Seattle January 2007

It's time for another visit to the states with work, to complete a design review for some new machinery required for A400M ramp up. So it' downtown Seattle again, with a revisit to all of our favourite eateries, bars and other attractions. Unfortunately it was a bit of a short stay this time around with us heading out on the Monday and returning on the Thursday, but we still tried to squeeze in as much as possible around our work schedule. So get ready for visits to the Spaceneedle, Museum of Flight, the customary shopping at Alderwood Mall for serious bargains and a bit of snow heaped on top too.

A few rather Super Sized Cocktails and some Tex Mex with Mark, Ian and Alex...

...All work and NO Play Hey!

Topping up the BUD

Heading for our wake up coffee with the little lovelies at Mocha Teo

Arctic View

Snowed In at the Embassy Suites

Spaced Out

Ian at Sky City atop the Seattle Spaceneedle

Towers

Unfortunately due to the adverse weather conditions, we were unable to go out on the observation deck to get some Seattle Skyline pics, but at least I got some the last time...

The Story So Far...

Life on Mars

The Sky at Night

Why else is it famous...

The Space Needle was used as a location for the films "It Happened at the Worlds Fair" (1964) with Elvis Presley, "The Parallax View" (1974) with Warren Beatty, and "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" (1999) with Mike Myers. It also features prominently in the opening credits, and occasionally during the program, of the TV sitcom Frasier. It was also prominently featured in the television shows Dark Angel, Grey's Anatomy and in The Itchy & Scratchy Show Skinless in Seattle of The Simpsons' episode Bart Sells His Soul. It was also used in the NBC miniseries 10.5, where one of a series of super earthquakes topples the Space Needle. In the novel Invisible Monsters by Washington-born author Chuck Palahniuk, the characters visit the top of the Space Needle, and write secrets on pieces of paper, which they throw off of the deck

On April 1, 1989, Seattle area TV program Almost Live! set up a phoney broadcast room and dressed actors as TV anchors to pull an April Fool's joke of legendary proportions. The mock newscast reported that the Space Needle had collapsed in a windstorm, featuring footage of downed parts of the needle and hysterical eyewitness accounts (also by actors). Local hospitals prepared for the inevitable onslaught of injured patients. One man, whose daughter worked at the Space Needle, in a panic, drove from Spokane to see if his child was safe. The end of the skit gave the prank away, but by that time the panic was out of control. TV station KING 5, the creator and broadcaster of Almost Live!, later apologized

A commercial for the Washington State Lottery featured a fake news report that a lottery winner had purchased the Space Needle and moved it to Moses Lake, WA - renaming it in his own honour "The Steve Needle". Kate Pierson, later of The B-52's, once worked at the Space Needle. The Space Needle appears in the video game Killer 7 where the main antagonist Kun Lan catches a bullet and is "carried" to it. In Spongebob Squarepants, there is a building called the Sea Needle, a parody of the Space Needle. In the video game Deus Ex: Invisible War, the Space Needle makes a brief appearance in one of the cut scenes

A Bright Crisp Morning

Mark doing some ice breaking...

Ice Ice Baby

Time to go

Robert Snowbound

High five heading Downtown

From a Distance

The Sky's the Limit

The Museum of Flight at Boeing Field

Robert with a F14A Tomcat and A-6E Intruder

The Great Gallery at the Museum of Flight on Boeing Field is a 3 million-cubic-foot, six-story glass-and-steel exhibit hall currently containing 39 full-size historic aircraft, 23 of which including the nine-ton Douglas DC-3 which hangs from the space frame ceiling in flight attitude. These aircraft trace the history of the first century of flight

Inside the Boeing 737-200 Theatre and a McDonnell Mercury Space Capsule

McDonnell F-4C Phantom II

Boeing 100/P12

Blackbird

Blackbird "Mother Ship"
The Blackbird family of aircraft cruised at speeds of more than Mach 3 and altitudes of over 85,000 feet (25,500 m). Conceived more than 45 years ago and retired from active service since the late 1990s, Blackbirds remain the fastest piloted jets ever built

The M-21 is a variant of the A-12, the earliest Blackbird type. Built for a CIA program code-named "Tagboard," the M-21 carried unpiloted drones for intelligence gathering. These D-21 drones were intended for launch from the M-21 "mother ship" for flights over especially hostile territory considered too "hot" for piloted Blackbird overflights. Unique design features of the M-21 compared to other Blackbird variants include the second seat for the launch control officer and the launch pylon on which the drone is mounted

The Museum's M-21, built in 1963, and is the sole survivor of two M-21s constructed. The other one was lost in a drone-launching accident that led to the cancellation of the program

Phantom Pilot and his Aerocar III

Dreams of Flight

World Flight Posters

Inside the "Red Barn", the Original Boeing Workshops

This is where you can explore the Birthplace of The Boeing Company. The Museum of Flight opened its first wing on Boeing Field in 1983 in the historic "Red Barn," The Boeing Company's original manufacturing plant. Built in 1909, the Red Barn was donated to The Museum of Flight by the Port of Seattle in 1975 and moved to its present location at Boeing Field/King County International Airport that same year. The Red Barn exhibit The Boeing Story 1916–1958, contains rare artefacts, such as the famous mail bag carried in 1919 by Boeing, Sr., and Eddie Hubbard during the first international U.S. Air Mail flight from Vancouver, B.C., to Seattle; a re-created factory workshop, showing the Red Barn as it was used during production of the Boeing Model C and Model 40; and exhibitory on the early history of Boeing and other major founders of the American aerospace industry

Personal Courage Wing with a Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IX

See the planes and priceless artefacts that helped forge the history of a century and learn how that history shaped our world today. The Personal Courage Wing showcases 28 restored World War I and World War II fighter planes in two galleries, including one of the finest collections of historic fighters found anywhere in the world, the internationally known Champlin Fighter Collection, includes famous fighters such as the Spitfire, Sopwith Camel and P-38, as well as the less celebrated, but extremely rare, Soviet Yak.
It provides a "black-box" environment that controls exposure to harmful ultraviolet light and humidity, enabling the Museum to display personal artefacts and fragile items like documents, uniforms, letters and vintage photos that previously could not be displayed