A period of some pretty frequent visits to Seattle of 328Jets was nice to have. Unfortunately, I was unable to be there when one of them was arriving. Not chance to get the landing configuration but I was there by the time they were heading back out. I wasn’t sure of how quickly they would be off the ground given that the 328 is able to handle some short fields. As it turned out, they ran a reasonable distance and I was happy with the results.
During the trip with Mark, we made the excursion to El Centro to catch the Harriers. As I wrote in the post about those airframes, I thought it might be the last time I got to photograph Harriers. Turns out, I was a bit premature. With an exercise planned up in Alaska, the Marines were planning on taking ten jets to participate. Their routing staged through Boeing Field. The plan was for two sets of five jets to come across.
The moves were not entirely smooth. Bad weather in our area was not ideal, tanker support was not working to plan and then you get the occasional jet that breaks. However, we did get most of the jets showing up. The first bunch showed up at Boeing Field from the north. They were strung out on the approach but, from certain angles, you could see all of them stretched out over Seattle. One by one they came in and reminded us how loud a Harrier is in STOVL mode.
There was due to be the second wave later in the day, but they ended up showing up on another day. We had departures of the initial jets as well. When they called up for departure, they asked the tower to line up on both runways. This would have put them up at the north and away from where I was. This was a bad development. Fortunately, the tower informed them that they were too heavy for the short runway’s surface rating.
Instead, they lined up on the main runway spread out in a line. They powered up simultaneously and released brakes at the same time. The northern jet had no problem getting airborne in such a short space because of the STOVL capabilities of the Harrier. The jets further back were also airborne quickly and accelerating rapidly while still over the field. They climbed out in a loose line which meant assembling the formation would be a simple process. What a great thing to see one more time. Is that it for me and Harriers????
In a previous post I discussed the arrival of the Clipper Round the World boats in Seattle. In that post, I mentioned that I got it wrong about being able to go on the boats to have a look around. However, I did end up having a second go at looking at the boats and this time, it was a success. The boat that was open for visitors was named Qingdao. One of the crew showed us around both up on deck and down below.
When looking at these boats from the outside, they look like pretty sizable craft. However, when you get down below, it is instantly apparent how limited the space is. There is a lot of space taken up by the sail locker and the engine room. Then you have a small galley area and the navigation station. There are two small heads – no showers, though. The remainder of the space is for the crew of 22 to squeeze in to. This is not a luxurious excursion. (We were told that, had we been on a couple of days before, the odor would still have been pretty ripe. A long time at sea does not make for great hygiene!)
I had decided to take my widest zoom for the visit and I was glad I did that. Everything was so confined, it really needed a wide angle to get any shots. Even maneuvering through the hull while docked required a bit of effort. I can’t imagine what it would be like when heeled over at 45 degrees while punching through a Southern Ocean storm. They say you learn a lot about yourself in these races and I don’t doubt it. I’d probably learn I am not cut out for serious adventures!
The galley was interesting. Aside from the stabilized hob, all of the cans were stripped of labels and marked up with their contents. Everything gets wet so labels fall off rapidly. You need to prep to make sure you can identify the food. The cans do corrode in the salt water. Apparently, it’s not unknown to open a can and find nothing inside it because it has already leaked away from a corrosion hole!
The boats were really interesting to see. The crews spend a lot to be on this voyage and they are definitely getting an adventure. I hope they have fun ultimately and I like to see what they have done but I won’t be signing up anytime soon.
While Alaska Air Cargo has been struggling to add its new 737-800BCFs to the fleet, the -7000 freighters have continued to provide service to them. I have shot these a few different times, but I got some more recent shots of one of the jets at a time when the sun angle was such that the surface of the fuselage was illuminated in such a way to show up the textures of the construction. The conversion to freighter involves a lot of reinforcement around the aperture for the freight door. The light really highlighted this reinforcement well.
I had made a trip early one Sunday to Boeing Field to catch a couple of departures. One of them had left earlier than expected and was gone when I got there. While waiting for the next one, I was sitting in the car on a Zoom call with my family. I was parked somewhere where it was possible to make out through the fence what was the other side, but it had plastic filaments in the fencing which obscured things to some extent.
I was busy chatting away when I saw the shape of something taxiing across the runway from the FBO which looked both unusual and also familiar. I jumped out of the car, grabbed the camera and climbed the ladder to grab a shot as the Scaled Composites 401 finished crossing the runway and turned away up the taxiway. I last saw one of these aircraft at their home base of Mojave in California.
While I had missed the crossing shot of the runway, the flow was to the south so I knew the jet would be coming back my way when it took off. I was bothered that I was far enough down the runway that it could well be quite high by the time it reached me. It got to the hold point on taxiway bravo and then sat there for ages. The tension was painful.
Finally, it lined up and started its takeoff run. Sure enough, it was quickly off the ground, but good news was to follow. The pilot had decided to keep it nice and low – possibly to give a good view to the people over at the FBO that were watching the departure. That meant I got a nice landlocked image as it came by before climbing out swiftly. What a great surprise.
I can’t imagine that there are too many parts of the world that didn’t hear something about the significant coronal mass ejection that came the way of earth in May 2024. If you lived nearer the poles, aurora discussions were everywhere, and social media posts were full of it. If you lived elsewhere, you probably still heard about the potential technical issues our infrastructure could experience. I have had no luck with previous aurora potential sightings so, while this was of interest, I had a dose of skepticism.
