Northwest Flying Photography Blog

I took more shots in past years, but I think I took some of my best shots this year. Not only did I get 3 (count’em…3) air to air shoots in, I also got to go flying in a Swift, something I’ve always wanted to do. My goal for next year is to do an Air to Air for a Swift. Anyone need some shots taken?

Without further ado, here are some of my best shots for 2009.

Air to air with a Piper cub for Silverwings Flying Company:

Boeing’s 747-400 (modified) Dreamlifter:

The Flying Heritage Collection:

Bud and Ross Granley:

Air to Air, For private owner:

Air to Air, For private owner:

Super Cub at Concrete Fly-in:

Swift and crowd at the Concrete Fly-in:

Stinson at the Concrete Fly-in:

Bud Granley at the Arlington Fly-in:

Heritage Flight P-51 at Paine Field:

This is by no means an extensive list, and I left out a lot of good or better pix. I guess you’ll have to go look at Flicker to see them all.

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I have mentioned previously that I am a fan of the Globe/Temco Swift. I think it is a classic airplane with great looks and performance. I was recently offered my first ride in a swift and it really exceeded all my expectations.

Swift GC-1B, N3783K, owned by Nate Andrews is a fantastic example of the type. Nate is an A&P and restored his aircraft himself. The care and precision that he took really shows in the aircraft. It has a great paint job the skin is very straight. The seats and cockpit are immaculate. It was love at first sight.

Nate’s swift sports a 200hp engine, which really pushes you back into your seat on take off. Flying out of Harvey, we flew west bound. The swift was a very stable flyer. After getting it trimmed up you could go hands off and it would fly right where you pointed it.

I had the opportunity to take the controls and found out that it’s not the typical C-172 that I am used to. All the controls were a lot more sensitive than what I was familiar with. I just tapped the rudders and started the tail swinging. The same happened on the ailerons and elevator. Any light control movement and the aircraft jumped to respond. Naturally one starts to wonder what is possible with all that responsiveness.

As Nate told me. “The Swift likes to roll.” And indeed it does.

Nate also demonstrated a power off stall for me. It was a very positive break with a nice and pronounced shudder right before the stall. Either Nate is a better pilot than I am (likely) or the aircraft likes to maintain a level attitude in the stall, because there was no wing drop at all.

After we landed back at Harvey, I thanked Nate for the experience and grinned all the way home. Thanks again Nate!

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Let’s start off by saying the Concrete is actual a place, in addition to being something you make roads (and runways) out of. This particular place called Concrete resides along highway 20 in Washington State and is home to the Skagit Aero Education Museum who, not by chance, host the annual vintage aircraft fly-in at the Concrete Municipal Airport. Concrete is a really cool place to fly into, and makes for a great back drop for some airplane pictures.

Speaking of which:

As always, the complete set can bee seen on Flickr.

P.S.  That first shot is a flight of four Swifts, my favorite airplane. Aint they beautiful! you can learn all about the Swift at the Globe/Temco Swift Home Page

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I’ll be at AWO this weekend for the EAA fly-in. You should come out and look at airplanes.

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Well, not paid work, but fun and educational none the less.

Thanks to Kevin and Erik for making it possible:

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I’ve been doing stuff. Some of which involves taking pictures, most of which does not. I’ll talk about the picture stuff, since that’s why I have this blog/web/thing.

I managed to catch the Deamlifter at sunset a few days ago and I think I got some appreciable shots of it. I’ll let you decide:

I also totally scored when I finagled my way onto the restoration facility for the Museum of Flights B-29 last Friday. The MOF’s B-29 project is looking great, the guys volunteering with the restoration are top notch genuine craftsmen, and a bunch of nice guys to boot. Thanks go to Dale and Terrence for the warm reception and the fantastic tour. The guys were nice enough to plug in the turret system for me and I got to play with that for a few minutes. That was a treat.

I also got to walk through the Boeing B-17 in the same building. I can’t say enough about the restoration work done on these aircraft. It’s truly a labor of love to all involved and it really shows when you are up close to the aircraft.

The highlight of the past few weeks was an air-to-air photo shoot I did for Mike at Silverwings Flying Co. in Olympia. Mike was a great guy, and was very accommodating. I was in his friend Scott’s PA-12 and we flew a quick sortie. I hope I got some shots he is happy with. It was hard getting the camera out the window from the back seat, particularly with my fat ass in the seat, but it worked out.

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It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a car! It’s the Transition! Them wacky guys (MIT grads and pilots, a winning combination of intellect and crazy) at Terrafugia have designed, built and now flown the Terrafugia Transition, what is described as a “roadable aircraft.” The transition can fold up it’s wings and drive down the road at freeway speeds. How cool is that?

On the 5th of March, the Transition took to the air for the fist time and is now undergoing flight (and road) testing.

I can hardly wait to see one of these pull off the road, lower the wings and, take off. Naturally from an approved airfield, we pilots are responsible folk.

You can get all the info, more photos and a couple of vids at the Terrafugia web site.

P.S. Price tag? A bit less then what I paid for my house. YIKES!

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