Fly Away

I’m fascinated by airplanes. It may be because I  love to travel, to fly away to someplace special, or it may be because it’s amazing how something so big and heavy can get off the ground. I don’t get to fly away very often, but I can visit the Boeing Museum of Flight by just driving to south Seattle, like Tanya and I went did week.

I hadn’t been in years, and it is bigger than I remember. The museum has five main exhibition areas:

• the Great Gallery, a 6-story exhibition hall which contains 39 full-size aircraft
• the Red Barn, the original Boeing building which features the Boeing story from 1916 to 1958
• the Personal Courage Wing, which present the story of fighter aviation in World War I and II
• the Space Gallery, which will soon house one of NASA’s space shuttle trainers, and
• the Airpark, an outside area with 6 large planes, including the Kennedy/Johnson Air Force One, the very first 747, and a Concorde

It’s a bit of challenge to photograph there. The contrast can be extreme, especially in the Great Gallery with it glass walls. But tripods are allowed, so I made use of HDR to handle the contrast on many shots (such as the featured image above, which shows the world’s sole remaining Boeing 80A-1 in the foreground and a DC3 above it – back in my college days, I rode several times in DC3s in Alaska). It’s a fun spot, well worth visiting. The museum does charge an admission fee, but is free on the first Thursday evening of each month.

The Lockheed Blackbird M-21, capable of a cruise speed of Mach 3 at an altitude of 85,000 feet (25,500 meters), topped with a D21B drone. This is another HDR image.

The Curtiss JN-4D Jenny circa 1917. HDR once again.

The Yakovlev Yak-9U, a Russian WW II fighter. Yes, this is HDR too.

The pilot’s seat from Air Force One. (Not HDR.)

There’s more than just planes at the museum. Here’s the Wyckoff Memorial Bridge, which connects two parts of the museum.

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