Tag Archives: seattle

It Might Be Raining, But It Is A 727!

Winter in the PNW does not mean reliable conditions for photographing planes. If the weather is bad, you might decide it isn’t worth going out. If it is raining and threatening to rain harder, there is a strong possibility you would skip a shot opportunity. However, 727s are getting pretty rare these days so that seems worthy of a trip out.

The weather was unpleasant when it made its approach but not as bad as it got a short while later. I went with my normal approach for shooting in really bad conditions by pushing the overexposure pretty high. I include a couple of edits. For the main image, I actually blended two different process versions in Photoshop to get the combination that most reflects how the shot looked through the view finder. The other edit is a straightforward Lightroom edit where the angle and the light suited it.

Clouds over Mt Rainier

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On one of my days off – taken in order to get my PTO balance down – I headed out for some aviation exploration. The weather on this day was not great but, since I had struck it lucky on some of my other days off, I guess the odds were bound to swing the other way at some point. While it was cloudy in Seattle, looking south to Mt Rainier, the sun was out on the mountain. That didn’t mean it was cloud free, though. There was a lot of cloud forming over the summit as the wind blew through so I shot a few images to make a pano of the mountain. It would have been a great day to fly around the mountain but sadly that wasn’t to be.

Maritime Fire Training Facility

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A sunny weekend day at this time of year is not to be wasted so I took a bike ride across to Seattle. I was heading for Discovery Park and one of the trails that made up my route took me passed a lot of the local shipyards. As I approached one of them, I saw what looked like a funnel. Then I realized it was a mock up of a whole ship. It even had a helicopter on a pad. One my return journey, I stopped to take a look. I realized that there was a lot of piping underneath the structure and it had a notice about a fire training facility. I guess they can simulate fires in different parts of the vessel and crews can be trained to handle them. I wonder what it is like on the trail when the training is underway.

HondaJets in the Murk

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I was pondering what to do with a day off. I was struggling to come up with a plan and the weather was not ideal for photography but I then saw that not one but two HondaJets were due in to Boeing Field within an hour of each other. I have only shot one flying before and it was very distant so I figured this would be the motivation to get me out.

The sky was very overcast with a grey background that made me hope for planes painted in an interesting color scheme. Unfortunately, both jets were in Honda schemes with grey as the main paint so they were hardly ideal for shooting in such conditions. However, I didn’t have much of a choice so I got both of them on the approach. If only one of them could have been a bit more colorful.

As I was heading off to my next stop, I drove past the Kenmore ramp and saw that one of them was parked up there. A quick diversion in and I added a ground shot of one of the jets. Not sure where the other one was parked but I would assume it was on Modern’s ramp.

More of the RAF’s Poseidon Test Flying

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In this recent post, I had an RAF Poseidon flying over the house. A little while later, I was at Boeing Field when the same jet came back from a test flight. Here are some shots of it as it rolled out after landing. It wasn’t long after this that the jet was delivered to the RAF and made the trip to its new home in Lossiemouth.

Coast Guard MH-60

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While at Boeing Field on a sunny day, I was pleased to see a Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk flying along the runway. MH-65s are the local Coast Guard helicopters so a Jayhawk is a nice change. Having seen the MH-65s doing a fly through before, I was hoping that we would get the same but they actually pulled up and turned in the the FBO. However, once on the ramp, the kept rotors running so I knew they would be out again soon.

When they did come out, they actually back taxied to the far end of the field. I would have been a lot happier with them making an intersection departure closer to me but that wasn’t to be for some reason. Consequently, they had gained a fair bit of altitude by the time they came level with me. A belly shot was not what I was after but never mind. The underside view gives a good view on the three external tanks that the Jayhawk can carry. That gives some serious range when heading far offshore to rescue someone in need.

Seahawks Training Facility

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I have driven past the Seahawks training facility on I-405 more times than I can think of. I have also ridden by a couple of times on my bike when doing the loop around Lake Washington. I was doing another ride but, this time, I wasn’t bothered about keeping my average speed up and so was willing to make stops along the way if there was something worthy of a look. I figured this would be one such thing.

It is called the Virginia Mason Campus and is located alongside the lake. There are outdoors facilities but there appears to be a large indoor training space. A huge twelfth man flag is on the side of the structure. I took a quick look around and grabbed some photos with my phone. I thought I had taken a couple more but the app I use has been misbehaving recently and some of the shots were not saved. As I made my way out, I passed the entry sign which appears more welcoming than the fences and guard houses suggest when you get closer.

Under the American Max

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Production of 737 Max jets is underway again and that means some flight testing of new jets. I was heading back from Boeing Field but stopped at the approach end to get a shot from the underside. I almost didn’t get there in time so was not exactly where I wanted to be to take the shot but it still worked out reasonably well. I do like a different angle every once in a while and underneath is certainly worth a go every once in a while.

Dinosaurs In the Hedges

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The cut that connects Lake Union with Portage Bay and then to the lock as at Ballard has a trail alongside it. We were taking a walk along there recently prior to getting some lunch close by. We passed what initially looked like a normal hedge until we realized it had been shaped. It was a pair of dinosaurs – a parent and a baby. It was actually quite hard to find a good position to get a view of them. The greenery tended to disguise the shape when closer in and the positioning of the two of them obscured the heads to some extent. I suspect the best angle would be from above. A drone would have been very handy. It was a cure thing to come across unexpectedly.

Cormorant Posing for Me

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We went out for lunch at Ray’s Boathouse one Saturday afternoon. It was not a great day, weather wise, with fog covering Puget Sound. I didn’t take the big camera with me but I did take the M6 along just in case there was something to see. In front of our table on their deck was a piling which had a gull sitting on it when we got there. The gull soon flew off and then it was replaced by a cormorant! It must have been especially for me! It was drying its wings after its swim and I got a few shots of it while sitting at the table. I could have run to the car to grab the big lens but that would have interrupted our lunch a little too much!