Tag Archives: seattle

I Accidentally Get Another Shot at the Lock Rehabilitation

The big lock at Ballard is undergoing a a renovation program where the gates are all being replaced. It is being done in stages and an earlier stage had me taking a trip across to see what I could see. That was in a previous post and it was a semi-successful visit. I was back at the locks over the Christmas holidays on a lovely sunny day when we took my mum out for lunch. As we walked across the small lock to the big one, I could immediately see that it had been drained.

The crew was working on the middle gates and the base of the lock was totally dry unlike last time. The low sun angle meant there was quite a bit of shade in the lock itself but it was still nicely illuminated. You could also get a good look at the ports along the base of the lock through which the water flows and, because the secondary gates were in place, you could see the large outflow ports downstream of the lower gates.

The depth of the locks is quite impressive. When you think how the water level is when it is full, you realize just how much water is in there and how deep it is if you are in something lightweight like a kayak! When you consider that the locks are over 100 years old, it makes the engineering involved in building them even more impressive. I will miss spending time here watching the boats traverse the locks – particularly on sunny summer days when the amount of traffic means the big lock gets filled up with the scores of pleasure craft. Fun times.

Early Morning Breeze Departure

I’ve seen a couple of Breeze airliners, but they are not operating in our neck of the woods, so they are still a rarity for me. When one of the A220s came to Boeing Field on a charter for a sports team, I was hoping to catch it. They were due out early one morning, so I was able to go before heading to the office. This did mean that conditions were going to be rather restricted with the sun only just above the horizon (assuming clouds weren’t there as well) but this would actually suit me since I didn’t want the jet to be backlit.

Sports charters have a habit of not going even close to the time that they are scheduled so I wondered whether I would be able to get the takeoff before needing to leave. Imagine my surprise and delight when they called up pretty much on schedule. Soon the jet was crossing the runway for taxiway Bravo and then heading to the departure end. As they rolled and rotated, there was just enough light in the sky to make for some rather pleasant colors, and I was really pleased with how the shots came out. The actual light levels were very low, so I shot at high ISOs. The cameras do a remarkable job of this these days but there was still a bit of noise to deal with and the latest noise reduction algorithms in Lightroom dealt with that very effectively.

Sun Greets the Talon’s Return from California

For a while, I saw a lot of the Boeing T-38 chase jets but, it had been quite a while since I last saw one. Then I saw one had been in use for a couple of flights. I wondered what had been the cause of this but didn’t follow up on it. Then I saw that one was coming back to Boeing Field from California. I don’t know what the test activities were down there but, with it heading back and the weather being pretty decent, I figured I would try and catch its return. Since it was coming up late in the day, I was going to be able to be there.

I wondered whether the good weather would give up before the jet made it back but things held together nicely and the sun was out when it touched down. Since the T-33s went into retirement, the Talons have been the only chase jets to see and they have, as I mentioned, been a bit rare. I don’t know how long they will have. Maybe Boeing will ultimately replace them with T-7s – perhaps the early jets that will not be to a production standard and can take over chase duties. Since I am now gone, I won’t get to see either one so this was a nice catch before I departed.

Metrea Defeats Me Again – Sort Of

I was heading to a meeting south of Seattle when I got a message from the person I was joining that they were running late. I stopped off at Boeing Field to wait for their call and to see if anything cool was around. One of the Metrea KC-135Rs was on the Modern ramp. It was the nicest of their paint schemes and the winter light was lovely. Naturally I grabbed a shot as I waited. They were looking ready to go and I hoped that they would take off before the call came through. I was to be disappointed. I heard from my contact that he was en route, so I left. About ten minutes after I did so, the jet took off. I can only imagine how good it looked in that light.

A few days later, I was back in Georgetown to meet some friends, and I saw that the jet was out again on a mission. It was due back shortly before sunset so I hoped I might get lucky with the light clearing up. It certainly wasn’t as nice as it had been previously, but you never know. As it turned on to the approach, conditions were getting better but not what I was hoping for. Despite that, the jet still looked okay as it came into land. It could definitely have been better but not a total bust.

