Florida Everglades
We’re climbing through the murk of South Florida’s ever present haze. Suddenly we break out on top and have this view of the Everglades. If I’m to believe the discovery channel, the Everglades are now thick with giant Burmese Pythons.
Shooting the Gap Above Charlie West
This is another navigating around weather post. We are flying from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles. There is a cold front working its way across West Virginia. A line of thunderstorms blocks our route.
Here’s a view of our radar display as we approach the area of rough weather. The dashed green line is our original route. And the solid green line is our aircraft track over the ground. This shot was taken shortly after we started deviating off our planned course in an effort to stay clear of the weather. These types of things need to be closely coordinated with air traffic control. We have to stay clear of the storms, but we also need to be sure we aren’t turning into the path of another airplane. By looking at the radar you can see we need to turn a little further left to make it through the gap between the blobs of weather. My first officer calls ATC and they give us permission to turn another ten degrees left.
Looking out the window gives a much clearer view of what’s going on. This is a panoramic view looking forward from the flight deck (click on the image for a bigger view). It’s pretty obvious where we need to steer to stay out of the rough weather. The dark clouds are towering thunderstorms. We fly right down the middle of the gap. The air is smooth despite the storms on either side of us. Our passengers have no idea we just crossed the cold front. A couple minutes later I flip off the fasten seat belt sign and we sail on towards L.A.
Four Corners Shadow
This is sundown over the four corners. The sun dropped behind the lone thunderhead on the horizon. The “V” of blue is the storm’s shadow cast across the sky. It’s hard to convey a sense of scale for a scene this large. The storm cloud in this photo is about 80 miles away. The shadow was pretty big. You’ll have to take my word for it.
Upstaged By the International Space Station
Every now and then I get a photo that I am really excited about. Last night while flying the over the Gulf of Mexico I got TWO awesome shots!
Widely scattered storms over the gulf coast were lighting up like a pinball machine. We were able to remain safely clear of the storms with minimal deviations. The lightning put on an incredible show.
After waking up from my post red eye nap I am lying on the bed in my hotel room editing these photos. In the background I have CNN on the TV. As I excitedly put the finishing touches on my lightning photos I hear the CNN anchor say something about “spectacular lightning footage from the international space station.” I look up and see this video playing:
The footage from space crushes my weak attempt portray the power of weather. I guess I’ll just have to give it another try tonight.
Clear Autumn Night
September is my favorite month to fly. The weather is friendly and the summertime tourists are locked up at work and school. Last night we flew from New York to Los Angeles. The air was clear all the way to Chicago. The photo was taken high above the Delaware River Valley.
Here we are over the southern end of Lake Michigan approaching Chicago at 36,000. In three and a half more hours we’ll be touching down in Los Angeles.
Just a reminder… prints of my best flying photos are available here.
Sunset Over the Bay of Campeche
On our way back from Cancun we had to dodge a few thunderheads while crossing the Bay of Campeche. The sun was low. It was perfect light for photography. (more…)
Texas Thunderstorm Slalom
With my camera out of commission for the past month I missed photographing a big chunk of this years thunderstorm season. Well, my good old 5D is back! It rode along on my past 3 day trip. Flying from Orlando to San Francisco a few days ago we saw plenty of storms. The entire state of Texas was a maze of towering cumulus clouds. We were cruising at 36,000 feet. This was too low for a good view of the weather, and there was a westbound American Airlines flight blocking us from climbing any higher. We were stuck in a thin cirrus layer with and had no forward visibility. My first officer and I had to thread our way through the storms by radar. It’s much less work to avoid the weather when you can actually see it. The radar works great, but playing around with tilt and gain is tedious. At one point, as we were working a gap between cells, we flew through an opening in the cirrus. Out the left window we saw this fast growing thunderhead. The storm was rising so rapidly that it formed a cap cloud. I’m glad we have a good radar.
