Tag Archives: travel

Into the Clouds Approaching LAX

I have had a couple of work trips that took me to LA in the recent past (how recent may depend on when this gets posted), and the weather has not been great for either of them. The second one coincided with some pretty horrendous weather for the region and our approach to LAX was a pretty bumpy one. We actually landed from the ocean side which is pretty unusual for LAX. The crew prepared the cabin for landing early and I decided the view of the cloud tops from the storm were worthy of video rather than stills. Here is the resulting video of our approach.

Some of My Rides on Safari

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We took three internal flights while we were in Kenya and Tanzania and all three were interesting aircraft. Better still, they were all different types. One was a new one for me to fly on, but you might be surprised as to which that was. Our first trip was on a Let 410. It took us from the Serengeti to a short strip just short of the border with Kenya. This wasn’t my first ride in a 410 but it was my first landing. Previously I jumped out of one as part of a tandem skydive. This one had far more comfortable seating.

Once we crossed the border, we took another flight into the Maasai Mara. This was on a type that is ubiquitous in the area – the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan. I have never been on one of these. They were very densely configured and getting through the cabin to a seat was quite an effort. I don’t care to think what getting out in a hurry might be like! We saw so many of these with different operators over the course of our visit.

The last type we flew was a Dash 8 100 Series. A far larger type than the others, this flies some heavier routes, and these might involve multiple stops along the way picking up and dropping off customers. Ours picked us up in the Mara and took us direct to Nairobi. No intermediate stops for us. It has been a long time since I flew in an early generation Dash 8, and I hadn’t thought of them as doing rough field ops. However, supporting remote communities is part of their history so of course they are fine on these strips. Unfortunately, heavy rains at the strip 90 seconds from our camp meant we had to drive for forty minutes to another strip to make this flight. It was a good trip, though. This part of the world was great for people like me that like close up encounters with aviation!

Can Pictures Explain the Space Appropriately?

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When I was first explaining to Nancy how amazing Yosemite was before we went there, we looked at pictures, but it was not possible for her to appreciate the scale of the place until she saw it for herself. I think the same is true of our trip to Kenya and Tanzania. The wildlife was a wonderful part of the trip and the reason for being there, but I should not avoid pointing out how wonderful the scenery was too. The vast expanses of open plains, the mountains in the distance, the hills surrounding where we stayed – all of these were quite breathtaking.

Sadly, 1600 pixels across a single image is not really going to give the true impression of these locations. I have shots to share and here they are, but I doubt it will have a significant impression on someone looking at these versus any other shot of open space. Indeed, wide open plains look pretty weak on a small image. There is nothing to focus on to give you a sense of scale. Despite this, I do think it is fair to say that the landscapes we saw were quite amazing. They won’t have the impact the animals have on people looking at the blog but, if you do go, be ready for some stunning locations.

Baobab Tree at Lunchtime

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One thing that I didn’t really get good shots of during our time on safari was the baobab trees. There are many varieties of them and some of the most distinctive are in Madagascar, so they weren’t the ones we saw. However, we did see a bunch of the local varieties and they were pretty cool looking. The only one I got a good shot of was this one that someone pointed out to me behind the area where we had stopped for lunch. It was quite a beast of a tree. I did think about wandering closer to it but, unlike when at home, I was not so sure of the wisdom of wandering away from our guides. There were some rather substantial predators out there somewhere.

The KF Centre of Excellence

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Usually, when I go somewhere new, I have done some research on what aviation related things might be in the area should there happen to be any spare time to squeeze something in. I had actually been checking out the layout of the airport at Kelowna before our trip since I knew that Kelowna Flightcraft had their operations and there was an Alaska Airlines paint facility. I figured it would be worth a drive by if time allowed.

As it turned out, our planned hike got scrubbed because the snow made access to the trail, we intended to try impossible for our not off-road optimized car. We were looking for something else to do and I asked Nancy is a quick drive by at the airport would be possible. With nothing else in mind, so generously acquiesced. We drove up the west side of the airport and passed a pair of Convairs up a side road with a sign saying Open to the Public.

I had no idea what this could be but, when we came back, we drove up to take a look. Much to my surprise (and Nancy’s bemusement that I didn’t already know), we were at the KF Centre of Excellence. This is a new museum that the owner(?) of Kelowna Flightcraft has established. The building itself is a lovely structure. It is loosely designed to resemble the layout of a plane with a central fuselage element and two wings which are hangars. The external styling is very nice, and the interior is tastefully finished with lots of wood. We paid to have a look around with the front desk being a converted nacelle. (Much of the furnishing is aviation components that have been repurposed. An office desk from a tailplane, nacelles that have been modified and the café seating is all old business class seats.