I Wish This Praetor Had the Thrive Livery

I have seen a couple of jets in the Thrive fleet and they have a really cool livery that they use for some of the planes. When most jets are rather blandly painted, a cool paint job is a great change. Thrive was bringing one of their Praetor 600s to Seattle and I was hoping that it might be in the company colors, despite previous pictures of it online being in something a little less cool. Sadly, they have not spent the funds on updating the look of the jet. The livery is not a bad looking one anyway but it would have looked better in the full paint job. Oh well…

Global 7500 Sketchy Takeoff

For the longest time, I struggled to photograph a Bombardier Global 7500. Over time I have seen a few of them but that initial drought makes me still feel as if it is something special when I catch one. They have sold really well and there are loads in service so they really aren’t something I should be so excited about but apparently my brain hasn’t worked that out yet. I was happy to get one at Boeing Field when it was taking off.

It taxied out and headed to the north end of the field for departure. I was not expecting a lot because they have good field performance and are likely to be well airborne before they get near where I was going to be standing. Sure enough, they did get off the ground quite quickly but, as they rotated, there was quite a roll that developed. Not sure whether it was a big gust or that they weren’t anticipating the crosswind, but I imagine it must have spilt a gin and tonic or two. They quickly recovered the situation and climbed out without any further problems, but I hope there wasn’t much clean up required onboard.

Something Large to Bypass the Pleasure Craft

When it isn’t peak boating season, the smaller lock at Ballard is the main one to get used. It can accommodate much of the traffic and there isn’t too much demand to require the big lock to be utilized. There are priorities about what traffic goes through the lock and commercial traffic will always get precedence over the leisure craft. There were a few boats lined up to come in when a tug and some barges came in from Puget Sound. It got priority and, since it was far larger than the small lock could deal with, the big lock needed to be used.

At Last, This Otter Is Nicely Lit

There is a privately owned DHC-3T Otter that lives in the Puget Sound area, and it comes in and out of BFI on a regular basis. I have seen it plenty of times but have always struggled to get either a nice angle on it or favorable light. I won’t claim it is my white whale, but it has begun to frustrate me somewhat. Therefore, I was delighted when I heard it call up on approach one evening when the sun had popped out from behind the clouds and the warmth of the light was nice.

I saw it far out on approach as it angled in towards the longer of BFI’s two runways – occasionally disappearing behind the trees as it maneuvered in. I was using a lot of lens to see it and even then, it was a bit distant but, since the conditions were favorable, I wasn’t struggling with haze issues. Soon enough it was on short final, and I finally was able to get the types of shots I have been hoping to achieve for a long time. Now I can move on in peace!

Bizjet Departures from Airside

I was kindly given some airside access when some F-15s were operating from Boeing Field for flyovers in the city. While the fast jets were our primary interest, they took off and landed in amongst some of the more familiar movements at the airport. Business jets are a constant part of Boeing Field ops and being so close to the runway made it easy to get some interesting shots of the bizjets. Fortunately, the amount of the runway that they needed coincided well with where we were for the F-15s. Here are some of the shots.

The Last Days for These Salmon

Puget Sound gets runs of different species of salmon throughout the year. I had heard of some of them but only recently became aware of chum salmon. Not particularly good to eat, by all accounts, these run in the October to November time-frame. Carkeek Park in Seattle has a river that they come to in order to spawn. We paid it a visit. The salmon stop eating once they leave the sea, so they are using up their remaining energy to go upriver before the mate and die.

The river was quite shallow, so they had to work hard to get up against the current and up some of the steps the riverbed took. The river was scattered with the bodies of dead salmon. I don’t know whether they had already mated and then died or whether they didn’t have the energy to make it upriver. Some of the fish still swimming had taken on the yellow look of the dead fish, and I wondered whether they weren’t going to make it much further.

While there were loads of fish, getting good images was a challenge I didn’t seem to do well with. Even with a polarizer, the reflections on the surface and the low light levels made things tricky. A fish underwater is not a great subject anyway. Watching what was happening, I felt that video was going to be the better bet, so I filmed the fish as much as I took stills. Below is a video of some of the highlights from our visits.