Aerial Sunset Above North Carolina
Here’s a photo of a lone thunderhead above North Carolina. I took this aerial picture a few years ago while I was working at PSA Airlines. This picture is one of my favorite aerial images. I like how the sun is barely peaking out from behind the cloud and the sunbeams it forms. Getting this shot to work was tricky business. The cloud was out the side window and fairly close to us. We were traveling at over 300 mph causing the compositional elements to change rapidly. This meant I only had a second or less where the sun would be in just the right place. As we passed this fantastic cloud I waited till just the exact millisecond to push the shutter button. I didn’t want to rely on burst mode out of fear the timing between frames would be off. In the end, I was more than satisfied with the results.
So why am I posting old photos on my blog? Well, my camera is still out of commission and I have to keep you readers happy somehow. Also, I have been busy working on my professional photography website. Last week, I did a lot of work on my aerial and aviation photo gallery and I have put prints up for sale!
To celebrate my first print sale I am giving out a promo code for 50% off all prints. When you get to the end of the checkout process enter this code into the promo code box: fixmycamera. You’ll see the price of your print order cut in half and you’ll be funding the repair of my Canon 5D at the same time! Think of how good that will make you feel.
Decorate your home, office, or man cave with some fantastic aerial and images! Act fast, the promo code expires at the end of the month.
SFO to DFW
Here we are flying over Colorado at 39,000 feet. This post is going to be brief — nothing but pictures. I’ve too busy to write. More photos, including a forest fire after the jump (more…)
Sunrise Above Lake Michigan
We’re getting close to the summer solstice. While working the red eye from San Francisco to Boston the sun started to rise when we were still over Wisconsin. It’s that time of year — short nights and long days. From the air it looks like the sun is rising in the northeast sky. A green glow on the northeastern horizon is visible around 3:00 am. This photo was taken high above the northern end of Lake Michigan. The lake looked smooth as glass from 37,000 feet.
Pictures like this one taken near dark really push the limits of my camera. Hopefully technology keeps improving and a few years down the line I’ll be able to bring you improved shots of this near dark environment.
I’m still working on my secret project… stay tuned… I should have news within 10 days or so.
The San Luis Valley, Colorado
Here we are looking down on the San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado. I’ve never been on the ground here, but I’ve flown over this valley a few hundred times. This view is out the left window, looking south. We are headed towards Los Angeles. As you can see in this picture, the San Luis Valley is farmed pretty heavily. There are more irrigation circles here than I’ve seen anywhere else in the country. Each one of those circles is a mile across. The top of this frame is 45 irrigation circles wide. That should give you an idea of the scale of this operation.
I highlighted a few areas and posted the 100% crops below to help you get a better view of this dusty valley. (more…)
The Atmosphere is Ripe
It is a hot afternoon in Orlando, at least 90 degrees. It’s the first real heat I’ve felt all year. I volunteer to do the preflight walk around. The ramp is sweltering and stinks of kerosene. I don’t care because I love an afternoon report. I’m rested and had a nice workout. The plane looks great. All of our aircraft are brand new. Even though it’s my 10,oooth preflight inspection, I can’t help but marvel at the machine that’s about to carry us across the country to San Francisco.
Everything is going well. There are no maintenance problems, the forecast is for a very light headwind, and we might even get off the gate early. There are some scattered thunderstorms expected along our route, but nothing that can’t be avoided with a few heading changes.
Airborne, we find ourselves staring into the late afternoon sun as we cross the Gulf of Mexico. (more…)
The Pen Trick
I returned to the sky after two weeks vacation. As always, the first trip back from vacation is full of adventure. The first leg, San Francisco to Las Vegas, presented us with 40 knot winds for the landing in Vegas. The plane was completely full and we are carrying another pilot on the cockpit jumpseat. My first landing in two weeks and I have an audience of 154 people. The ride down final approach is bumpy. It’s serious work keeping the plane on center line during the flare and landing roll out. We turn off the runway. My pulse is racing. It feels like vacation is over. (more…)
Saint Elmo’s Fire
Here we are navigating the treacherous sky above north Texas. The windshield is illuminated by Saint Elmo’s Fire. The tendrils of plasma might look dramatic but they are completely harmless. Of more concern to us pilots are the clusters of thunderstorms that we are monitoring on our weather radar. The amazing light show on our windshield is nothing more than static electricity. Our airplane is building up a static charge as we fly through a cloud of frozen water droplets. Airliners are designed to be handle a direct lighting strike. Other than creating some annoying radio static, the Saint Elmo’s Fire has no noticeable effect on us.
