Tag Archives: a330

A330 Wheelies

AU0E9692.jpgI have seen a few Airbus A330s landing recently and they have a slightly unusual landing approach. I am not sure whether this is a feature of the design, the training techniques for the pilots or just a random occurrence that I have seen more than my fair share of. The planes appear to do a wheelie as they land. They have two main gear legs with a four wheel bogie on each. As they touchdown, they seem to hang on the rear wheels longer than would seem normal, even as the aircraft is de-rotating.  Meanwhile, the reversers will start to deploy (sadly not in any shots I have) so there must be enough weight on wheels to trigger their activation. Gradually the jet sinks down on to all main wheels and the nose lowers.

Did Anyone Bother With This Livery Design?

AU0E1538-2.jpgNot long ago I complained about the dirty condition of a China Eastern A330. At the time, I thought it might be a non-standard jet because the livery was basically white with a couple of distinguishing marks. It turns out that I hadn’t appreciated that China Eastern have replaced their previous colors with a new and less colorful scheme. Since then I have seen some 777s come in with the new scheme. In an era of relatively bland airline colors, it seems to me that China Eastern have gone a stage further and taken any interest at all from the livery. Not a cool effort on their part I think. They should check out what China Southern is doing by comparison.

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XL A330

AU0E1676.jpgI may sometimes see an airline I have not seen before but occasionally I will see one I have never even heard of before. XL is a French airline that is running in to SFO with A330s. I saw it was coming online but was not aware of them before that point. The heat haze was a bit of a problem but I got a shot of something new for me and that made it cool. Hopefully I will get some shots that I am a bit happier with in due course but this is good for a starter.

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Hawaiian Airbus and Friends

wpid10999-C59F4283.jpgWhile waiting to get the shot of the Janet flight I posted about previously, there were plenty of other departures from McCarran. The majority of flights were coming out on the westerly runway rather than the one the Janets use so we were not getting the nice topside view of them turning. However, the light was very nice and so a few of them provided interesting targets. The Hawaiian Airbus A330 looked particularly nice but most looked good on those conditions. We were a bit focused on finding out how the Janet was doing so didn’t give them our full attention but some looked too good to ignore.