A simple post today of a plane taking off. Nothing too special about this one. Just a regular Max 8 heading to Malaysia. Since it was a delivery flight, I knew the jet would be a bit heavier and would have a longer takeoff run. I was hopeful of rotation in a good place for me to get some shots. It didn’t disappoint. I do like the livery on these latest jets for Malaysian Airlines.
When making my first visit to FHCAM after it re-opened, one of the things I was interested to know was whether the Stuka had made any further progress from when I last saw it or whether it was paused for restoration. Things looked like they had moved on a bit since I was last there, but it didn’t look obvious that a huge amount had happened so that could have been after I was there and before they closed down. It would be very cool to have a Stuka back in the air so we shall see if this one progresses. If anyone knows, please comment below. In the meantime, here are some shots of how it looks most recently.
The Clipper Round the World race has been underway for many years. It is a race of a single class of sailing boats/yachts (depending on where you live) with two qualified crew and the remainder are individuals that can pay to take part on one or more of the legs around the world. It starts and ends in Portsmouth and stops off at various cities around the world. It has been to Seattle since we have lived here but I never managed to get down there to see the boats.
I had a work event down at the harbor one evening when the boats had arrived. After the event, I took a few minutes to walk along the waterfront to see them tied up. I managed to get a few shots with my phone in the low light – how impressive phones can be in dark conditions – but couldn’t get any closer. Then I made an error. They were advertising that you could visit the boats to look around, so I headed down at the weekend with Nancy. There was no one to be found. Turns out, they weren’t doing tours that weekend. It had been a wasted trip (combined with it being a wet and windy day anyway). However, there is more to come on this topic.
During the holidays and just before New Year, my friend Paul was in town for a day, so we did some exploring. The weather started out being less than ideal. We had swung by Renton to see if there was anything of interest and the A-26, Sexy Sue, was out on the ramp looking ready to head off. We debated which direction they would depart and which would be most suitable for shots. In the end, we stayed where we were figuring it would be too high at the lake end of the field. (That proved not to be the case with a very low departure!)
Our chosen location did give us a good view of start up and taxi out of the plane. They were flight planned to Oakland CA which struck me as quite a long trip to take in an A-26. Sure, in combat people would have done that and when they were corporate transports it would have been normal but there are more comfortable ways to travel these days. Anyway, before long, they were lined up and powered off. There was plenty of vortex action from the props in such a damp atmosphere but it probably looked better from other angles. With them gone, we jumped back in the car and decided to continue our adventures elsewhere.
The US military operates a bunch of Gulfstream jets for transportation of key individuals. One afternoon, I was at BFI and there was a C-37 from the USAF sitting on the ramp. It had the powder blue livery common across the USAF VIP fleet. I was hoping to see it takeoff, but it was not moving while I was there. A little while later, it was joined by a second example. This one was a lot less conspicuous. It had no livery and no obvious markings at all. The USAF has been toning down its planes recently and this was definitely in that style. The lack of a registration might have told you that it wasn’t a civilian Gulfstream but the bigger giveaway would be the array of antennae that were on the fuselage. This clearly could communicate with more than the average bizjet.
Time for another cormorant related post today. When taking the ferries on the various routes around Puget Sound, the infrastructure at the terminals is often popular with the cormorants. This can mean that you can get quite close to them while on the ferry without them getting spooked. They are also coming and going with some frequency so takeoffs and landings are common, and they will often fly quite close to the ferry.
On this trip, the angle of the light to the terminal was in my favor and I was able to get a few close-up views of the birds. There was still some ironwork in the way of a totally clean shot, but not enough to ruin the images. They also obliged by flying around at convenient times when I was ready to get an image and I got some of the better shots that I have taken of cormorants in recent years.
A while back I posted some shots of New Pacific and commented on whether they would survive. They are not alone in starting up an airline and operating tenuous routes. Avelo is another airline that has been created and runs between secondary destinations. I guess all of these new starts undertake charter work as well to keep utilization up and cash coming in. Avelo did a run to Boeing Field, and I figured that, unless I get to one of their destinations at any point soon, this might be my only chance to photograph one of their planes.
The arrival was not in the best of light, but conditions weren’t too bad, and I was happy to get some reasonable shots. When it came to departure, they were due out later in the day and the one thing you know about charter flights is that they won’t go even close to he planned time unless you are running late. Then they will be off early! Sure enough, they were dragging it out. I was wondering whether there would even be any light left when they went but, having spent a bunch of time waiting, I was not giving up.
One of my friends had been waiting too but finally decided enough was enough and headed home. I was not so sensible and stuck around. Finally, they closed up the jet and got the engines going. They taxied across the runway in a location that was quite convenient for me, so I got a bunch of shots. Then they got to the hold point and waited. I was thinking that they were toying with me, but it wasn’t too long and then they rolled. Overall, I was quite happy with the results. If I don’t end up seeing them again, these will have been worth it. If they become a major success and are all over the country, this will have seemed a touch futile!!
I was down in Burien on a day with some stronger winds from the north. As I looked in the direction of Mt Rainier, my attention was drawn to the east and a string of clouds that had a very repetitive pattern. I might have expected them to be downstream of a summit, but they were not obviously connected to a high point. They did like someone had just discovered the clone tool in Photoshop and had not yet worked out how it creates repeating elements. It took little time before they had dissipated, and I was left wondering what the cause was.
When shooting departing jets at BFI, I often have a conundrum about the lens to use. For some of the higher performing aircraft, they get off the ground quickly, so the longest lens is probably going to be best. However, other types use a lot more of the runway and can rotate a lot closer to some of the places I like to shoot from. The long prime can be best a lot of the time but, if they run long, I might be too close for the shot. A Falcon 7X can run a bit longer if it is heavy as a result of the three-engine configuration versus the twins like the Gulfstreams and Globals. This one did that but, it rotated quite close to me. I was actually really pleased with how things turned out and then I spun around to get the climb out from a tight angle as well.
When in the wild, you have two options for food. First, you can find and catch your own. Second, you can find someone else that has already found and caught some food, and you can steal it from them. The latter is way easier than the former, provided you have the ability to relieve the owner of their meal. I was walking alongside the water at the locks in Ballard one weekend and a crow was attempting to help a gull lose weight by taking its meal. What followed was quite some aerial ballet and they twisted and turned with the gull trying to make sure it kept a good hold on its food while maneuvering hard to prevent the crow from taking anything. The gull was ultimately successful in this case.