Sailors believed that Saint Elmo’s Fire was a good omen. Saint Elmo would guide you safely through the storm. Maybe those sailors were on to something. With just a couple small heading changes we are able to dodge all the rough weather. By the time we reach New Mexico we are in clear air and the stars are shining.
Mount Charleston, Nevada
This is a view of Mount Charleston near Las Vegas, Nevada. We had this great sunset view a few days ago while flying from San Francisco to Las Vegas. In the background you can see a small thunderstorm. Over the past week I’ve had to dodge my first thunderstorms of the season. I love spring and summer flying. Stay tuned. I’m sure there will be more interesting aerial photos posted soon.
Clouds and The Great Basin
It’s felt like I’ve been going through a dry spell with aerial photos. I take my camera on every trip and for the past month and a half I haven’t seen much that would make for a good photo. That all changed this week. Three days ago while flying from Orlando to San Francisco everything came together — interesting light, weather, and geography.
This is Lake Powell. We are flying just north of the lake in southern Utah. This picture is a view towards the south. Notice the thin cloud layer. We were bucking a 100 knot headwind. The wind was carrying some moisture from the Pacific. There wasn’t enough moisture to create a rainstorm, but there was enough to produce these photogenic clouds.
About forty-five minutes later, in central Nevada, we flew past this lenticular cloud formation. Lenticular clouds form when strong winds blow over mountains. Usually they are associated with lots of turbulence. We were lucky. There wasn’t even a ripple of turbulence as we flew by.
There was fog in San Francisco and they were down to just one runway. Air traffic control vectored us south, all the way to Owens Valley, while we waited for a landing slot. This photo was taken as we crossed the Sierra Nevada. Notice the lenticular clouds on the left side of the frame.
Stormy Day Over the Bay
The weather in Central California has been a bit blustery. It never really storms here, but it does rain a lot. When the wind starts whipping ragged clouds pour in over the coastal mountains. This photo was taken above the southern end of San Francisco Bay.
To get this ominous photo effect I set my camera to -1 EV exposure compensation and pointed it into the sun. There is a trick for avoiding crazy amounts of lens flare; keep the sun partially behind a cloud.
Mojave Hop
Las Vegas is the most geographically isolated major city in the contiguous United States. On all sides it is surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert and steep mountains. Let me take you on a tour of the desert as we fly from Las Vegas to San Francisco on a beautiful winter morning.
Here is an aerial tour of the desert west of Las Vegas.
We took of from Vegas around 7:30 am. We were on our way to San Francisco. Here we are climbing over the steep mountains west of the city. In the distance you can see snow capped Mount Charleston. A lot of people don’t realize that there is a ski resort less than a half hour drive from the Vegas Strip.
This photo was taken over Pahrump, Nevada — looking towards the west. You can’t see Pahrump because we are directly over top of it. Look close and you can see Death Valley in the distance.
This is Death Valley. The valley floor is covered in Salt. The bottom of Death Valley is below sea level. Any water that flows into the valley is trapped. When the water eventually evaporates it leaves behind the salt.
Here we are ten minutes further west. This is Owens Valley California. In the bottom of the frame is The Inyo Range, and at the top of the frame are the Sierra Nevada. A winter storm system was moving in from the Pacific Ocean.
The Wind Blew Me Back Via Chicago
I’d like to say that my life as a commuting pilot is adventurous, but that would be overrating it. I live in Milwaukee and my trips begin and end in San Francisco. Getting to and from work is my responsibility. I get to fly standby for free on any airline, so that helps, but commuting is still a time sucking hassle. Let me take you along on a recent commuting odyssey.
