Tag Archives: Boeing Field

Head on For GlobalX

The GlobalX operations at Boeing Field had become a pretty regular thing so were not necessarily enough to pique my interest. However, I was passing the field when one was getting ready to depart and, since it was a cold, winter day, I figured that heat haze was not going to be too bad. As a result, I decided to go to the street at the departure end of the runway to try a head on shot. I knew they would rotate a long way from me but decided to see what the result might be.

I was quite pleased with the results with the haze being limited and, while I was shooting through a fence, there was not a significant reduction in image quality. This A320 is one that GlobalX took on after it departed the Alaska Airlines fleet. The majority of the airframe is plane white but the rudder has to be balanced after painting, so it was clearly easier to leave it with the remnants of the Alaska livery to save time and money. Not sure who was on this flight, but I imagine they were probably not there by choice.

Comparison of a Couple of Edits

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Every once in a while, while I am searching for something specific in the Lightroom catalog, I will come across a previous shot that catches my eye for some reason. This might be because it was something interesting, something I had forgotten about or just something that I think might benefit from a re-edit. Sometimes I have changed the way in which I approach edits and in others there is a new tool that has been added which I think will benefit the edit. This image was exactly that. I thought that the masking tools now in Lightroom would make for a more flexible approach to balancing the different parts of the image. I played around with it for a while. Because Lightroom allows you endless virtual copies, you can try something new out without having to lose what was there before. I then created a combination of the two edits to show how differently the same raw file can end up.

Still Don’t See Falcon 6Xs In the Air

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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.

More of the Vision in Nice Light

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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.

Gridiron Air and Their 777s

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Sports teams started acquiring their own jets a long time ago. An older, heavily depreciated jet could make a relatively cheap investment which meant the limited usage for specialist purposes – i.e. moving a sports team to events – was viable compared to chartering a jet from an airline. You could also customize the interior. Older jets have been replaced by 767s and 777s with some NFL teams buying their own jets. I’m not sure how the ownership transitioned but some of these 777s have ended up being operated by Gridiron Air. They used to have more specific liveries but now they seem to have transitioned to a neutral paint job. Even so, a private 777 is a nice change so I got this one when it was bringing a team in for a game in Seattle. I wish I had seen it with something a bit more interesting on it though.

Fifi Ramp Tour

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While Fifi, the B-29 Superfortress, was in Seattle, they opened her up for ramp tours. Since they didn’t get to run their normal rides, this was one of the few opportunities to get some revenue while in town. I had not done a ramp tour with her before (putting aside the time I met with the crew in DuPage for an article I was writing. It isn’t a speedy process to get through her and so a good amount of time was spent in line under the wing while we waited for our turn but that was fine.

We started out going underneath into the bomb bay where there was a guide to explain about the plane. Then we climbed up into the cockpit and spent some time looking around and hearing more of the stories of the team. Then it was back outside and time to wander around and see the aircraft up close. She is a lovingly maintained aircraft and I was glad I finally bothered to do the tour.

What is This Max Testing?

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This 737 Max 8 was flying a few missions from BFI shortly before I left the region. At first I figured it was just another jet that, while in Ural’s colors, was likely going to another airline and needed to be repainted. However, when it taxied by me, I noticed it had an “experimental” marking on the fuselage. Then I saw that it had some instrumentation mounted in one of the windows. Apparently, it is doing something different. No idea what it is and I probably will never know.

Lovely Light if Only for One Day

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I think it is safe to say that we have had a pretty gloomy winter in the Puget Sound region. The grey and damp conditions have predominated, which shouldn’t come as a great surprise since the area is rather known for that sort of thing. However, there are occasional days when the sun has shown itself and they are all the more special when they arrive as a result of their rarity. Even better, I was able to spend some time at Boeing Field on one day when the sun appeared. It was later in the day which, of course, is beneficial from the point of view of getting the better light. The flow was southerly, which is not the best since it is only sky-based shots rather than something with a background but, in the middle of winter, beggars can’t be choosers. Whether it was a Boeing Max on test of a Cirrus Vision, they looked great in the soft winter light.

A300s Are Now Quite Rare Here

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The holidays have been known to introduce some interesting freighters to Seattle as UPS buys in additional capacity. This year was a touch disappointing with only a little bought in help and nothing too unusual. However, it did mean UPS brought more of their own fleet into Boeing Field including A300-600Fs. These are not normally used on services to Seattle so they were a welcome addition. I don’t know what UPS’s plans are for the fleet but the A300 must be getting towards the later stage of its life. I know that UPS and FedEx have been struggling a little recently so maybe the jets will be used longer than I had anticipated but we shall see.

Early Morning Breeze Departure

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I’ve seen a couple of Breeze airliners, but they are not operating in our neck of the woods, so they are still a rarity for me. When one of the A220s came to Boeing Field on a charter for a sports team, I was hoping to catch it. They were due out early one morning, so I was able to go before heading to the office. This did mean that conditions were going to be rather restricted with the sun only just above the horizon (assuming clouds weren’t there as well) but this would actually suit me since I didn’t want the jet to be backlit.

Sports charters have a habit of not going even close to the time that they are scheduled so I wondered whether I would be able to get the takeoff before needing to leave. Imagine my surprise and delight when they called up pretty much on schedule. Soon the jet was crossing the runway for taxiway Bravo and then heading to the departure end. As they rolled and rotated, there was just enough light in the sky to make for some rather pleasant colors, and I was really pleased with how the shots came out. The actual light levels were very low, so I shot at high ISOs. The cameras do a remarkable job of this these days but there was still a bit of noise to deal with and the latest noise reduction algorithms in Lightroom dealt with that very effectively.