The center section of the museum has a lot of exhibits about flying including engines, fuselage components and even an old simulator. It is quite informative and educational. We enjoyed looking around. Then it was to the hangars. One has a Second World War vintage to it. The largest item was a DC-3 but it was probably the least exciting. Alongside it was a Mosquito that had only recently been flown in. Beside that is a Hawker Tempest which is in an advanced state of restoration to flightworthy condition. It may well be the only Tempest I have seen. I’m not sure if I have ever seen one before.

Across to the other side and things are still quite empty. Clearly there are plans to add more aircraft in due course. A Staggerwing and a few floatplanes are in place but the two-seat F-104 Starfighter is definitely the most exotic. It was airworthy until relatively recently. Sadly, it is rather tight to the wall which made getting shots from different angles tricky. Still cool to see it though.

I had no idea about the museum. I had heard something about the Mosquito flying out of Vancouver to a new owner but hadn’t really pieced together what was going on so didn’t realize it was Kelowna. The whole thing was quite a surprise. Finding such a collection and in such a lovely building was a shock. Oh yes, parked out front were two Convairs. One was the old Honeywell testbed that I have shot prior to its retirement and the other is a retired water bomber. How cool. (As an aside, the Honeywell 757 testbed was just down the road undergoing some maintenance work.)

How I Misjudged Hyenas Before Seeing Them

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There were many animals I was looking forward to seeing when we visited Kenya and Tanzania. One that I hadn’t thought much about and, if I had, it wouldn’t have been positive, was the hyena. They have a pretty bad image since they clean up all of the debris that is left and will also do their own hunting in the pack. While this is no different to many other animals, they seem to have been given a more negative image.

When we arrived, we immediately saw loads of hyena. They were out walking alone and moving in groups. They are not the sleekest looking animal, but I found myself surprisingly interested in them. When one would come into view carrying a trophy from a carcass, I would see this as a positive when others were focusing on the negative. We saw one hyena limping across the road with an obvious wound on its leg. This reminded me of just how perilous life is for everything in the wild.

Later in the trip we came across a den for the pack. One hyena was walking back in with a wildebeest leg in its mouth. This was going to feed some hungry mouths. There were some cubs in the den, and we could hear them before we could see them. They were fighting with each other between sessions suckling from their mother. It was really fun to watch this whole pack of animals in their social setting.

I’m not expecting anyone reading this to suddenly love hyenas. Some of the pictures will probably reinforce thoughts that yo might already have had about them. However, I will say that I saw them in a very different light over the time I was in Kenya and Tanzania, and I will never think of them the same way again.

Layers of Hills South of Kelowna

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As we were walking around the winery in Kelowna, we had a lovely view to the south across the lake and to the hills beyond. The weather was quite clear but there was same haze in the air. This did a nice job of distinguishing between the hills based on their distance with the farthest hills getting obscured the most. With the warm winter light on this haze, it made for a very attractive view of the terrain in the distance, and I grabbed a longer lens for a quick shot.

A Police Mi-17 That Might Fly?

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When we landed in Nairobi, I was walking across the ramp and saw a very clean looking Mi-17 helicopter. It was marked up as belonging to the police service. The person I was chatting to told me that this helicopter and its hangar was very expensive but never actually got flown. Apparently, it might be a bit of a waste of time and money. Not sure whether that is true or not but that was what I was told. It certainly did look very shiny.

Mission Hills Winery

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During our visit to Kelowna, we stopped off at a winery in the city that produces wine we have had before and that we wanted to get some more from. It is called Mission Hills and is on the hillside overlooking the lake. It isn’t a long drive from the center of the city, and you approach it through a residential area. After passing through the main gate, it all still looks rather anonymous.

However, walk from the parking lot and things open up considerably. The architecture is styled to resemble an Italian villa. There are some colonnaded areas, a large chapel type building, the main building in which the wine tastings and sales are handled and a carillon. Being up on the hill, this all has a lovely view down to the water with some vines on the slopes below.

It was a rather overcast day so not ideal for photographing it, but I had the phone with me, so I was not going to let the visit go unrecorded. There were a few other people wandering the grounds, but I managed – on the whole – to exclude them from the shots. Getting the whole carillon in the shot from close up required a little contortion to get the phone on the ground and looking at the right angle. I think it worked out okay.

The location is very nice, and the wine is even better. If you are in Kelowna, I do recommend a visit.

Sunsets and Sunrises Over the African Plains

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I may have spent a lot of time watching and photographing wildlife while we were in Kenya and Tanzania but the times of day when were out were early morning and late afternoon which meant that there were going to be sunrises and sunsets that I could photograph too. We had quite the selection of lovely opportunities to take these shots and here are some of the images that I like the most. We did also get some interesting skies with the light at either end of the day, but I shall give those moments their own posts.