Due to a schedule conflict I wasn’t able to make it to General Aviation Day at Paine Field last weekend, but luckily a lot of you were. Since I was going through to see what I missed, I wanted to share with you as well.
Even though there was a lot of very cool vintage warplanes there, being an airline geek, I think the pinnacle was a low pass by a Boeing 747 Dreamlifter, taken by Liembo and posted to his Flicker account:
Do not worry, for all your warplane fans, there are plenty of other things to drool over:
* Some amazing shots from Liz Matzelle
* Photos of warbirds and the Dreamlifter from Jason Barwig
* A nice mixture of airplane shots from Aviation Images Northwest
* Good ones of the non-warbirds from spookythecat
* Planes and the people behind them by krislhull
* Great action shots from Matt Lang
* Can you find the chicken in these wonderful pics by Jeff Cook
General Aviation Day at Paine Field is back! What an amazing and great event celebrating aviation. People from all over will fly and drive in to share their love of flight.
The flyer above gives you most details, but this is a great family event, since it is FREE. Even though seeing all the aircraft is wonderful, I think the best part of the event are all the airplane owners who volunteer their time and gas to fly kids via the Young Eagle Flight program.
I heard that Boeing will have 747 DreamLifter for people to get close to, so that should be a nice treat.
Sadly, I am going to be out of town on Saturday. If you are going, take some photos and/or videos and email them to me da***@ai*************.com and I will share them!
Boo ya! Got my first Paine Field Passport stamp at the Future of Flight. Now on to the others.
Visiting all the aviation attractions at Paine Field (KPAE) just got a bit cooler. Not only can you visit the Future of Flight, Museum of Flight Restoration Center, Flying Heritage Collection and the Historic Flight Foundation at Paine, but now, all of them have come together to offer the Paine Field Passport.
The Paine Field Passport only costs $10 and lasts a year. Financially it will save you 20% on admissions to any of the destinations from September to May and 20% off any of the attraction’s cafes or gift shops year round. Saving a bit of money is quite nice, but I think the actual passport itself is well worth the $10 all on its own.
Last Friday, I was able to take a visit to the Future of Flight and preview the Paine Field Passports first hand. You can either choose brown, blue or red and they have interesting history and photos of the airport (I chose the classic brown). You are also able to collect four different passport stamps from each of the vendors participating. I am proud to say I now have my Future of Flight stamp and now need to work on the rest (photo of me and my passport taken by Sandy Ward at the Future of Flight).
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The first Boeing 787 Dreamliner for China Southern (B-2725)
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A nice collection of Dreamliners parked next to the Future of Flight at Paine Field.
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China Southern’s first 787 on the right (B-2725)
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JAL, ANA and China Southern 787 Dreamliners
Click any photo for larger version.
What a nice sunny day in Seattle today. Perfect to venture over to Paine Field to check out the newest livery on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner: China Southern. B-2725 is currently parked next to the Future of Flight with Dreamliners for JAL, Air India and ANA.
Paine Field already sees aircraft from Southwest, Alaska Airlines and Allegiant coming in for maintenance work. Why not for passengers?
The fight for Seattle to get a second airport up north has been dragging on longer than many have expected. For those of you who do not live in the Seattle area, Allegiant and Horizon Airlines started to look into the possibility of flying out of Paine Field, which is located in Everett, WA. Talking to Horizon, Allegiant, Boeing and the airport recently, they all say there are currently no updates for the addition of commercial flights.
There are a lot of positives about adding commerical flights to Paine Field, but there are a lot of people who are fighting hard to “save our community”. Wait, what?
Since 1992 a group, called Save Our Community, has come together and tried to stop commerical aviation at Paine Field. Their main goal is to preserve, “the quality of life in this primarily residential area of Puget Sound.”
Now, I feel they do have a few good points. If the traffic at Paine Field is increased, this could cause issues for Boeing and possibly make them look to move their main factory to other parts of the country. Of course, no one would want that to happen.
However, I don’t think allowing commercial flights would cause Boeing to leave and there is surely a happy medium that could be reached. Adding commercial flights at Paine Field would create many new jobs in the Everett area with the need for additional hotels, increase in tourism and the hiring of airline workers.
Personally, I think the arguement that the quality of life for everyone around the airport would deteriate is just hogwash. During public forums in the Everett, WA area back in January 2010, many people felt that the Paine Field area would become dirty, filled with porn and crime, forcing people to leave. Many complained that they bought homes around an airport and are upset about the idea of increased flights. For me, many people seemed to be quite selfish about the matter.
I live in the flight path of Paine Field and bought my house fully well knowing that. Sure, I am a bit different since I actually enjoy aircraft flying over my house, but people shouldn’t assume to buy a house around a very large airport and not expect planes to fly over. People have complained that adding MD-80 and Q400 flights would be a huge nuisance, which is odd, since we already have Boeing 747’s and even the Dreamlifter, which are much bigger and louder, flying overhead. Not to mention the Boeing 737s that fly in all the time to get maintenance work done. Would adding a few smaller planes really make our lives that much worse? I feel the possibility of commercial flights coming out of Paine Field should be driven by market demand and not private citizens fearful for the value of their homes.
The Save Our Community website states that people who run Paine Field, “are going all out to declare war against the community by working to bring in air service to Paine Field.” Really? War? If people in the community come together and create a demand for air travel in and out of Paine Field, why shouldn’t airlines meet that demand? No airline is going to start flights to a new destination without expecting to make profit. It is not like airport and airline officials are getting together just to make your life worse. In fact, starting commercial traffic to Paine Field will make more people’s lives better.
Competition is a beautiful thing. If airlines are able to fly out of Paine Field, it will cause competition for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport down south and for Bellingham International Airport up north. This means that not only will the airlines be competing for your business, but so will the airports.
Yes, some people will have to make some sacrifices, but we have to look at the greater good for our community. Could my house value drop if there is an increase of flights. Sure. Am I willing for that to happen for the greater good of the community — of course. What do you think? Would adding commercial flights at an airport that normally doesn’t have them, but could handle them be a good or bad thing?