My day starts at San Francisco International — reporting for duty at 6:00 am. I’m scheduled to fly two round trips to Las Vegas. The last leg is scheduled to pull into the gate in San Francisco at 5:05 pm. Above is a photo of the rugged countryside just west of Las Vegas. I flew over this ridge 4 times in 12 hours. My first officer was fairly new to the company and he was very excited to spot all the significant geography between SFO and LAS. “Which one of those peaks is Mount Whitney?”
It was my last day on duty and in the back of my mind I was running through my options for commuting home. They weren’t good. There was a United flight leaving for Chicago at 5:05 pm that I would never make, and then my next option was a red eye to Chicago that left at 10:30 pm. Either way I wasn’t going to get all the way home. There were no connections to Milwaukee until 7:00 the next morning. Luckily, I had Maria at home monitoring the situation via the internet and checking flights for me. If there was a solution she would find it.
And then a miracle happened. When I turned on my cell phone after our last leg from Las Vegas to San Francisco I had three text messages from Maria. United’s Chicago flight was running late. I could make it if I ran for it. Maria even sent the gate number. Ten minutes and one security screening later I am standing in the cockpit of a United jet asking the pilots if I can bum a ride. They said “No problem”, but I was going to have to ride in the cockpit jumpseat because the back of the plane was completely full. This set up was less than optimal because I had already flown six hours and Chicago was another four hours away. An uncomfortable ride in the jumpseat still beat taking the red eye.
To avoid becoming a ghost haunting O’hare Airport for the night I made a quick call to Maria and asked her to hotwire me a room in Chicago. Spending the night wondering O’hare is a scenario I didn’t want to place myself in. I’ve done it too many times in the past. The all night hum of O’hare’s moving walkways can easily mutate into a nightmare wail if you don‘t have a firm grip on your emotions. The memory of those walkways stuck in their infinite loop comes back to me from time to time when I find myself awake in the middle of the night. It’s hard fall asleep when you know those walkways are out there endlessly motoring under harsh florescent lights.
Other than nearly starving to death, the flight to Chicago was pretty uneventful. Somewhere above eastern Nebraska a flight attendant offered me a turkey sandwich and I was saved.
We landed at 11:30 in the middle of a snow storm. Tightly formed teams of snow plows were racing around the field trying to keep the taxiways open. When I turned on my phone there were three more messages from Maria. She had reserved a room for me at the Days Inn — here’s the phone number — and by the way, the last shuttle bus runs at midnight so you better hurry. It was 11:50. I ran through the empty terminal and called the hotel at the same time. “Hold the Van! I’m coming!”
“Go to Door three. The van should be there waiting” the desk clerk tells me.
After I hang up and think, “Where is door three? What‘s she talking about?”
My luck rolls on. I step out of the airport and I am in the exact right spot. I’m at door three. I couldn’t have found it if I had tried. A light snow is falling and it is crunchy cold outside. There is a salt encrusted Days Inn van idling by the curb. A plume of vapor rises from its tailpipe into the arctic night. The van driver speaks with a Russian accent. With the snow falling I feel like I’ve stepped directly into a spy movie. Contact has been made!
We drive for nearly a half hour. Strangely, the airport’s control tower is visible for most of the drive. Where are they taking me? We pass miles of warehouses and chain link fences. Snow is piled five feet deep on either side of the road. We finally reach the Days Inn. Its parking lot is still half buried from last week’s blizzard. My room has an outdoor entrance. When I step in from the cold I am greeted by the stale smell that lurks in every seedy hotel I’ve ever stayed in. The room looks like the perfect setting for a murder. No matter how high I set the thermostat the room wouldn’t warm up. Wearing a hooded sweatshirt and my long johns was able to fall asleep.
