Tag Archives: jet

Southwest Evasive Maneuvers

This was not an aircraft photography trip. I was taking a walk along the shore at Hayward Regional Park. It is a place with lots of wildlife and views across the bay. It is also near the approach to Oakland so I did have the chance to take aircraft pictures if I wanted. That wasn’t the goal though. It didn’t stay that way though. The approach to Oakland involves flying right by Hayward Airport. Hayward has a lot of general aviation traffic. The spam cans are intermixed with some corporate jets.

What caught my eye was the incoming Southwest 737 and a departing Cessna CJ M2. The CJ took off and entered a climbing left turn. This put it into the path of the Southwest 737. I don’t know who was at fault in this. Was the Southwest jet too close, did the CJ pilot break his cleared departure profile or should Hayward tower never let him go? I don’t know. Whatever the reason, they were heading towards each other.

I also don’t know whether the Southwest crew saw the CJ first or if the TCAS gave them a resolution notice. Whatever happened, they took some pretty dramatic avoiding action. I imagine it felt pretty interesting from inside the cabin. They gained good separation and everything was fine. At first I thought they were going to try and get reestablished on the approach but cooler heads prevailed and they cleaned up the jet and went around. After some time to let the heart rate fall, they appeared back on the approach for a more conventional approach. All ended well. I wonder how the conversations went after landing.

Mako F-16 is a Nice Surprise

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I have not seen Mako F-16s very often. Seeing one taking off from Tucson was quite a surprise and definitely a good one. It was accompanied by a jet in Texas Reserve markings to so maybe there has been a swap of some jets.

Rapid Takeover of the Embraer E175 E1

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The step up in size that Embraer took when they create the E170/175 and E190/195 aircraft was important for them and it proved to be a successful move. Both types did well and have achieved a solid market presence. With a new generation of technologies coming, Embraer decided to go for a significant upgrade to the type with new engines and other systems resulting in the E2 versions. In line with that, they decided to tweak the current design to create the E1 upgrades. This turned out to be a well-timed upgrade as it came at a time when a whole bunch of airlines were looking to up-gauge their regional feeder services. Embraer picked up a ton of orders.

The speed with which these jets have entered the US fleets is impressive. Both United and American signed new deals for service with these jets and now you can regularly see their E175s feeding in to large airports. Alaska has gone a similar way (using Skywest much as United has) and their fleet of E175s is starting to grow. The E2 has now had its first flight in the larger E190 form but the 175 will follow in a few years. The E170 has been dropped from the line at this point. I imagine we will see even more of these jets as they will dominate this seating range which Bombardier seems to have ceded as they focus on larger jets.

Blue Air Strikemaster

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Just a quick picture today. This Strikemaster is operated by Blue Air and was parked on the ramp at Davis Monthan when we were watching the arrival of the visiting jets. It looked to be in great condition. Shame it didn’t fly but it was a nice surprise.

Section Training

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In my previous visits to Tucson International, I have never seen jets taking off or landing as pairs. It has always been single jets. This time I had a couple of times when section takeoffs were carried out. There also appeared to be some arrivals in pairs too. Nothing too dramatic but a bit of a change from what I have seen there before.

The 777-300ER is King

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The gradual demise of the 747 is a topic that I have brought up on here before. The plane that has been the replacement on a number of services is the Boeing 777-300ER. I was hanging out at Coyote Point recently and, while the majority of arrivals were short haul jets and regional jets, there were a lot of long haul arrivals mixed in there. I was surprised to see just how many 777-330ERs were in the mix now. The A380s were also making an appearance but it seems the 300ER really is a dominant force in the long haul market. This is going to change soon with the arrival of its in house replacement as well as the A350 but, for now, it seems the 300ER rules the roost.

Delta’s Rapid Adoption of the 717

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Delta was looking for a replacement for its fleet of DC-9s and, when Southwest took over AirTran and decided to dispose of their fleet of Boeing 717s, Delta was the customer for the jets. At first they were hard to see but it appears that Southwest got rid of them very quickly and Delta did not hang around before getting them painted and configured for their services. Now I see them all over the place.

I first came across them on the east coast but now they are a regular feature of west coast operations. SFO gets a lot of them, as does LAX. I think some of them are running what almost amounts to a shuttle operation between the two airports. The 717 is obviously a DC-9 derivative but the more modern engines give the proportions of the jet a different feel.

Cathay Pacific 747-8F Freighter

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I saw this Cathay Pacific 747-8F making an approach to the opposite side of the airport at LAX while I was waiting for a friend’s flight to arrive. The freighters tend to use the southerly runways since that is where the freight area is located and it cuts down on taxi requirements. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised that it went that way. Later in the day I was up on Imperial Hill when it made its departure. I was actually having something to eat and not really paying attention. It had rotated before I even realized so grabbed the camera quickly to get some shots. I’m glad the camera was close by or I would have been really annoyed.

Cathay Pacific Go-Around

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You don’t see a lot of go-arounds at major airports but they do happen. I was down at LAX awaiting the arrival of a friend when a Cathay Pacific 777 came on to the approach. As I looked back at it, the approach did not appear to be too stable. It seemed to start off a little high, then it got back on glide path but it adopted a rather nose high attitude. At this point I thought something seemed amiss but it then resumed a more normal approach angle and I figured they had got it under control. It was at this time that they powered up and climbed away.

They were tucking up the gear as they came across the top of me. They flew the missed approach procedure and then came around for a second go which went fine this time. I don’t know what the issue was but I did talk to some other pilots that had flown the approach that day and they mentioned that construction work was underway that had meant some of the approach aids were out of service. Maybe this was a factor. Since airlines have strict procedures about going around if they are not stabilized by a certain point, maybe they were just too late getting it back and stable and had to follow the procedure.

Palmdale Day Out

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A few years ago, I was in the LA area with my mate Paul. We decided to try our luck with a visit to Palmdale. Home of Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale has a history of interesting aircraft. The Blackbirds were assembled here as were the Space Shuttles. The B-2 bombers were also assembled on site. It is home to some NASA aircraft and continues to support a variety of types. Consequently, you can see some really interesting stuff. Alternatively, you can have a day with nothing going on. It is the luck of the draw.

We decided to try it out anyway and see what we could get. One of the NASA ER-2s had been active so there was hope that it might be up and about. One thing we hadn’t anticipated was that the weather was not going to be great. We had figured it was likely to be clear but actually there was a fair amount of cloud cover all day. Not ideal but it did keep the temperature down.

We did have success with the ER-2. Unfortunately, we did not choose well for our locations. It took off and landed on the runway that we were not close too. Consequently, we got some shots but they were a bit distant. We discussed a rapid change of location but, fearing we would get nothing by being in the car at the wrong time, stuck with it.

Our location was not a total bust though. We did get a sister ship. A USAF U-2S came in and we got some shots of that. It was not alone. A B-2 also made some approaches. We figured it was coming from Edwards and heading back there again. Sadly, shooting black aircraft against a cloudy sky is a bit tricky. Still, we might have done worse. After a while, the local movements of Northrop Grumman shuttles had been enough so we decided to get on the road back to LA.