I didn’t make any plans to go and find a location to see the aurora if it was visible in our area although I had checked out the dark skies maps to see how bad the light pollution was here and how far I would have to go to make a difference. I didn’t do anything with this data though. We were watching a movie in the evening and, when it finished, I stepped outside to see if anything was visible. It was about 10pm and there was nothing.
I went to get ready for bed but kept my clothes on just in case. At about 10:30, I went out again and still the skies were clear. I had read that 10pm to 2am was a good window so I was still at the beginning of this so didn’t give up completely. I messed around with a few other things and then figured I would have one more go outside before giving up and going to bed. Fortunately, this proved to be the right choice. I stepped out of the front door and saw something strange in the sky above us like a streak. I watched for a bit and then things started to get livelier.
I grabbed my camera and the tripod and went out to grab some shots. I also let Nancy know this was all going on since I hadn’t taken my phone outside with me. For the next hour or so, I just stared at the sky. The colors that the camera reproduced are far different to what I could see. It is a more sensitive device for this light than my eyeball, but I could clearly see purples and greens in the sky. The colors weren’t rapidly changing but you could see the transitions occurring. One of our neighbors returned while I was out so wandered over to ask if I could see anything and I pointed behind them. They were amazed by the sight and spent the rest of the time I was out looking as well.
At one point, I was beginning to be a bit tired, and the colors were fading a little, so I decided to call it a night. Just as I said goodbye and walked back towards the house, the skies lit up again. It was not letting me go that easily. I watched for a little longer and then decided I had got a good enough experience and headed indoors. It was certainly an amazing thing to witness. Maybe somewhere with less light pollution would have made things better but it was pretty good seeing all of this over our houses. The following night was supposed to be another good one, but the intensity was less, and I decided to sleep instead!
The freighter fleets of the big operators like FedEx and UPS are gradually being recapitalized. The older jets are heading to the desert and getting replaced with new airframes. The A300-600Fs in both fleets are not going away quickly but they won’t be around for a lot longer. The UPS A300s don’t normally show up in Seattle with 767s and MD-11s being the regulars here. However, the holiday season results in a big increase in parcel traffic and so extra jets tend to show up. That meant some A300s at Boeing Field. Great to have them here and I hope we get another time when they show up reliably.
The spring timetable change was the opportunity for Sound Transit to open a new line. The troubles with the crossing of the I-90 bridge mean that the Redmond to Bellevue section of what is to be Line 2 is isolated from the rest of the network. However, it was decided to open it up as a starter line to provide some service for the area pending the completion of the connection to the other side of Lake Washington. They had a grand opening. Rather than go on the Saturday when everyone was due to be out, I decided to try out the line on the Sunday.
I drove to the South Bellevue station which has a large parking garage. It is the southern/western end of the line for now. Trains run every ten minutes and I hopped on one to ride to the other end at Redmond Technology Center. This is also an interim terminus as there will soon be an extension into downtown Redmond. I checked out the route in the trip out and decided I would stop off at a couple of stations on the way back.
Plenty of people were out on the Sunday too. Many seemed to be like me and exploring the new service. Sundays aren’t a day to judge utilization of a system, but it will be interesting to see what ridership is like as the service gets going and people find out how best to use it for their purposes. I hopped off at Wilburton Station to have a look at the platforms and the view across to downtown Bellevue. I bumped into a guy I know from Sound Transit who was part of the opening support team for the weekend, and we ended up chatting for a while.
I then went to the station in Bellevue itself which is a nicely designed station just at the end of the tunnel that runs under the city. You get a long view of the trains approaching from east as they come across the bridge while you can hear the trains coming through the tunnel as they approach. After checking out a few elements of the station, I decided to head back to South Bellevue to pick up the car and go home. The alignment was pretty good. Ride quality was good in most areas and the stations seemed nicely put together both operationally and aesthetically. It will be a good line when it is fully connected but, as an interim step, it seems to be worthwhile.
I’ve shot this jet before but, on this occasion, I was really happy with the angles I was able to get on it. The big bizjets have so many power that, unless they are making really long trips, they are usually off the ground in no time at all. This time, this G650 ran a bit longer and allowed me to get some pleasing angles on it at rotation. When I was looking through the images afterwards, I saw the logo on the inside of the winglet. It looked like that of the LA Clippers. A quick Google search confirmed that the Clippers are owned by Steve Ballmer and, since he is one of the Microsoft founders, it made sense it would be here in Seattle. Quite a nice looking jet!
Testbed aircraft are the sort of thing I like to see and, when Intelsat brought their CRJ to Seattle, I was hoping to catch it. Sadly, its arrival and some initial flying were not at good times, so I didn’t get to shoot it. Then it was due out when I was heading to SEA for a trip of my own. However, the conditions were awful, and I could barely make it out in the gloom as it got airborne. Cameras – even with really modern tech – struggle to focus on something that is barely visible in the mist. I did have one last chance when it was taking off, but I was at the terminal at the time and could barely get some shots of it as it taxied and took off. After that, it left. I was frustrated throughout its time here. Will it return?