The next morning was one of those clear artic mornings where the glaring sun gives no relief from the penetrating cold. I board the hotel van again and am joined a couple of central Illinois farmers who are on their way to a religious mission in Jamaica. The van drops me off at the United Terminal. The light is interesting and I have some time so I try taking a few photos.
Soon I board a regional jet to Milwaukee. I know the captain. He’s a photo nut like me and we talk cameras for a bit. I think I know half the pilots in the country now. Milwaukee is only 15 minutes by jet from Chicago.
Maria and Ella meet me at the airport. They are wearing their nearly matched red coats. Maria has a Starbucks and Ella is drinking hot chocolate. Winter sun streams into the sky bridge.
Gulf of Mexico Sunrise
Flying the red-eye flights is not without rewards. I took this photo last week over The Gulf of Mexico. We were on our way to Fort Lauderdale. This photo was taken about one and half hours before landing. I am still on reserve which means I fly the less desirable trips. We landed in FLL at 8:00 am and flew out again at 8:00 pm. I can’t complain. How many people get to see a sunrise like this on a regular basis?
About the photo — I sometimes like to put a bit of the airplane in the photo for context. Without the glareshield and window frame this photo looks kind of flat. I also like that you can see the colors of the sunrise reflecting off the airplane’s nose. I have many gigabytes worth of flat featureless aerial sunrise photos. It took me a couple years to figure out that sometimes it’s OK to put some airplane in the frame. Of course, if I use this trick too much it starts to look boring. I save it for only the best sunrises.
My Commute
Last year I did a little photo documentary about my weekly commute from Milwaukee to New York City (here’s a link). Since then my commute has changed a lot. I live in a different area of Milwaukee now and I am now commuting to San Francisco rather than New York City. Also, I am not scheduled to fly when I arrive in my base city like I used to be. I’m on call. If someone calls out sick or the airline’s schedule gets messed up due to weather or maintenance, they call me off the bench. Due to anticipated future growth my airline has been pretty overstaffed. I don’t get to fly much.
Here is my predawn bus ride across Milwaukee. A couple weeks ago I discovered if I walk two extra blocks and take a different bus than normal I can avoid most of Milwaukee’s worst neighborhoods. My old bus ride was a little too adventurous. I felt a little out of place carrying $5000 worth of camera and electronics through Milwaukee’s post apocalyptic north side. On this commute the biggest danger was frostbite. It was -3 degrees when I left home. I wear long underwear and wool socks. There’s an underused bathroom at the airport where I change out of my winter clothes.
This is Milwaukee’s newest terminal. MKE is the fastest growing airport in the country. I get there two hours before my flight is scheduled to depart. We pilots fly for free, but it’s first come first serve. If there is only one seat available I want to be the first one in line for it. Once I am listed on the flight I get some breakfast and then work on writing my “How It’s Done” series.
Here I am a couple hours later climbing out of Milwaukee. You can see downtown and Lake Michigan if you look close. I’ve become an AirTran frequent flyer. They operate the only direct flight between Milwaukee and San Francisco. After Midwest was bought by Republic two years ago, Airtran has pretty much become Milwaukee’s hometown airline. AirTran has been bought by Southwest. Who knows what the future holds for my commute.
Here we are a few hours later jetting across The Great Basin. I paused from writing my introduction to Photoshop lesson to snap this photo.
This is the end of my commute. It’s the Balboa BART Station in San Francisco. My dad and step mom live a few blocks away. I made it! Maybe crew scheduling will call me and assign a trip, or more likely I’ll be stuck sitting on the bench all day.
My Long Road to Cabo
Airbus tail structure at SJD Airport, Mexico
Back in the late 80s I was a Junior High student in small town Wisconsin. Every evening after school I delivered newspapers. I inherited the paper route from my older brother when he was hired as a lifeguard at the city pool.
