Tag Archives: retired

End of the Line at Abbotsford

My first trip to Abbotsford for the airshow got me there pretty early.  I was hanging around prior to meeting up with my friend and I saw a couple of old S-2 Trackers that were sitting in a field.  These were clearly waterbombers in days gone by but they have reached the end of the road as far as their flying career is concerned.  I understand that they were due to be heading off soon.  I was glad to see them before they went.  Seeing them flying would have been better of course.

80s Airliners

Scan 2-1427.jpgIn previous posts I have talked about the program I am going through the scan all of my old negatives and transparencies.  It is a far speedier process than I used to use but it is still pretty time consuming and I am about a third of the way through the collection.  It will depend on how many rainy weekend days I get as to how quickly I go through them.  Something I am discovering as I go is that I have a variety of shots I had completely forgotten about.  Over the years I have gone through the sheets of negatives from various aviation events that I wanted shots from.  I was pretty familiar with what was there.  What I hadn’t realized was that my old film days would often include two or three shots of an aviation topic in amongst a bunch of other shots.

Scan 2-1433.jpgI have been coming across all sorts of shots, both civil and military that I had forgotten about.  The majority of them are airliners, some of which are types now out of service and occasionally airlines that don’t exist anymore.  Old 747-100s, some early Airbuses, 727 and 737-200, the occasional Ilyushin and even a Shorts Belfast show up.  Needless to say there are some appearances by Concorde too.

Scan 2-1202.jpgA combination of poor technique, less than ideal conditions and some less than pristine negatives means that these shots are not going to be gracing the walls any time soon.  However, they are an interesting reminder of things that have gone.  I wish I had more comprehensive coverage of the time but I actually didn’t take that many pictures at that time.  A tad disappointing but I can’t change it now.