John & Anne Wiley

2016/09/15

Lockheed P-2 Neptune N807NA

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Has Photos,Random — John @ 19:47

For our fellow aviation enthusiasts, here’s a long zoom pic of a venerable aircraft. This Lockheed P-2 Neptune (appropriately operated by Neptune Aviation Services of Missoula), tail number N807NA (sn.131424), zipped past us near Lake Shasta powered by a pair of R3350-32WA radial engines (jets apparently removed) on the way to a fire. At this distance in the smoke we’d probably have missed it, but ATC let us know to look.

9973 Lockheed P2V-5 Neptune

9973 Lockheed P2V-5 Neptune

I’m especially curious about the life story of this plane, given the extensive action reports on this WWII era designed and many deployments including the Korean, Vietnam and Falklands Wars as described in the Neptune wiki. This type also held the un-refueled piston-engine long distance record from 1946 until 1986.

Day’s End

Here are the last pix from our first day of flying, from Santa Barbara to Grants Pass, OR. I’ll start off with this intriguing look at the interaction of farming and nature somewhere a few miles East of Chico, CA. I just love the leopard texture and the variations in color.

1602 Leopard Landscape

1602 Leopard Landscape

Like nearly all the pix from this day, I’ve tweaked the colors to eliminate what I can of the smoke that made even nearly straight down pix like this hazy to the camera. Since I can’t quite forget how smoky it was, here’s another smoke source. Adding to the wildfires that made the distant mountains in the bottom half of the pic below hazy even above 7,000′ where we probably were when snapping this next pic, there was smoke from ground level up to 1,000′ or so from agricultural burning like this burn in the top half and you can see it clinging to the ground in the bottom half. It’s somewhat amazing to me that people can live down there breathing that stuff for extended periods.

1573-71 Double Whammy

1573-71 Double Whammy

We were happy to be above most of it, and still able to enjoy scenes like this cartoon figure etched in a flooded (rice?) field.

1577 Simpsons or Schultz?

1577 Simpsons or Schultz?

Before long we were even higher to clear the mountains dotted with alpine lakes like this approaching Scott Valley.

1636 Alpine Lake

1636 Alpine Lake

Crossing into Oregon we could see the distant Cleveland Ridge Fire beyond Medford adding to the much thicker smoke coming from the Gap Fire back across the CA state line in Klamath Forest.

1879 Cleveland Ridge Fire

1879 Cleveland Ridge Fire

As we began descending toward Grants Pass, we got this good look at Applegate Lake.

1889 Applegate Lake

1889 Applegate Lake

Like the iconic Lake Shasta and other water resources North of the SF Bay Area, this one has gained from more normal rainfall last Winter. We’ll share more and better pix of those waters when we get to the return flight in coming posts.

2016/09/14

Smoke Signal Adventure

Anne’s “Flying Home” post introduced our first Big Adventure since “Islander” in three years, when we flew the Bahamas. This new one I’m calling the “Smoke Signal” Adventure was familiar after so many flights since 2006 and part of that is how unique each Adventure is, including discoveries of new expressions like this on the face of our planet.

1517 Familiar Discovery

1517 Familiar Discovery

It had grown increasingly surprising to us that it’s been so long, but suddenly something powerful got us moving and we took off. Unlike earlier Adventures we hesitated for many months trying to decide whether to go. Part of the problem is smoke, like this uncorrected view toward the West from the Sacramento area where the above corrected beauty was taken.

1522 Sac Smoke

1522 Sac Smoke

Our part of the world is declared to be in Exceptional Drought, and around here that means wildfires like the local Rey, Sherpa, and countless other big fires around CA. The smoke from all that burning makes flying more complicated and less fun. But it’s still fun to look more straight down and away from the sun because our brains correct for the smoke to present interesting things like this.

1524 Franklin Airport

1524 Franklin Airport

Just off the bottom of the pic are a waste water treatment plant and a prison. All we noticed in flight was the airport tempting us to land, but looking at full-resolution pix to discover the adjoining facilities adds a note of curiosity about what it would’ve been like. Nearby this bright feature triggered a shutter press.

1527 Painted Pond

1527 Painted Pond

We wondered what “painted” the pond that beautiful turquoise, and now pondering in detail we’re guessing it’s used for boat races. There are shelters where fans can watch, and a swimming pool next to a smaller pond where people can cool off.

Sometimes a feature we’ve snapped remains enigmatic until we’ve not only examined the pix in detail but googled it. This one that looks like an outdoor theater for boaters defied all attempts for an hour. It’s on the Sacramento River Bike Trail next to the freeway, but gMaps only identified the Bill Conlin Sports Complex across the small street at the left. Finally I decided it’s a fresh water facility and found out it’s the Freeport Water Intake in the Sac burb of Meadowview.

1553 Water Theater

1553 Water Theater

In case you’re still not clear about that powerful “something” that finally got us flying toward the North, it’s partly detailed in Anne’s post and in this pic. To me that’s a heart-shaped grove of trees next to the river.

1564 Power Of Love

1564 Power Of Love

2016/09/11

Flying Home – via Shasta & ClearLake

We’re back from wonderful visits on our latest journey to Okotoks Canada (& precious 5yr old grandaughter!), Glacier Park MT, Seattle, Grants Pass – with delightful family & friends.   We flew home today along Shasta Lake,

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 dams,

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 and the ever-intriguing wetland shapes from aerial perspective.

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So glad we went on our wonderful trip visiting lovely people – and so happy to be home!  More photos to come…once we settle in to our happy home 🙂

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