Tag Archives: aviation

nature, Photography

Flight

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Humanity has been enthralled with flight for centuries. As far back as the 15th century, Italian artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci experimented with aircraft designs. He intensely studied birds and developed an amazing understanding of flight principles; his book Codex on the Flight of Birds contains incredible insight into basic aerodynamics.

Landing at CYEP Edmonton Parkland Airport.

Although he was unable to bring his designs to fruition because of the technological limitations of the time, he is credited with the fundamental design concepts for the hang glider and the helicopter.

Eagles over the Pacific.

He was far ahead of his time and at the forefront of the remarkable flying technologies that we now so readily take for granted.

Snowbirds Canadian Air Force Demonstration Team

What would da Vinci think of all our present flight capabilities? Everything from parasailing to drones to space flight?

Rufous hummingbird.

I think he would love it!

One more eagle.

Happy Thursday.

Photography

Snowbirds

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We recently watched a Snowbirds air show: the Snowbirds are the Royal Canadian Air Force’s military aerobatics flight demonstration team. The show was delayed by a thunderstorm, but once it passed, they took to the air. Here are some highlights.

Seven of the team’s nine aircraft against a clearing sky …

… doing their close quarter, high speed passes …

… punctuated by fabulous starburst maneuvers …

… including a heart-shaped aerial attitude that I wasn’t able to capture as I wanted to watch the show as well as take pictures …

… among other fantastic maneuvers that are a wonderful demonstration of flying prowess. Here’s a short video.

It was a great show and brought a big smile to the face of this old pilot.

Happy Sunday.

nature, Photography

Earth and Sky

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From a morning ramble a few days ago …

… a rather hungry deer …

… who seemed in need of good food and a quiet place to recuperate from some physical damage. She seems to be recovering well, though. It looked as though she had found some delicious leaves and a safe spot near the marina.

And then later …

… I watched the human “wildlife” in the form of the Snowbirds, the Royal Canadian Air Force’s military aerobatics flight demonstration team …

… do some practise runs over Okanagan Lake. They will be doing an air show here later this week.

Happy Wednesday.

nature, Photography

Northern Lights

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These aren’t the traditional northern lights or aurora borealis, but they’re definitely northern all the same.

We chased the sunset/sunrise as we flew 6.5 hours east across northern Canada from Calgary to Iceland. I love these amazing colour striations which are also known as the Belt of Venus.

You can see a slight Earth curvature given that we were flying at 64° north latitude. The light shows created by our wonderful world and its solar position are breathtakingly beautiful.

Happy Wednesday.

nature, Photography

Prairie Cloud Beauty

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I have always loved the beauty of prairie cloud formations. Although they can grow into very damaging storms, most of the time they drop their wind and rain load and then dissipate.

The triangular cloud on the left is what is known as a “cloud with vertical development.” These are the ones that can cause storms, especially thunderstorms.

Its lower half was dropping a lot of rain near the Calgary area.

Although this one was showing a lot of vertical development, it was also on its own, not interacting with other clouds.

Southern Alberta seems to have recently received a lot of rain – courtesy of these thunderheads – a good thing considering that there were lingering drought conditions from last year.

Happy Tuesday.