Tag Archives: quest

The Support Kodiak Comes In

I posted some shots of the K-Max that came to Snohomish to support the firefighting operations on the Bolt Creek fire.  They flew in from another location and needed some material to support their planned stay.  They made a call to their base and arranged for some parts to come up on a support aircraft.  This turned out to be a Daher Kodiak 100.  I was actually getting ready to leave when the Kodiak showed up making a tight pattern to land.  I was out of position so just watched it but, they were a bit high and fast on the approach so made a go-around.  This gave me time to get somewhere better for the second approach.

Kodiak Floatplane Returning To Renton

A sunny Sunday afternoon had me driving past Renton so I figured I would stop off to see a few things.  I swung by the floatplane base after I had done whatI came for and things were quite quiet.  I had just missed a few planes and wondered whether I would bother hanging around.  Then a Cessna made an approach, as covered in another post, and, while it was taxiing back to the dock, I saw a Kodiak heading towards us down the lake.  Initially I thought it was going to make a straight in approach but, since the main Renton traffic was operating to the north, I guess it had to fit with that.

Consequently, it made a path that took it towards the eastern shore of Lake Washington before carving a sweeping, descending turn towards the lake.  With the hills of that shoreline behind it, things looked pretty impressive.  There were plenty of people out on the lake in boats, kayaks and paddle boards and they would have got a really good view as it came in to the lake to touch down.

They taxied back towards the base and I hadn’t appreciated what their plan was.  I figured they were tying up at the dock and I had moved away slightly but they had dropped the wheels and were coming up the slipway.  A good dose of power was needed to come up the ramp.  I wish I had shot that or, better yet, got some video.  I will have to go back to the seaplane base there.  The new fencing is not great but there are still some good photo opportunities to be had.

Kodiak Buzzing the Pattern at Paine

Unusual visitors to an airport are obviously welcome and give you the chance to get something new.  However, that also means you want to make sure you get the shot so you don’t want to experiment too much with settings.  Having someone bashing the circuit for a long time and flying a variety of different approaches means that you can take as many shots as you like and try all sorts of different things.

My Sunday at Paine Field included a pretty smart looking Quest Kodiak doing some training flights.  Lots of approaches, some straight in and others curving.  All the opportunity I could want.  Wide shots, tight shots, how low will I dare go with the shutter speed?  I had the 1.4X teleconverter on the 500mm so shooting at 1/100th of a second at 700mm is going to have a pretty low success rate but I was pleasantly surprised how many came out nice and sharp.  Not bad to have a day of panning practice.

The Kodiak is an interesting looking plane.  Having a turbine means a nice high prop speed on approach which certainly helps but it is also something that can be thrown around easily so the training flight included a bunch of different approaches.  I appreciated the effort they made on our behalf.  Now to get the light on the prop to show it up nicely!

Kodiak Tiger With Floats

While waiting for a few vintage types to arrive at Paine Field for Skyfair the following day we got an interesting bonus.  A Kodiak showed up on approach.  Not only was it equipped with floats but it was also painted in a tiger stripe livery that was pretty striking.  Not a type that might normally get too much attention but, fitted out like this, it certainly did.