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Nice Retro Paint Job

I am not very good when it comes to identifying some of the older light aircraft types. I have some friends that will be despairing of me if they are reading this because they can tell any of these different types at a glance. Sorry about that guys. This plane took off from Paine Field one sunny evening and the old military style paint job looked lovely in that light. It looked like a Cub but I looked it up when I got home. Apparently it is an L4X and listed as Experimental. It isn’t listed as a Piper so maybe it is a home built of some sort. Whatever its origin, it did look nice with the sun on it.

Head on For GlobalX

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The GlobalX operations at Boeing Field had become a pretty regular thing so were not necessarily enough to pique my interest. However, I was passing the field when one was getting ready to depart and, since it was a cold, winter day, I figured that heat haze was not going to be too bad. As a result, I decided to go to the street at the departure end of the runway to try a head on shot. I knew they would rotate a long way from me but decided to see what the result might be.

I was quite pleased with the results with the haze being limited and, while I was shooting through a fence, there was not a significant reduction in image quality. This A320 is one that GlobalX took on after it departed the Alaska Airlines fleet. The majority of the airframe is plane white but the rudder has to be balanced after painting, so it was clearly easier to leave it with the remnants of the Alaska livery to save time and money. Not sure who was on this flight, but I imagine they were probably not there by choice.

Comparison of a Couple of Edits

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Every once in a while, while I am searching for something specific in the Lightroom catalog, I will come across a previous shot that catches my eye for some reason. This might be because it was something interesting, something I had forgotten about or just something that I think might benefit from a re-edit. Sometimes I have changed the way in which I approach edits and in others there is a new tool that has been added which I think will benefit the edit. This image was exactly that. I thought that the masking tools now in Lightroom would make for a more flexible approach to balancing the different parts of the image. I played around with it for a while. Because Lightroom allows you endless virtual copies, you can try something new out without having to lose what was there before. I then created a combination of the two edits to show how differently the same raw file can end up.

Paine Field Light Traffic

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During the winter, the conditions in the Pacific Northwest can often be overcast, gloomy or downright wet. These are not great if you want to spend some spare time aviating. It doesn’t preclude this, but it doesn’t encourage it either. Consequently, when the sun comes out, a lot of people suddenly go flying. I did head up to Paine Field on one of those days as it was getting later in the afternoon. I imagine it had been pretty busy earlier in the day, but I had other things to do that day. Even so, I still caught a few of the local flyers making the most of the nice day and imagine that, as spring comes around, they will be back out again.

Rainy Mad Dog Departure

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The MD-80 fleets rapidly disappeared from passenger service, but they did find a small secondary life as freighter conversions. The majority of freighter conversion activity has been around the 737 and more recently A320/321 families and the MD-80s have not been widespread. They seem to be popular with operators that already were using DC-9 freighters so maybe the transition is easier to manage. USA Jet is one that has picked up the type. When I saw one was at Paine Field, I figured I would try and catch it departing. Sadly, the conditions were far from ideal. It was a gloomy and rainy day but I went for it anyway. New there was little likelihood I would see one again.

An Apache is a Surprise Visitor

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While waiting for the Ethiopian Cargo 777F at Paine Field, I saw a helo heading in from the south. I realised it was an Apache. Sadly, the light had already started to go away and, while this was okay for a white airliner, the green paint of the Apache really sucked any remaining light out of the shot. A bit of processing helped to improve things a bit but it was still rather gloomy.

I’ll Miss Beaver Amphibs

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A great feature of the Pacific Northwest is the surfeit of floatplanes that you get to see. It is a region that really suits their usage and so there are lots to see, even if they are amphibious and are operating from runways. I don’t know whether there is a king of the floatplanes, but the Beaver would definitely be a candidate for that title if it were awarded. It is a beast of a plane and looks so cool on floats. This was the last one I got to shoot before leaving.

It turned on to the approach a long way out, but the cold winter weather meant little distortion and the 200-800 can really help in those situations. I had hoped that ATC would have given them an earlier turn on to final which you sometimes get at Paine Field, but it wasn’t to be and they were a lot further out. Never mind. Still a good result for one of my last outings.

Still Don’t See Falcon 6Xs In the Air

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BFI has had a bunch of Falcon 6X visits over time and I have seen them on more than one occasion. Yet again, I found one on the ramp, this time at Modern. However, I continued my duck when it came to actual flying shots. It stayed on the ramp while I was there. Sooner or later, I will catch one flying.

Twisting the Clouds

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I posted some shots of the Ethiopian Cargo 777F in another post. What I didn’t include in that was the lovely effect as it came down the approach. There was some low-lying cloud to the south of the airport and, as it came through this, the trailing vortices twisted the cloud up beautifully. Stills down’s always show this as well as you would like so I did shoot some video to try and capture the effect.

SEA Ramp from the Bridge

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I headed back from the UK to Seattle to finalise our move out process and arrived into SEA after the fun ten hours sitting and watching films. The IAF includes the bridge across the taxiway. I have crossed this a few times and normally I am with Nancy so stopping to look around doesn’t happen. This time I was on my own so, rather than head straight across, I figured I would have a look at the various planes on the ramps. Here are a few shots from above of what was there that day before I headed to immigration.