Tag Archives: a350-900

A Couple of A350s (One is Closer Than the Other)

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The A350 is becoming a lot more widespread now.  China Airlines has been flying them in to Vancouver for a while.  I actually shot one last year on approach but it was coming in from the sea on the opposite runway near sunset so it is a tiny spec in the distance!  This time I got one coming in a bit closer.  The sun was getting low so the conditions were turning into something very nice.  I touched down right in front of me with the sun pretty much on the nose.

It wasn’t the only A350 that day.  Lufthansa also operated one in but it arrived before I got across the border.  It did depart while I was there but departures are from the opposite runway so it was a bit far away.  Surprisingly, there wasn’t much distortion in the air and I was able to get a reasonable view of it although not something that would have much use.  The fleet will only grow so there will be more opportunities to get the German jet.

Is Shooting in the Rain a Good Idea?

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It might be sometimes, but this was probably not one of them.  The forecast was for wind and rain which was suggesting that SFO would be using reversed operations to normal.  I thought it might be worth a shot.  The rain was obviously a concern but I was hopeful, as I have been in the past, that it might make for some interesting shots.  I had underestimated just how wet it was though.

The cloud base was very low.  The jets landing on 19 were barely visible until they rolled out.  The ones taking off were also heavily obscured.  The rain was really making things difficult to see and a lot of adjustment in post is necessary to get anything.  Only one jet seemed to perform well for me.  The Singapore A350 must have gone in a gap in the conditions and it seemed to be the one that was cleanest when I looked at the shots.  I won’t give up on things like this but I know the odds are not great.

Finally Shooting an A350

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B11I2427.jpgThe Airbus A350 has been in service for a while.  The first examples entered service in late 2015 and, indeed, I saw one at Heathrow in my last visit there.  However, I hadn’t had a chance to shoot one until recently.  Singapore Airlines introduced a direct flight to SFO using the A350 and the first flight used their aircraft that had been recently delivered from Airbus as the 10,000th aircraft that Airbus delivered.  I wrote a piece about it for Global Aviation Resource which you can see here.  It was early arrival for the jet but it was good to finally shoot one, even if the light was not ideal.

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