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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I had been down to Carkeek Park to see the salmon on my way home from Seattle. I told Nancy about it and suggested we should go and have a look at the weekend. What I hadn’t counted on was that the park was having a festival that day to celebrate the salmon run. The place was absolutely heaving. The traffic was heavy yet, but some lucky break, we managed to get a parking spot relatively easily.
There were a load of stalls out for local groups and plenty of people around to explain the background to the salmon run and the impacts it has on the local ecology. Some were cleaning out some of the carcasses to gather data on the health of the fish (if you put aside that they were now dead). There was also a group of what looked like Morris dancers from the UK. One person was dressed as a salmon too. I guess the UK doesn’t have a monopoly on quirky behaviour!
Shortly before we left the Pacific Northwest, I made one of my final visits to Paine Field at the end of a day. Boeing was testing a 777F that was due to go to Ethiopian Cargo and the jet was due back at the end of the day shortly before sunset. I was hoping that I might get some stunning colours at that time of day but, by the time the jet came on to approach, the sun had slipped below the low cloud on the horizon.
Even so, the remaining light did provide some nice illumination on the jet as it was on short final and touching down. I was about to pack up and head home when I heard the sound of the engines coming back our way and, sure enough, they were taxiing back for a high-speed taxi and abort. There was a fair bit of moisture on the runway surface and, as they powered up, they were spraying clouds behind them. This time they were done and headed back to the ramp. I shall miss seeing the interesting variety of operators that you get from the factory.
I think I have posted previously about the wing on the Cessna Citation Sovereign. It is not a jet I particularly like the look of but I am amazed at the wing span of this thing. This example was on short final to SEA and I decided to shoot it head on and then from underneath as it passed overhead. It does show just how long that wingspan is. I don’t know whether the wing is that advanced but it is long!
The dire situation with Boeings 777X programme means that Boeing hasn’t delivered a passenger 777 for a very long time. The only jets getting delivered from the line are freighters. The good news about freighters is that you get some different operators to the norm. Maersk is a shipping company that has taken some 777Fs and, while I missed the first one that they took, I was able to catch the next one although only just. I was there on the day it was delivered. It was heading in a northerly direction which isn’t my preference for Paine Field departures but, because it was a delivery flight, you had the advantage of it being pretty heavy with a decent fuel load to take it home. That blue paint scheme is a cool one to catch. Maybe I will see one in service at some point.
I did include a shot of this Vision from a nice afternoon at Boeing Field when the light was really nice. As I was including it in that post, I was looking at a number of the shots I took of it and thought it was one of the better times I had shot the Vision so it might be worth a post of its own. Hence this post. The head on view of the Vision is pretty good at a distance as the distinctive V-tail configuration is shown off well.
Add to that the nice colors that Visions are often painted in and the soft and warm light, you get some good results. I don’t know whether the Vision is a good jet to own but they do seem to have sold well and are pretty common at Boeing Field. I will miss them even though I did seem to struggle getting the right conditions for them. At least I had a good encounter before I left.
