Seattle 7: Waco flight at Boeing Field

When I was at the Museum of Flight last Sunday, I saw that outside there were bi-planes buzzing around, which you could take scenic flights on. I thought that would be a nice treat for Marc and myself, so I asked him if he was keen (my shout). After sleeping over it for a night, he decided that we should do it, so on a nice and sunny day we headed south to the Boeing Field (BFI).

Photo: Marc Miller

I had the choice between red and yellow. Red would be a Waco UPF-7, and yellow a Boeing PT-17 Stearman.

The pilot made my choice easy: He said the UPF-7 is much rarer (only 600 built, versus 10,000 built Stearmans). Of course I took the Waco! He put me in a leather jacket and off we went.

It was actually quite tricky to take some decent photos. Firstly, I only had my small (crappy) camera with me. Then, there were so many struts and bars all over the place, blocking the view. And lastly, since it was an open cockpit, it was very windy. As soon as you held your hands above or at the side of the small windscreen, it was shaking a lot. Anyway, I guess the photos are ok'ish... Marc is a bit taller, and could better reach over the windscreen. A few photos are his.

Taxiing to the runway for take-off
Photo: Marc Miller

View straight ahead while taxiing

View towards the city

Photo: Marc Miller

Safeco and Qwest Fields

Space Needle and the north-west part of the city

Downtown (incl. ferry terminal)

Photo: Marc Miller


Nice to see both wings and all the struts and beams
Photo: Marc Miller


Photo: Marc Miller

On the flight back: Mt Rainier ahead, and Boeing Field on the very left

When we were at the turning point, without any warning the pilot banked the plane into a deep dive while turning 180 degrees. Since I am a pilot myself it didn't bother me (on the contrary - I LOVED it), but I was thinking about the poor tourists who are a bit scared of flying in the first place... The nice thing was that you could listen to the ATC conversation all the time. When approaching BFI, there was lots of traffic, so ATC asked my pilot to come in from the side, turn onto the runway and vacate the runway as quickly as possible. Quite exciting!

Mr Quax ;-)

Marc's turn...

off he goes...

taxiing back after landing...

When Marc took off, they were sitting at the holding position for 15 minutes, waiting for various flights to land and take off. One of them was a brand new B777F for Air France. Boeing Field is the testing and delivery unit for Boeing, and this aircraft took off for a test flight. The taxiways are not large enough for a B777, and this one was parked at the north end of the airport. Thus, it had to back-track on the runway, turn around and take off.

Still with test registration N50230