A sunny weekend day means people head to the parks. Gas Works Park was no exception on the sunny day we were there. Plenty of people were gathered up on the hill and down near the water enjoying a relaxing day.
The smaller of the locks at Ballard has mooring points that float with the water level so the boats can tie up and wait for the process to be over. In the big lock, the boats have to let out or take in their lines as the level changes because they are tied to the lock side itself. When the boats were down, the lock crew shouted out clear instructions to everyone to keep their lines tight until instructed to do otherwise. As the boats had come in, we had watched with some amusement a guy who didn’t seem to know how to handle his boat. Judging by the text on the boat, it was a share scheme of some sort.
I wandered away as they started to move out of the lock but Nancy and Mum stayed to watch. Judging by the shouting that followed, one of the boats had let off his lines early. When the gates open, there is a flow out of the lock which starts to take loose boats with it. One of them started to rotate and take the other boats with it. I missed the whole thing but I was able to guess who was the one that hadn’t followed instructions. Hmm…
While the Space Needle is a great place to view the city of Seattle, it is also good for seeing floatplanes. Lake Union is a base for many floatplane operations and the routes take the planes close to the Needle. On the day we were there, the wind was quite strong from the south so the planes were water taxiing to the other end of the lake before taking off. We had quite a procession with a stream takeoff from a couple of them.
Once airborne, the commenced a turn towards Elliott Bay which took them just north of us and pretty close. I wasn’t well set up to get shots but I managed to get a few. I tried my best to shoot through the gaps between the glass panels but sometimes I shot through the glass which was surprisingly good. You get the feeling of being air to air, even while standing on something solid.
While watching a bunch of leisure craft heading through the locks at Ballard, a tour boat was coming from the opposite direction and was fed into the smaller lock. I headed across to watch it come into the lock. It was a pretty snug fit. All of the people onboard were out on the deck watching the lock process. I was watching them watching us. They were below me when the boat entered the lock but, once the water level was up, they were looking down at us on the lock side.
At some point last year I was driving downtown in Seattle and I realized that the Space Needle had changed. A scaffolding arrangement had gone up around the saucer at the top of the needle and it seemed to be fully enclosed. I figured that a rehab program was underway but I guess I don’t see enough of the local news to have found out how much they were updating. With my mum coming to visit, I was hoping that they would have concluded the project before she came since a Space Needle visit was going to be on the cards.
Memorial Day must have been the target for getting things ready because, shortly before she arrived, things started getting opened up around the top. Part of the scaffolding was still there but it was getting a lot more open. I thought we would be in good shape. It turns out we were but they are certainly not yet finished. The wire fencing at the deck level has been replaced with glass screens. These lean out so you can look straight down. There are glass benches which means you can lean back on the glass – something that certainly seems to upset a few visitors.
Meanwhile, construction work continues. The level inside the viewing deck is still undergoing a lot of work. The restaurant downstairs is not yet open but I assume these will all get sorted out as summer progresses. I was a little worried that the glass screens would impede photography. The old wire fence provided clear access. However, there are gaps between the panels that you can shoot through. A big lens might not fit but my mirrorless did fine. We shall have more visitors so I will get to see how the whole thing looks when it is finished I suspect.
An older generation of Learjet was heading out from Boeing Field. I almost ignored it but I got a few shots as it rotated and climbed out. As it did so I noticed it had a pod on an underwing pylon. A little further research shows it belongs to Phoenix Air. Apparently, they have a few Learjets that have electronic gear fitted – sometimes on pylons and sometimes internally. This pod appears to have dielectric elements front and rear so may well be an EW pod of some sort. I wonder if anyone knows more about these guys and what they would be up to.
About a decade ago, the very light jet was the hot idea. Everyone seemed to have a design and they were bringing tons of investment in to make the planes and sell them in quantities and at prices that had previously been unthinkable. As it turned out, there was a good reason why it had been unthinkable and the projects either never made it to production or made a few before bankruptcy followed (sometimes more than once). Eclipse did better than most in making jets before they folded, later re-emerging in a slimmed down form.
Cirrus is one company that stuck with it and didn’t go bust. It did benefit from a lot of Chinese investment and the fact it had a successful piston lineup to generate some income didn’t hurt. Their approach was the SF50 Vision, a single engine jet. It was a slightly unusual design but not a bad one and it has finally made it to certification and production. This example is a regular at Boeing Field so maybe it lives there?
Unmarked aircraft are conspicuous by their effort to be inconspicuous. I saw this SAAB 2000 parked up at the Clay Lacy ramp and, before too long, it taxied out and departed kindly backtracking passed me in the process. SAAB 2000s are not overly common anyway so that was the first thing to notice but, since it was completely white, I figured it might belong to someone not advertising their presence. Sure enough, it belongs to the Department of Justice. I wonder what it was doing here?
This Learjet 31 was heading out of Boeing Field on a lovely afternoon. The pilot obviously liked a bit of speed because, after rotation, instead of climbing out, he kept it on the deck and built up some speed. Then, as he got further along the runway, a more aggressive pull into a “zoom” climb. I appreciated the effort because it meant the jet had some ground behind it as it came past which is a pleasant change. The color scheme was pretty cool too.
With the progressive retirement of P-3 Orions around the world, the Boeing P-8 Poseidon is starting to take over as the dominant maritime patrol aircraft. The US Navy is the principal customer, but Australia was relatively quick to order the type too. They are now in the process of being delivered and I happened across one coming back to Boeing Field at the end of a test flight. Since it was operating from their military ramp, it taxied back along the field after landing and right by giving me a good look at the configuration the Aussies have gone with. India has been another customer and, before too long, the first of the RAF jets should make it through production.
