Tag Archives: jet

737 Max 10

The first 737 Max 10 sits on the flight line at Renton. First flight will be soon I imagine.

The 737 Max problems rumble on but this isn’t stopping development activities.  The first of the 737 Max 10 jets was rolled out of the factory with little fanfare with only staff being invited.  I was showing my relative, Pete, around the area and we stopped at Renton to have a look at what was on the line.  It was a nice surprise to see the first Max 10 sitting on the line.  I imagine it won’t be too long before first flight.

UPS Evening Arrivals

Founders’ Plaza sits at the northwest corner of DFW.  It is just north of the UPS ramp.  As the light was getting good just prior to disappearing in the evening, UPS had scheduled a couple of arrivals.  The first of the two was a 747-8F.  It landed on our side of the field and then taxied back towards us crossing the field at the north end.  It then headed to the part of the ramp that lies east-west so was parked tail on to us.

A little time after it arrived, an MD-11 was due in.  The later arrival meant the light was getting even better and the white fuselage was turning a nice shade of orange as the sun started to set.  It taxied back up on our side of the airfield so was more head on as it came back.  This made for a contrasty shot with the warm light on one side and deep shade on the other.  They were a good way to round off a nice afternoon of shooting.

Three Vistara Jets At Once

When airlines take delivery of new jets, they tend to try and space them out a bit.  The ability to add a bunch of jets at once is limited so you don’t often see a lot of jets from the same airline on the flight line at the factory.  However, there has been a cluster of Vistara 787s at Paine Field recently.  I think they were originally assigned to another carrier that couldn’t take delivery of them – perhaps Hainan.  Consequently, they have been reallocated at short notice and Vistara is the customer.  Here they were sitting together in Everett going through the final phases of testing.  I’m not sure whether some will be stored and delivered later or whether they will all go in a group.

The Fun of Finding Old Shots

I was recently searching for a shot for a project and was having a hard time finding it.  I knew roughly when it should have been as it was when shooting at SFO during a visit.  I scrolled through to the day and found the shoot and realized that I hadn’t keyworded the photos from that trip.  Consequently, the search had failed to run them up.  I therefore spent a little while running through everything and adding keywords.

This proved to be way more fun than key wording usually is.  I hadn’t looked through these shots after taking them and, while it was a pretty standard sort of collection that a day at SFO would provide, it was all new stuff.  I was enjoying looking st stuff I had forgotten I had taken.  These shots are just a few from that day out.

The Arrows’ Display Itself

I have posted a few times about the Red Arrows at RIAT covering their prep for display and post display.  I haven’t actually shared any good shots from the display itself.  Here are a few that I got over the course of the show.  Some were taken close to show center and others were taken from the end of the display line to give a different perspective on the same maneuvers.  They put on a great show and it is funny that, when you see them regularly, you get blasé but, when you haven’t seen them for a while, you come to appreciate the display a lot more.

Lufthansa A350 at Haneda

Lufthansa A350s are something I seem to struggle to get a good look at.  They operate to a number of places where I have been but I either time it wrong or they are on the opposite runway from me so a distant shot is all that results.  The closest I have got to them is at Haneda.  There an example landed and taxied in to the terminal across from me.  The light was at the right angle but the excessive heat meant that haze was a problem and I wasn’t going to get a good shot.  It is the closest I have managed so far but I shall continue to wait for the opportunity to get something better.  The fleet will grow and the route structure will expand so the time will come at some point.

Down By the Lake at Love Field

Bachman Lake sits at one end of Dallas Love Field.  Early one morning, I decided to see whether the trail alongside the lake made for a good spot to get some shots.  The traffic at Love Field is heavily skewed towards Southwest 737s so I wasn’t expecting a lot of variety but instead wanted to see what angles I could get.  It also would be nice to have a stroll along the lake in the morning light.

There are two runways at Love Field so you have a bit of a guess as to which one will be used at any one time but that is fine.  The view across the lake as the jets come to the northerly runway provides a nice wider view of things.  The near runway allows getting together front quarter shots or to go right underneath for a different perspective.  While most arrivals were Southwest jets, I did see a couple of corporate jets while I was there so there was a bit of variety.

Wright Patterson C-17 Visiting Texas

I headed to Alliance during my time in the Dallas area.  There was a C-17 parked on the ramp a bit away from where I was.  However, it was in nice light at the beginning of the day.  Things improved a lot when I saw the beacons come on followed by the sound of engines cranking.  It wasn’t too long before the jet taxied for departure.  The Wright Patterson markings on the fin meant it was easy to see that this jet was from Dayton.  I don’t know if that was where it was headed or whether it had stopped at Alliance en route to somewhere else.

United Retro Jet

I once got to shoot the United retro colors on the A320 while I was at SFO up the tower but I had not got a decent shot of it actually flying.  When it showed up on approach to SFO, I was pretty pleased.  Sadly, the cloud cover was not cooperating terribly well.  Only when it had got past me did it pop into better conditions.  It was okay when further out on final but neither of these were too helpful.  One day!

A Pair of Beale’s Jets Show Up at BFI

Boeing Field gets the occasional military visitors and you never know what might show up.  I glanced up and saw a pair of T-38s downwind for arrival.  They came in with about a minute of spacing between them.  The tail codes showed them to be Beale jets.  They headed to the FBO at Modern and were soon being refueled.  The canopies stayed up so they may have been heading out again a while later but I had to move on so I didn’t get to see them depart.