyage.

Vietnam Memorial B-52G Is Complete

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The Vietnam Veterans Memorial has been under construction for a while including the restoration of the B-52G, Midnight Express that spent many years outside at Paine Field. The opening ceremony took place over the Memorial Day weekend and I went along to check it out. I wrote an article for GAR about the ceremony and, if you want to read that, you can see it here.

The article includes most of the good images from the event so I won’t duplicate it all here but instead I shall just post a couple of shots that summarize what happened.

The Big House

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My nephew’s graduation took place at Ann Arbor MI. I had not been there before but the main graduation ceremony was held in the football stadium. It might be able to hold 100,000 but on this day there were not so many. We had more space to spread out than would be the case in a football game and behind the stage area was left empty. While we waited for things to “kick off”, I figured I would grab a panorama or two of the Big House.

Light is Getting Good at YVR

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Arrivals at Vancouver are often on a westerly heading and on the north runway. This is not ideal for photography at touchdown except in the height of summer. Then the light comes around to the north side quite nicely. I wasn’t in Vancouver at the peak time but I did have a visit when the sun had started to get to a good spot. I met up with my buddy Mark for a little evening shooting.

Unfortunately, not everything I wanted came to the runway. The glide slope was apparently unserviceable so some airlines chose to go to the south runway. However, enough came to the north to be worthwhile. The later it got, the better the light became. Some interesting overseas arrivals come in late enough to take advantage of this plus the regular local traffic to provide some nice opportunities. It was a nice evening of shooting and meant the traffic was far easier by the time I got on the road home.

Too Many McLarens for Me to Know

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It doesn’t seem that long ago that there was interest in McLaren starting to develop road cars. I guess the first time I saw one on the road, we still lived in Chicago, so it has been a while. However, it still feels very recent. What I haven’t done is pay much attention to what the different models are. Consequently, when I am at Exotic@RTC, there are a bunch of McLarens from the local dealer as well as some local owners and I have absolutely no idea which model is which. Moreover, I don’t know whether or is a base model of “little” interest or a particularly rare example. I might recognize a Senna by the huge wing but haven’t seen one of those yet.

Instead I just wander around and look at the various cars to see which ones I like the look of. Their styling is generally pretty nice. Some of them have more interesting shaping for the aerodynamics (no surprise that is something I am focused on) but the simpler shapes are nice too. Seeing which colors they bring can be fun too. Some of the colors are rather vibrant/gaudy. I was quite interested in one vehicle that was originally painted red but had been wrapped in a matte gray film with just some elements of the red visible around certain areas.

Since I don’t know which model is which, I guess it is probably safer for me to just not bother buying one for now. I’ll have to do my research to make sure I don’t buy the wrong one. That would be so embarrassing…

Two Special American 737s – At Last

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American Airlines has painted a number of its jets in liveries of the airlines that went into it over the years. It happens that, as I write this on a plane, I just saw an A320 in American West colors as we taxied out. They painted up three 737s in special schemes and I had a poor record of seeing them. Two of these, the TWA scheme and the Reno Air scheme, both showed up at DFW while I was there waiting for a flight home. The TWA scheme landed just after I got there so I saw it while riding the inter-terminal shuttle. I then had it taxi out past me a little while later. Sadly it took off from the other side of the field. The Reno jet followed later and it did take off from our side so I felt like I had finally checked out something that had evaded me for too long.

Great Blue Heron Spotting

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I posted a photo of a cormorant sitting on a post in Lake Washington in this post. More recently, the same post became the resting place for a heron. I had plenty of time to inch closer to get a better shot of the bird. The background was rather distracting so I ended up crouching in an strange position in order to get a cleaner background. The heron seemed content to wait for me to get the shot.

Jay Z Coming to Town?

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Corporate jets are rarely painted in interesting schemes so, when they are, you notice them. This one showed at at Boeing Field with a puma on the tail. A bit of research when back home suggests it is a project between Jay Z and the sport gear manufacturer Puma. I think it is to help out athletes that are sponsored by them. The registration is apparently a reference to Jay Z himself. I have no idea who was on it on this occasion. Maybe Sean was onboard?