Night shots

I left the camera in the tower one night, and apparently someone got bored while he was on break.

Heavy Arrival

It's been a solid month since last I posted, so apologies for keeping you waiting. I caught this sequence of an arriving C-17 last month. The C-17 is an aircraft of some local interest, since the factory that built it is here in Long Beach. Not for much longer, though: the last C-17 (of a total of 279 built) rolled off the line earlier this year. Boeing has already begun dismantling the tooling, so it's unlikely that there will ever be any more. The C-17 plant was the last aircraft factory in Long Beach, which used to be the home of the Douglas, and later McDonnell Douglas, airliner production facilities. Thousands of DC and MD jets were built in Long Beach, and thousands of piston airliners and military aircraft before them. It's the end of an era; Boeing has announced no plans to produce other aircraft in the Long Beach facility.