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Flight Check Lear 60 Maneuvering Around BFI

I was driving over to Seattle a while back and, as I crossed the I-90 floating bridge, I saw a Learjet maneuvering at low level around the hill ahead of me. I decided to see what was going on since I suspected this might be an FAA jet flying a variety of approaches. Sure enough, it was one of their Lear 60s. I have seen them on a number of occasions before at different airports. Tracking them on something like FlightRadar24, it is easy to work out what they are since they fly a tone of patterns around an airport normally dealing with simple arrivals and departures.

Boeing Field is not such an airport as it has a lot of training activity but the Lear is a bit faster than the average piston single. I didn’t know how long it had been there so it could have gone before I arrived but they still had a few circuits to do before they were finished. These involved a different sequence of approaches from offset positions from which they could take their measurements and then break off to do it again. It is interesting to see a business jet being thrown around like this in a way that would not keep the average customer happy!

Back to the Spheres

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Spheres visits have shown up in a bunch of posts. When my sister visited last year, I took a different approach to my photos and focused a lot more on the weird and wonderful plants that are growing within the Spheres. Here is a selection of fascinating looking plants that I was taking a look at. Nature certainly produces some amazing shapes.

ALCM

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The Museum of Flight seems to have two examples of the air launched cruise missile. This is the Boeing developed AGM-86 missile. One of them is hanging from the roof in the main museum complex while the other is in the restoration facility up at Paine Field. I don’t know which versions of the missile they are. Some were nuclear armed (this version remains in service I believe) while others had a conventional warhead (and I read that these were retired recently). The missiles were widely deployed on B-52s and B-1Bs but I understand that only one wing of the B-52 now has them.

Rocamadour

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About twenty years ago, we had a vacation in southern France. It is a beautiful part of the world to visit and a combination of great food and wine and some outstanding scenery. We were staying along the Lot river but a short drive away was the town of Rocamadour. This town is famous for being built on the side of a cliff. It is really a stunning location. As you approach it by road, you get a great view of the whole town arrayed up the side of the hill.

When you get in to the town, you can climb up to the top following a trail that pilgrims have made over the centuries. They did it in slow and laborious ways but we just walked, albeit slowly. When you get to the top, you can walk out on some ramparts that are pretty high and exposed. Not my idea of a fun place to be but I am not going to wuss out. If you find yourself in this part of France, so make the effort to visit. I would love to go again and this time I would take way more photos!

Farewell KLM 747s

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The massive reductions in air service as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has put airlines in a tough spot. One of the first things they have done is ground a significant portion of their fleets. For some airlines with types that were due to go out of service before too long anyway, this just accelerated the plans. The KLM 747s were due to last until 2021 but they have been grounded and are not expected to return. As I have done with the end of 747 operations for other airlines in the past, this is a small tribute to the KLM 747 fleet. An interesting livery amongst a world of white jets.

Fire Truck Renovation

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Aviation museums tend to be full of airframes of various types but sometimes they have associated items that they work on. The Museum of Flight restoration facility at Paine Field has a fire truck that they have rebuilt. It is tiny compared to current fire trucks but it is a great example of a truck from a time long gone and it is in great shape after all of the work put in to it. I thought I would share it here since it probably won’t get a lot of attention from everyone other than those that worked on it.

GOL 737

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The nice thing about living near an airliner factory is seeing airline color schemes that you would never normally be even close to. The 737 line has recently been idled but they are still finishing off some testing of jets and this GOL Max shot an approach at Paine Field one weekend while I was there. Quite an attractive livery I think.

Charlie Jumping the Horse

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I’m not sure what is was that prompted this but something made me think about shooting action sports and I remembered a time I was visiting my friends Jon and Charlie in the UK. Charlie has always been an active horsewoman and has raised many horses, some of which she has jumped competitively. They have a jumping area in one of the fields of their farm and she was interested in getting some photos of her jumping this horse. (Something makes me think this was Grace but I am probably mistaken.)

I was keen to give it a go and was also interested in what angles would be most interesting/dramatic. Of course, they couldn’t just keep jumping all the time to allow me to try different things so we had to give some ideas a go and move on. I would like to have had some remotes with me to have set the camera up in some dramatic spots. Maybe I can come back guys and have another go sometime?

An interesting part of this was seeing what things are of interest for different people. The shots Charlie liked the best were the ones as the horse is coming down to the ground again. Apparently that works well for her and is popular with other horse people. For me it made for an awkward looking shot. (Maybe it is good for evaluating technique?). I liked the ones when the horse is just coming up over the fence as it looks more dynamic and elegant. It’s strange how different things make a shot good for different people.

A Day of T-38s

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This is part one of a two-parter. I was at Boeing Field sitting taking calls and doing emails and keeping an eye out for anything interesting. That included the Boeing chase T-38s but they are going to have their own post. They weren’t the only T-38s though. Three jets from Beale AFB also showed up. I missed the first and got the second as it landed. The third followed a while later. Strangely for Boeing Field (which sits under the SeaTac approach path) it did an overhead join and then broke into the pattern before landing.

The three jets were on the ground for a while and didn’t leave to late in the day. I heard them call up that they were taxiing and decided to try and get down to the other end of the field for the departure. As I drove down, I could hear them on the radio getting ready to go. I knew it was going to be close but sadly, it wasn’t close enough. As I pulled in to the parking area, they took off in formation. They kept it low and the light was gorgeous. It looked great but no photos to prove it. The third jet had taxied out but must have had an issue because it returned to the ramp. Oh well…

Lambs in Spring

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These two pictures are very old but they appealed to me given the time of year. They were taken in Yorkshire over 20 years ago as we were hiking in the area. It was spring and the lambing season was underway. We saw a couple of lambs gamboling through a graveyard while another was resting in the grass. Lambs in spring are such an iconic scene. With spring upon us, I felt like they should be dug out from my negative scan archive.