Tag Archives: Boeing

Two Special American 737s – At Last

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American Airlines has painted a number of its jets in liveries of the airlines that went into it over the years.  It happens that, as I write this on a plane, I just saw an A320 in American West colors as we taxied out.  They painted up three 737s in special schemes and I had a poor record of seeing them.  Two of these, the TWA scheme and the Reno Air scheme, both showed up at DFW while I was there waiting for a flight home.  The TWA scheme landed just after I got there so I saw it while riding the inter-terminal shuttle.  I then had it taxi out past me a little while later.  Sadly it took off from the other side of the field.  The Reno jet followed later and it did take off from our side so I felt like I had finally checked out something that had evaded me for too long.

Never Heard of Them But Now They’re In the News

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Until recently I had never heard of Miami Air International.  Then I photographed this rather unpleasant yellow 737-800 that landed at Boeing Field.  Only FlightAware (and a squint at the text on the fuselage) let me know who operated the jet.  The Scimitar winglets hint at the previous owner since they clearly didn’t get repainted!  A couple of days after this, another of their jets went off a runway in Florida and ended up in a river.  Now I know who they are!

A C-17 at Boeing Field?

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Boeing Field does occasionally get military transient traffic at weekend but recently it has had some heavies show up.  I saw that a C-5 had been passing through which would have been really cool to see.  I was heading down that way not long ago when I saw a KC-46 depart towards me as I drove shortly followed by a C-17.  I was a bit disappointed to have missed both of them.  I did not anticipate that the C-17 would return.

However, a while later, I heard something call up on final but it wasn’t showing up on FlightRadar24.  I took a guess it might be military and moved to the arrival end and, sure enough, the C-17 was coming down the approach at a leisurely pace.  It was a Travis jet.  I was told that McChord is being resurfaced so that might explain why this jet ended up at Boeing Field rather than down there.

Stored Max Jets Filling Up the Place

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The grounding of the 737 Max fleet worldwide means that they have been coming off the production line and going in to storage.  A few of them were scattered around the Boeing ramp at Paine Field.  One was particularly interesting though.  It seemed to have the front fuselage wrapped in something while the rear fuselage windows were not covered but had individual panels sealed across them.  No idea what this was all about but it did look unusual.

T-33 Damp Departure

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My inability to see a Boeing T-33 jet in nice conditions continues.  I was at Boeing Field when one of the T-33s was taking off in support of a Pegasus test mission.  The weather was crappy with rain and a heavy overcast.  I thought that this was not going to work well but sometimes bad weather provides good opportunities so I gave it a go.  Besides, I don’t see them enough to pass it by.  As it turned out, the flat conditions and the dampness made the jet show up nicely against the background when it was still low on climb out.  Once it was against the sky, things weren’t so great but it turned out a lot better than I expected.

Tankers at Sunrise

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Boeing started delivering KC-46s to the USAF as I covered in this post.  However, it didn’t take too long before the Air Force found various items of tooling in the aircraft that shouldn’t have been there and stopped taking delivery.  Consequently, rather than delivering the backlog, it has continued to build.  Paine Field had well over a dozen aircraft in various locations when we were there including three over by the Heritage Flight Foundation’s hangars.  Here three were illuminated nicely by the sun as it rose across the field so a pano seemed in order.

Rainy Pegasus Takeoff

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I have shot KC-46s in bad conditions more often than would seem probable.  I got one in conditions so dark it was like a night shoot.  This time it was heavy rain.  Of course that can mean vapor.  The matte gray of fuselage actually looks better when it is wet.  I had hoped the inlets would fog but that didn’t happen.  However, the flat light helped the fuselage a bit which often gets too contrasts.  Besides that it throws up a ton of spray behind it as it accelerates down the runway. Rotating in front of me meant I was rather happy with the result compared to what I expected.

Brand New F-15SA Jets

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The Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) was attending Red Flag 19-2 with some brand new F-15SA jets.  These jets had come direct from delivery so had not yet even made it out of the US.  I guess they had that new fighter smell.  They did fly the first day we were there, despite the strong winds which was a pleasant surprise.  They flew along with the rest of the jets on our second day.  I have mentioned their slightly strange approach to flex departures before so I won’t go there any further but instead will share what I have of the jets from the two days I was there.

Max 8 Departs Just Before Grounding

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Paul and I were in Vegas for Red Flag but the early morning is also a good time to shoot at McCarran International.  The morning light is ideal for the north/south runways and, with the wind playing ball, you can get the iconic McCarran shots of jets taking off with the weird and wonderful hotel buildings behind them.  Where else will you get a pyramid and the Empire State Building in the background.  Southwest has a big presence at McCarran and we saw a string of their jets head out including one Max8.  We watched it climb out little realizing that the grounding order would be coming within hours or even minutes.  Whether the jet continued to its destination or turned around, we don’t know but that was its last commercial flight for a while.

Back How it Was Delivered

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The BOAC retro jet that BA has painted up was a nice treat to get.  There are two other retro jets in other colors but, based on their interior configuration, they should not normally be used on the Seattle route.  Therefore, I wasn’t expecting a chance to get them any time soon.  Then, I saw that the Landor scheme aircraft was coming to SeaTac.  It must have been a substitution.  Now I was interested.  However, it pushed off the gate at Heathrow and then went back on with some engine start issue.  Was it going to scrub?

Apparently not.  The issue was resolved and they pushed again.  While the passengers were, no doubt, unimpressed by this, I was delighted.  It now meant the arrival was at nearly 7pm.  No problem to get to SeaTac after work and the light might be really nice.  The weather was better than forecast although the chance of Mt Rainier making a second appearance was low.  Again, plenty were out for the arrival.  She showed up on the approach and the light played ball.  This jet would have been delivered to BA with these colors so it was a case of reverting to how she had appeared many years before.