Tag Archives: washington

Drag Racing

I have had the chance to photograph a variety of motorsports over the years but I recently got a chance to try something new.  I went to see some drag racing at Pacific Raceways in Kent, south of where we live.  I have seen drag racing on TV in the past but have not ever been in person.  I was covering this for Speed and Sport Journal, a website run by my friend Joel in Chicago.  I won’t rewrite the piece I put together for him but will, instead, include the link here to that work.

https://www.speedandsportjournal.com/flav-r-pac-nhra-northwest-nationals/

The focus on that article was not on the results and individual performances but instead what the experience was like going to my first drag racing.  It was a very intense thing to be so close to.  Incredibly loud and physically imposing stuff and quite unlike anything I had done before and that includes standing beside fast jets as they take off.  Joel used a number of my images for the article so here I shall include some that didn’t make it in but that I liked for whatever reasons my brain may have.

Another 727 Chance Before Sunset for Departure

The arrival just before sunset of a Kalitta 727 was the subject of a recent post.  It departed later that evening, but it was very dark by then and I didn’t hang around.  It wasn’t long before the jet was back again and this time it arrived a little earlier in the day.  That meant that there was a chance that they would depart before sunset.  That was something I was willing to take a chance on.  In the later evening, it is a quick jaunt to Paine Field from home.  Sure enough, they obliged by being prompt.  I had barely got there when the jet taxied.  The light was very nice, and they were flowing to the north so I was able to get a few shots, hop in the car and be home so fast that Nancy thought I must have blown off the idea altogether!

Woohoo! – Another Hawker 4000

A few times a year, Boeing Field is treated to the arrival of a Hawker 4000.  This was not a successful jet for Hawker and so they are far from common.  I have shot them on occasions, and they have probably got blog posts when I did.  I saw this one coming in one weekend so headed over to see it.  When I looked up the operator, Talon Air, I was interested to see on their website that they have quite the collection of 4000s.  I guess owning a bunch of them makes supporting them a little easier.  Annoyingly, another one was at BFI while I was there and got towed near me before I realized what it was.  It didn’t fly while I was there unfortunately.

A Dornier Is Worth an Excursion

The Dornier 328Jet is not a total rarity but it is unusual enough to get attention.  Earlier this year, one showed up as coming through BFI.  Since I was able to be there, I decided it had to be worth the trip.  Sure, it is just another landing shot of a small airliner but I spend too much time thinking back to things I never bothered about at the time that are now gone so I’d rather not add to that list.

Antonov Design Bureau Back at Everett

Once Russia went to war with Ukraine, the ability of Russian cargo operators to continue their US business went away.  Volga Dnepr had been providing a bunch of service for Boeing operations at Everett bringing in outsize airframe parts.  With them out of the picture, Boeing had to find an alternative.  Antonov Design Bureau designed the AN-124 originally and it has an in house airline, Antonov Airlines.  They seem to have picked up a bunch of work that Volga Dnepr previously had.  Despite the enthusiasm for various people calling them Russians, they are definitely Ukrainian!

They have been in and out of Paine Field pretty frequently over the last few months.  I have got shots of them at different times with the aircraft carrying various messages about cities in Ukraine.  Having got shots at different times, I also started shooting some video.  Here are some of the shots along with a video of one of the departures.

Deer Foraging in Juanita Bay Park

Much of the wildlife I end up photographing in Juanita Bay Park is the birds or the aquatic life.  However, I do occasionally come across some other creatures as I stroll through and one afternoon it was some deer.  I have seen deer in the park before.  They tend to stay away from the more heavily trafficked areas, but they do cross the paths when getting from one spot to another.  That was what happened in this instance.  They jumped out of the bushes ahead of where I was heading and across to more foliage.  I thought they would be gone but they stopped and munched on some of the leaves for a while.  Not clearly in sight but not avoiding me either!

Northern Air Cargo or StratAir

I was at SEA early one Sunday morning to try and catch a shot of Salmon Thirty Salmon before it was repainted.  Northern Air Cargo also departs at a similar time of day as part of its loop between Hawaii, Seattle, Los Angeles and back to Hawaii.  I assume one of the regular jets was in maintenance because they had chartered in some capacity from StratAir.  I was not familiar with this operator but I was happy to catch a 767 in new colors for me.

Cars With Fins

When it comes to classic American cars, I know next to nothing.  I didn’t grow up with them and I haven’t studied them since so put me in amongst a bunch of these cars as was the case for the Exotics@RTC Classics event and I will just focus on what I think looks cool.  These cars could be the rarest of items or the thing you could see at any local car meet and I wouldn’t be any the wiser.  The only clue to me that they could be a significant vehicle would be that a huge crowd of people was hanging around them.

The Classics Day certainly did bring out any number of cool looking old vehicles.  To be honest, some of them don’t even look that great to my eye but they are of an era and show where car design was at that time.  They might be chunky and huge but that was what cars were like back then.  Others have some more interesting styling features like the fins I mention in the title to this post.  That is something that I would previously have found rather crass but, as the time has passed, it is now more of a cool styling cue.

I know quite a few people that are petrol heads that will recognize these vehicles and possibly their years.  The only way I would identify them was if the name was written on the side – which it usually is – or if the owner has a sheet in the window with details of the vehicle and its history.  That will be plenty for me anyway.  Hope some of these chunky or swoopy shapes appeal to you.

Marine Corps Hornets Leave Boeing Field

It’s been a while since I posted some images of Marine Corps Hornets having issues starting up to depart from Boeing Field after a weekend visiting for training.  I didn’t include any images in there of them actually taking off.  I got a reasonable spot to try and see them take offs even though the weather was not really great.  I was surprised at just how quickly the jets got airborne.  They were already quite high by the time that they came by me.  I was still able to get some reasonable shots of them.  Fast jets are always a nice change to the usual Boeing Field traffic.

Old and the New in the Pattern Over Whidbey

I was down at Fort Casey on Whidbey Island one sunny afternoon.  I had been to Ault Field first thing in the morning and some of the shots from then will make it on here at some point.  I was down near Coupeville awaiting some FCLP training but, since I had time on my hands, I was wandering down near the shore.  The wind must have changed because some planes from Ault Field were coming down our way as part of their patterns.  One was a P-8 – the latest that the Navy has for maritime patrol – while the other was a P-3 – the type that the P-8 has almost completely replaced in service.  It seemed quite appropriate to have both of them working overhead at the same time.