The Sun is Setting! Too Late…

The Thai delivery flight I wrote about in this post went out in lovely light.  It was due to be followed by a Dreamlifter flight to Nagoya.  That is a long leg so means a heavy jet which should use a good amount of the runway.  The scheduled departure time meant it should be just before sundown.  They didn’t start on time, though, and the light was beginning to fade.  A bit of cloud on the horizon meant that sunset was going to be okay but the light was going to go before that.  Meanwhile, once the jet called up, they advised the tower that they needed to burn down a bit of fuel to get to the required takeoff weight.  Great, not what was needed!

By the time they were ready to go, the light was gone.  However, I had waited long enough so I figured I wasn’t giving up now (although I was now getting pretty cold!).  The ISO was being ramped up rapidly as I had to keep assessing the conditions while I waited and it got steadily darker.  Finally, they called for departure and lined up.  Looking up the runway over the ridge, I could see the jet approaching.  Something interesting was making the plane look very squashed!  Once it got over the ridge, they rotated and got airborne very close to me.  Everything was very flat but at least it was something different to shoot.

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