Tag Archives: jet

The Merger Jet (At Last)

West Coast airline flying includes a lot of Virgin America. Headquartered in Redwood City, just down the peninsula from SFO, Virgin America has been struggling to establish itself as a carrier with a different level of service. It must have done well enough because Alaska got worried enough to buy it. They call it a merger but Alaska bought Virgin. Everyone wonder what will happen next since the fleets are totally dissimilar as is the customer service. Alaska repainted one of their jets in a new livery to celebrate the completion of the acquisition.

It is one of their 737-900s and the colors migrate from red to blue to symbolize the joining of the two. I have missed the jet on numerous occasions. I thought I was never going to catch it but finally saw it at San Jose. You are a lot closer to the flight path at San Jose which is good. What is even better is being there on the pouring rain when the clouds part five minutes before the jet arrives. Sadly, the weather closed in just as it took off again but the light was okay over the airport, even if it wasn’t where I was. Still, I finally got it!

Global Supertanker

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Some of the news clips I have seen recently were showing the firefighting activities underway in South America at the moment. With their summer in full swing, wildfires have been springing up and they have brought in a variety of aircraft to fight them. One of these is the Global Supertanker, a converted Boeing 747-400. I saw this aircraft at the aerial firefighting conference that was held last year in Sacramento. It was very close to approval at that time and we were allowed to check it out.

The systems had previously been used on a 747-100 airframe but they had been migrated to the 400 series jet. The airframe was an ex-JAL aircraft that had undergone the freighter conversion program and seen some further service before being acquired for the firefighting role. The tanks and piping had been installed and we got to see a bit of the interior during the event. Unlike the 100 series prototype, this one had been given a nice new paint job and it looked great being straight out of the paint shop.

It dwarfed everything else on the flightline and ended up being the backdrop for the group photo of the conference attendees. I don’t get to appear in that shot since I was taking it. I can live without having my presence recorded I guess. Now it is in operation, there are some rather more dramatic images being captured. For the time-being, I will have to make do with these shots.

Smokey the E-8

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A jet I don’t often get to see in action is the E-8 JSTARS. There aren’t a huge number of them and they often fly at times that don’t suit photography so I have not previously got a lot of shots of them and certainly not too many in flight. Based on the 707-300 airframe, they were pretty old when they were selected for conversion to the JSTARs mission. They are definitely showing their age and the USAF is in the process of competing for a replacement program. There are a few years left for the E-8 but they won’t be around for too much longer.

One feature of their age is the engines that they have. The jets are fitted with old JT3D engines. A program had been put in place to re-engine them with JT8Ds and a modified jet did fly. However, the program was put on hold due to the potential for a replacement aircraft making the payback period unviable. As a result, we got the old smoky jets. It isn’t as bad as the old pure jet days of the KC-135s and B-52s but it still is easy to track the jet as it climbs out courtesy of the black trail it leaves behind.

Flexing Fighters

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Regular visitors to Nellis will know this and can move along. For those that haven’t shot there, Nellis departure routes when taking off from the 03 runways can be one of two things. The jets tend to climb quickly and they are offset from the usual photography location alongside the speedway. You can get shots but they are pretty samey with side on shots of the jets further away or slightly underside shots of the jets coming off 03L.

However, anything that is playing as Red Air tends to take a Flex departure. This involves a break to the left from the normal route with a different heading to take the, to the ranges to deal with the incoming Blue force. The aggressors tend to flex most of the time. The other aircraft that may be augmenting the aggressors might flex too. The nice feature of this is that they break towards you. Then you are playing a guessing game as to how quickly they will break. You pick a spot along the road and hope that they will come your way. Sometimes they will turn tight and catch you out. Other times they will delay a bit and still be far away from you. At their speed, it doesn’t take much to increase the distance from where you are. At least you get more dynamic shots.

Did Someone Patch This Raptor in a Hurry?

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The F-22 Raptor has a complex coating system on the skin of the airframe that is part of the overall approach to stealth. Normally, they look pretty well finished in order to preserve the performance of the system (although I have spotted a few jets with the green primer showing through worn finishes). However, one or two of the jets that were at Red Flag had what almost looked like a panel missing from the spine of the jet. Looking a bit closer, I think the panel had been replaced and the finishing of the surfaces around the work remained to be done. It did look a bit of a mess though. Checking some of the other jets, they also show this panel in a slightly different color. Perhaps they have all been undergoing a modification program in this area?

Going Further Gets You There Quicker

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The title of this post is a pretty weak premise for the pictures I am posting. The pictures are of Air India Boeing 777-200LRs. In the pictures, they are not doing anything special. However, I shall justify the pictures with a slightly interesting fact. Air India has been serving SFO for a while. It is a long flight from Delhi to San Francisco and they were looking in to alternative routes. A lot of negotiation ensued that finally allowed a polar route to be used. This route is nearly 1,000nm longer than the route that they were previously flying. However, the prevailing winds on the longer route are helping the jet along. The result is that the longer route is actually two hours quicker. Strange but true.

Korean A330 Aiming for the Keys

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After watching a few aircraft making their approaches, you get a feel for how high the jets will be at a given point. Any variation from this seems pretty different, even if it is not really that large. A Korean Air A330 made its approach and it seemed noticeably lower to me. There was a displaced threshold in operation so maybe they were aiming a bit closer to the piano keys than normal. They didn’t do anything untoward but it did catch my attention.

Skywest’s Own CRJs

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Skywest provides feeder services for a number of airlines around the country. They do also operate under their own name for some routes though so you do occasionally come across their aircraft in their own colors rather than those of their customer airline. I have shot a number of the aircraft over the years and here are some of them. The interesting thing is that they rarely seem to be in the same colors. I don’t know whether this is because they have changed their colors a number of times or because they are leftovers from schemes they wore in other uses or from previous operators. Whatever the reason, there has been some variety.

I’m not sure what the long term prognosis is for the CRJs with Skywest. These jets are rapidly disappearing from service with various operators as larger jets with more seats are more affordable to operate. Skywest may have plans for them or may operate them on services that can justify the cost or maybe they will all disappear quickly and we will barely notice that they have gone.

Welcome Back from Hawaii

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Hawaiian Airlines are a regular feature of the Northern California aviation scene. Whether it is SFO or OAK, their jets are a regular feature. I was awaiting a movement coming in to Oakland when a Hawaiian A330 came over the top. Initially I wondered where it was going but it turns out that it was making a wide turn back in to Oakland. A short while later it showed up again on the approach. Annoyingly, it had passed the moon as it went over the top but I was too slow to catch it.

The Unusual Oakland Approach

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Over the last few years I have flown in and out of Oakland more times than I can recall. It has been my transit point for the majority of my travels. A recent return brought me a new experience there though. The airport is in two halves. There is a main runway alongside the bay which is used by the airliners and is often the departure runway for the bizjets. Then there are two further runways that are over near the old airport infrastructure. These are used by light aircraft and for the arrival of bizjets. (There is another intersecting runway but that doesn’t factor in this story.)

The normal approach brings you across the shoreline and over the water on the approach. The other runways are on a different alignment and the approach comes over the local towns. I was looking out of the window and filming a hyperlapse. I was a bit confused as I was seeing bits of San Leandro that I don’t normally see and we didn’t pass Hayward Airport. We continued to descend over land and it was pretty clear we were not heading for the normal runway. Sure enough we touched down on the old part of the airport prior to taxiing back and all the way across through the freight area back to the terminal. I watched jets depart from the runway we had just landed on as well as from the normal runway so I have no idea what was going on. I doubt I will experience this again anytime soon.