Along with the paper route my brother gave me his old newspaper delivery bike. It was a not so specially modified 1970s era banana seat Huffy. Somewhere along the line my brother had decided it was more practical to have a freewheel instead of brakes. The coaster brakes were removed. The only way to stop the huffy was dragging a foot on the ground. With fifty pounds of Sunday Morning Edition strapped to the handlebars stopping the bike took about as much planning as stopping a train. I burned through a pair of Chuck Tailor’s every month. Even though the bike was nearly impossible to stop my brother thought it was important to upgrade to knobby BMX tires for better traction in winter. A short time after these modifications were made a half full can of Rustoleum was discovered in our parent’s garage. A long summer afternoon with nothing better to do resulted in the paper route bike receiving an uneven coating of blaze orange paint. The only part of the bike that wasn’t tinkered with was the baby blue banana seat. The bike had a rather peculiar look and aesthetic. My brother painted the name “Slum Buggy” on the frame’s crossbar.
After a few months of delivering newspapers with the brakeless Slum buggy, I became very adept at managing my inertia on the sloping driveways of suburban Wisconsin. I’d power down the straight-aways and coast up the driveways. At the apex of the driveway I’d pull a rolled paper out of the handlebar mounted bag and fling it onto a porch. Pretty soon I was able to complete the entire route without touching a foot to the ground.
I admit I must have looked like a degenerate teen — America’s lost future. Delivering papers is a dirty, inky business and I wore an ancient army surplus jacket that was held together by safety pins. My jeans were old and torn. My gloves were worn through at the finger tips. Of course, the brakeless, sort of out of control, slum buggy didn’t help my appearance much. Probably even above the Frankenstein bike and rebel army jacket, the one thing that scared the good folks of Wisconsin most were the headphones I was wearing. Nothing said “no good rotten kid” louder than a cheap walkman and a pair of headphones. I had to have music and at the time the music had to be Van Halen.
I read an interview once where David Lee Roth said, “We design our records so that when you place them on the shelf next to your other albums all those other albums melt.” At age 14 I certainly understood what Mr. Roth was talking about. No other music compared to Van Halen. I didn’t have words to describe it then. Van Halen simply sounded like magic, like their music came from some higher plain. For me, I didn’t care who the singer was. Dave or Sammy? Who cares. It was all about Ed’s guitar. To the casual listener Van Halen was just another 80s hair band, but if you listened, even just a little, there was Eddie’s guitar swooping in for the kill. Eddie simply plays the angriest, most angst ridden guitar in rock and roll. Ed’s guitar was my 14 year old emotions turned to sound.
During my paper route days, Van Halen’s current album was OU812. I dubbed a copy from my older brother. My Memorex version was played so often that I wore out the tape. At the time, the members of Van Halen were opening a night club in the then sleepy Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. As a slick piece of marketing the band included the song “Cabo Wabo” on OU812. During cold winter evenings I delivered newspapers while listening to Sammy Hagar sing the praises of Cabo. Eddie’s playing wasn’t as angry on this track. His guitar almost sounded pretty in parts. I had never been to Mexico and never seen the Pacific ocean, but I knew when had some money I would be paying Cabo a visit. With the snow piled deep and my feet frozen inside a thin pair of Chuck Taylors it was easy to build Cabo into a panacea. How cool would it be to see Van Halen at the Cabo Wabo cantina? The place only holds like 200 people. You’d probably meet the band. You might drink with them after the show. Maybe they’d invite you out on their boat the next day. The dreams of a 14 year old.
Other than visiting Cabo I had one other dream, and that was to fly airplanes for a living. It didn’t matter what sort of airplane or where I would be flying. I knew I would fly. It wasn’t even a choice. I would do it. Over time, the flying dream took precedence over my Cabo dream. Learning to fly sapped all my limited resources and then some. I attended flight school in the most non-Cabo like area of the planet — Grand Forks, North Dakota. It took me five years before I slipped the icy clutches of North Dakota and got hired at a regional airline. I was flying for a living. Every morning before sunrise I was flying high above the Ohio river Valley or West Virginia, or Scranton, PA. The job was hellish and paid me just enough to keep up on my student loan payments, but nothing more. I was subsisting on peanut butter and toast. Somewhere around this point Van Halen broke up. Eddie said he had always hated the idea of opening a club in Cabo and he didn’t like playing the song “Cabo Wabo”. Sammy Hagar kept the club and began to market his own line of tequila while on tour. What had once looked like the coolest bar on the planet, ran by a bunch of friends was now exposed as a strictly commercial enterprise. I felt I had been doped by my favorite band. It was worse than finding out Santa Claus wasn’t real.
