Tag Archives: washington

Lineage Catches Us Out

Leave a Reply

My encounters with Lineages have been few and far between.  From memory, one at McCarran is the only one that I immediately can recall.  There may have been another but it would have been parked somewhere probably.  Seeing one taxi out at Boeing Field was, therefore, a pleasant surprise.  Since it would only be taking off past me, it wasn’t going to be a great shot but still better than nothing.  Then they thwarted me.  Instead of crossing over to taxi to the full length, they took the intersection departure.  7,500’ is obviously plenty but still very annoying.

A National Airlines A330 Comes to Town

Leave a Reply

Seeing that a National A330 was coming in to SeaTac one evening, I figured I couldn’t pass it up.  Sure, they don’t come here often but they are also one of the few airlines that has a relatively interesting livery.  Plus, it would be later in the day when light should be good so why not go?  With SeaTac you always wonder whether the heavies will come in on the outer or inner runway.  Fortunately, there was a lot of other arriving traffic at that time so it was a good bet they would come on the inner runway.  A heavy can disrupt the flow of the lighter wake turbulence category jets.

That proved to be the case.  They came to the inner so I was positioned well for the arrival.  However, the weather wasn’t playing ball.  A bunch of clouds were building off in the distance and they drifted across the sun shortly before arrival.  Rainier was already obscured by cloud/haze but losing the sun was annoying.  Fortunately, the silvery scheme allows a bit more tolerance of less than ideal light.

Bremerton From Above

Leave a Reply

Bremerton’s naval yard has been cleared out a bit in the last few years.  It used to be the resting place of a bunch of decommissioned aircraft carriers.  Most have now gone to the breaker’s yard.  If you drove into Bremerton, it was quite something to come along the shore and see all of those carriers in front of you.  Many years ago, I was on a trip that included a flight from Seattle.  We climbed out over the top of Bremerton, and I was able to grab a quick couple of shots through the window of the airliner.  I do wish I had got some better shots of the carriers lined up before they all went away.

Sheriff Huey Encounters

Leave a Reply

My day off work to go plane hunting continued to provide interesting things for me.  I had noticed a UH-1 Huey on FlightRadar24 while looking for something else.  It was off to the east and had been circling various locations.  I assumed it was a firefighting mission and thought no more about it.  Actually it was the King County Sheriff’s airframe and, while I was at Boeing Field, it made an approach and landed at Modern Aviation’s ramp.  It was a bit distant but I got some shots of it and thought no more.

A while later, I was at Renton awaiting the arrival of the A-26 when I heard the distinctive sound of the Huey again.  This time it was close over the top of me and just to the sunny side so rather backlit.  I figured I would shoot it again anyway at which point it commenced a tight descending turn to land on the field.  It came right around me so I got shots all the way – particularly as it got to the right side for the light.  To be honest, it was a little close to me for a good angle but this day was throwing me tons of opportunities and I was not going to complain.

Getting Rid of the Visitors at Exotics@RTC

Leave a Reply

This was not something I really made a proper effort at during a visit to Exotics@RTC but I did have a brief go just to see how things might work out.  With all of the lovely looking cars on show, there are plenty of people checking them out all of the time.  This does mean the chances of getting a shot without someone in it are limited.  I figured I might play around with using a bunch of shots and Photoshop to blend out the people and get left with the cars.

To do a good job of this I really could use a tripod to keep the shot identical and take way more photos than I did to give the algorithms something to work with.  However, I didn’t have the tripod and wasn’t too keen on staying in exactly the same position for ages trying to hold the camera in place, so this was always destined to be a feeble effort.  With limited data, people aren’t going to vanish but become ghostly.  Added to that is that a few people were chatting with friends for ages so didn’t move much at all during the time I was shooting.  They clearly were not going to disappear.  Still, it was a good thing to play with and might encourage a more planned approach next time.

Caribbean Airlines – Didn’t Know You Existed!

Leave a Reply

Being close to the 737 production line means you see all sorts of airline markings on jets.  That includes seeing an airline you didn’t know anything about.  Caribbean Airlines had an upcoming delivery of a 737 Max 8 and it was out on test the day I took off.  Not the most dramatic livery but still not too bad.  The predecessors, Air Jamaica and BWIA were more colorful, though.  It taxied passed me as it headed out so I got shots of it taking off.  Later in the day it returned just as I was thinking it would be time to head home.  It arrived and then I left.  Quite a good end to the day.

Formation Kite Flying

Leave a Reply

During a visit to Whidbey, we stopped off at Fort Casey to have some lunch.  After eating, we walked downtown the hill from the lighthouse towards the main fort area.  There was a ground of people flying kits on the grass down there.  They clearly were experienced flyers and were flying routines in formation.  There were three of them at first and they were very slick.  A fourth joined in but I think was less experienced than the others.  Even so, they were still doing a good job.

I got a few photos of them as they practiced.  However, stills are not so good a way to give the feeling of kite flying so I went with a little video too.  A little of the video is below.

Cessna 182 on Floats

Leave a Reply

This 182 showed up at Boeing Field during my day off.  I was a bit far away from it but wasn’t going to pass up the chance to shoot something new and floats make a Cessna a bit more interesting than it might otherwise be.  It didn’t hurt that a Q400 from SEA was climbing out in the background and showed up in a few of the frames.

Norwegian P-8 On The Line

Leave a Reply

I saw an article in Flight about the first P-8 for the Royal Norwegian Air Force having rolled out at Renton.  It showed an airframe with a large saint emblem on the fin.  I figured this would be worth a look when I could next get to Renton.  My day off to chase planes provided that opportunity.  Sure enough, there on the flight line was the new P-8.  It was sitting next to an RAF P-8 – their eighth example.  The RAF jet flew that day but I imagine it won’t be too long before the Norwegian example follows it in to the air so I shall have to keep an eye out for that.