Louisbourg Architecture

After ships, architecture is one of my favourite photographic subjects. Our vacation in August took us to Louisbourg, and a previous blog post features sunset, night, and sunrise photos from within the fort. Daytime also provides its share of treasures, and a collection of architectural features not present in Ye Olde City of Halifax. That said, I don't really know anything about architecture, I just enjoy photographing it. So don't expect edifying captions.

I started with overall buildings, and in particular the one that everyone recognizes.

The King's Bastion and Barracks is the main building within the Fortress of Louisbourg.

An animal pen within the King's Bastion.

Inside the animal pen, and zoomed in from the previous image.

The next two images are of Lartigue House, where we spent the night.

Lartigue House from within the yard, with the King's Bastion in the background.

Lartigue House, where we spent the night, taken from from the street.

A row of houses along the waterfront.

I then began to focus on some of the smaller details, in particular the various openings. There is a wide range of types of construction within the fort.

Windows.

Window with shutters.

Window and wagon. I'm not sure that the wagon counts as architecture, but I like it anyway.

The edge of a roof.

Window on a roof (and a chimney). I think the shadow makes the image.

Same chimney on a roof (with a ladder).

Dormer window, ladder, and chimney.

A collection of windows, dormers, and chimneys.

Bastion roof.

Two chimneys and a ladder. I can't imagine why they felt it necessary to tie back that chimney.

Windows, dormers, and chimneys.

Window and chimney.

One of the harbour gates.

Magazine doors.

I couldn't decide which one of these three I like best, so I processed them all. The colours just seemed to work well together.

Door, windows, and shutters.

Door, shutter, and window.

Shutter and window.

Vimy Flight

The four replica Nieport XI biplanes of the Vimy Flight visited Halifax over the weekend. Originally due to arrive on Friday, weather kept them at Greenwood until Saturday, arriving in time for a flypast over Citadel Hill around 11:30 am. 

When we first spotted them, the middle two were popping some smoke.

After their flypast, all four headed over to CFB Shearwater to land, and two of the aircraft were walked backwards down the hill to the Shearwater Aviation Museum (they apparently weigh in the range of 550 lbs each). To move the aircraft, one pilot lifts the tail while another pushes from the front.

The pilot of this plane is Allan Snowie, author of "The Bonnie - HMCS BONAVENTURE". 

Here is one of the aircraft with two re-enactors from the Citadel in period uniform.

The aircraft are apparently built at 7/8 scale as compared to the original planes. I don't know the reason behind the size discrepancy, although it may have something to do with the requirement to fit four of these into a CC-177 Globemaster III for the trip to France and back so that they could fly over the memorial at Vimy for the centennial.

Lots of bright colours!

The engines were originally rotary engines, apparently - I'm not sure what they are using here. I suspect the red battery inside isn't accurate either.

The arrow actually serves a purpose, though you don't have to use an arrow. The original aircraft were fitted with splitters to prevent the cables from rubbing together, and someone started using an arrow for this purpose and it caught on.I'm guessing the plastic wire ties holding them on are not historically accurate.

The planes are all built of wood, reinforced with wire cable, and are covered with fabric, as were the originals. There are a few modern touches, however, especially when on looks into the cockpit.

I generally don't take selfies, but apparently I did here - can you spot me?

There are a few modern touches in the cockpit, including radios and instrumentation that would not have been available during the First World War. I'm assuming they also carry GPS.

One of the two aircraft is fitted with a Lewis gun mounted on the top wing, just over the cockpit.

The Lewis gun was an automatic machine gun perfected during the First World War. On aircraft, it was fitted without the cooling shroud seen on land-based weapons, presumably to save weight.

I strongly suspect the original aircraft didn't have an iPhone charging cable.

A close-up of the Lewis gun mounted on the upper wing.

This aircraft carries multiple dedications.

All four aircraft took off again on Saturday afternoon, and headed north to a small airfield outside Windsor, NS. They have a schedule on their website, which they do not seem to be following all that closely.

The cross-Canada tour began in Nova Scotia around May 6, and will continue west from here, apparently skipping Newfoundland & Labrador.

For lack of anywhere else to mention them, and also aircraft related, I will also show an interesting sight that flew overhead while I was cutting some wood outside just before sunset last night.

A flight of what I assume are three airliners headed from New York to London, all flying in a line. I had to choose between having trees or power lines in my shot. I chose the trees.

I liked how the contrail was petering out behind the last aircraft.

I'm assuming the third and final aircraft was a Boeing 747, but I am only going by the four engines and rough shape of the fuselage.

FS MONGE and Kosmonaut Vladimir Komarov

With the arrival of the French Navy's missile and satellite tracking ship MONGE (A601) this week, a number of photos have floated around not only of MONGE but also of some other similar Russian visitors to Halifax over the years. I thought I would join in.

FS MONGE

From the Wikipedia article, MONGE is named after the French mathematician Gaspard Monge, and is a missile range instrumentation ship. She has been in service since 1992. At 21,000 tonnes, she is 740 feet long. 

FS MONGE.

It has been a few years, but previous generations of this type of ship were also visitors to Halifax, including the Soviet Union's Kosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and Kosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, both operated by the Academy of Sciences. I don't have photos of the former, but through my grandfather, I have photos of the latter. 

From his house on Johnston Avenue in Dartmouth, overlooking the harbour, my grandfather had a clear view of any and all marine traffic passing by, and he frequently took photos of the various ships. It would probably not be far wrong to surmise that I inherited my interest not only in photography, but in maritime photography, from him. The following three images are scanned from his old slides. 

Kosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. © Sandy Mowat

I don't have precise dates for his photos, but in the case of the photo above, Fenwick Place appears to be in the advanced stages of construction, and a Wikipedia article places its completion in 1971, making this photo circa 1970/71. Also of interest are the CCG icebreakers Labrador and Louis S. St. Laurent in the foreground at the now-closed CCG base in Dartmouth. 

She was named for Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov, a cosmonaut and engineer who died when his Soyuz 1 capsule crashed on landing after its parachutes failed to open. Designated a "Space Control Monitoring Ship" in the 5th edition of Norman Polmar's "The Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet Navy", she was 17,500 tons full load, 510 feet long, and was commissioned in 1967. She was converted from a dry cargo ship during construction.

Kosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. © Sandy Mowat

The shot above is a better silhouette that shows her radomes and antennas to better effect against the sky, with what I presume is one of the marine railway platforms of the Dartmouth Marine Slips in the foreground. She carried tracking and communications antennas including Quad Ring, Ship Globe, Ship Wheel, and Vee Cone HF (I assume these are NATO reporting names not tied to the actual Russion designations). I'm not sure which are which, but my guess (based on common antennas between different ships in the Norman Polmar book) is that the small globe is Ship Globe, the big domes hide Ship Wheel antennas, and the Vee Cones are at the mast heads in the photos above and below (the forward set are visible just above the aft dome in the latter). 

Kosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. © Sandy Mowat

I'm not sure where the photo above was taken, but would guess she is at the south end of Pier 21.

Kosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was decommissioned in 1989 after the fall of the Soviet Union, and presumably scrapped shortly thereafter. 

Shipfax also has a post with photos of Kosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.