It almost didn’t matter, because at this point my tastes had finally matured. I liked other music. In fact, I hardly listened to hard rock anymore anyways. My new favorite band was Wilco and when they sold out to Volkswagen I actually forgave them. They needed the money. They were like me. I would gladly sell out to Volkswagen.
Now, fast forward a couple years and, here I am a captain at the greatest airline in the country. I’ve been on call for the past week. Two nights ago my phone rings. On the other end the crew scheduler says, “Dave, we need you to fly the Cabo turn tomorrow. Your report time is 10:25 am”. Holy crap! After all these years I am flying to Cabo! I felt like I was 14 all over again, only this time I was flying a sparkling new $40 million dollar jet to Cabo. Rest in Peace Slum Buggy.
“Hey folks! Welcome aboard. It’s January 3rd. You are the lucky ones. Most people are on their way home today but you’re on your way to Cabo!” It’s the first time I ever got a cheer during my boarding announcement.
Baja California and the Sea of Cortez — enroute to Cabo
Yosemite National Park
Yesterday, while commuting to work on AirTran we were treated to this fantastic view of Yosemite National Park. Most flights approaching San Francisco from the east fly directly over Yosemite. I’ve flown over Yosemite close to 100 times. Normally, there is some haze or a cloud layer and I don’t bother trying a photo — not this time. Yesterday morning was the best lighting for an aerial photo of Yosemite that I’ve ever seen. In the lower right you can see Half Dome, and on the left end of the canyon you can see El Capitan. Look really close and you’ll be able to pick out Yosemite falls.
Here is another view of the Yosemite Valley. This picture does a pretty good job describing the geography of the canyon. At the top of the frame you can see the peaks of the High Sierras. The Sierra’s rise gradually from west to east out of the San Joaquin Valley. Most of the bottom portion of the frame is the gentle slope of the western Sierras. The Yosemite Canyon is a deep gash cutting through the high country.
Mount Rainier Sunrise
Fans of my Flying the Line series might have noticed things have sort of slowed down recently. Sorry about that. I like posting flying pictures probably more than you like looking at them. The reason for the slowdown is I am on reserve right now. That means I am not flying a regular schedule. I am on call. If someone calls out sick then I get to fly. The good news is I finally upgraded to captain. If you remember, I did my captain training back in May and June. Due to some delayed aircraft deliveries my actual change over to captain didn’t happen until the beginning of November. Like all things in life, there is a trade off. I went from being a high seniority first officer with my pick of schedules to being lowest captain on reserve. So now, I can’t really complain about pay anymore, but I have a pretty bad schedule.
Last week, I sat around the crash pad, bored out of my mind. They didn’t call me to work for two days, and then finally my phone rang. Scheduling needed me to fly a three day trip with overnights in Seattle and Boston. Great! Anything beats spending time in a crash pad.
The second day of the trip we were treated to this sunrise while climbing out of Seattle. The big mountain on the left is Mount Rainier. On the right you can see Mount Adams.
Be careful… those clouds are full of rocks! This is a view of the base of Mount Rainier. I snapped this picture as we flew past the mountain. Notice how benign those clouds look. You wouldn’t want to fly through them though. Somewhere inside those soft clouds is the summit of Rainier. There’s no need to worry. We pilots fly established routes that keep us away the high terrain. Also, all modern transport aircraft are equipped with terrain avoidance equipment, and terrain maps that display on our navigation screen. On my navigation display there was a bright red blob where Rainier was located. I should have taken a picture of that for you too. Maybe next time.
Photos4u2c 
