Category Archives: civil

Generations of Gulfstreams

When I am shooting at a major airport, I am always pleased to get some corporate jets. A steady stream of airliners – often from the same airline – is okay but variety spices things up and corporate jets can do that. (NetJets and FlexJet do undermine that variety a little but not too much.) On this occasion, I was treated to a selection of Savannah’s finest products. They didn’t arrival in age related order but I will forgive that.

The first to show up was a G650. Top of the line for Gulfstream, this is a cool looking jet. It is a totally clean sheet design for Gulfstream who have tended to tweak previous jets to bring new capabilities. It looks different and has great performance. (It is also spawning a new generation of smaller – relatively – jets that I look forward to seeing.)

Next were some G450s. A previous generation but still a good performer and something that sells well. The fuselage is clearly Gulfstream but the wings and engines and significant steps forward from their predecessors. Not cutting edge but still something the Gulfstream thinks has appeal.

The last was a G-III. This is really going back a bit. Not a G-IISP but not far off. The fuselage is familiar, the wing similar but the engines are the old Speys and they have none too subtle hushkits fitted to them in order to meet current noise regulations. This is certainly a vintage jet by corporate standards and I was pretty pleased to see one still flying. These are often found now lurking at airports with the signs of lack of use clear to see. Shame we didn’t have an original Gulfstream turboprop but they are rare beasts these days.

FedEx 757 and Oh So Close

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I have posted before about taking photos from airliners of passing jets and using Flightradar24 and the wifi connection to try and get a shot. On this trip I had two good opportunities that I knew about. The first was a 757 operated by FedEx. I could see it coming using the app. It was apparently not going to be a close pass but it was going to be within range. I saw the jet show up and shot a sequence of it as it came by. The shots were okay given the idea of shooting through windows. A better chance came with an American 737. It was going to be really close to our flight path. Actually, it was really close. Unfortunately, it came right under us. I saw it flash by but I only got shots of engine nacelles and wings of our own jet. Oh so close!

Southwest Evasive Maneuvers

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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.

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.

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.

The Highway Patrol Can See You

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The California Highway Patrol brought not one but two aircraft to the Heli Fest. One was an Astar helicopter and the other was a GA-8 Airvan. Sadly, the airport management team was not feeling very flexible and they would not allow anything fixed wing to be on show by the museum. Consequently, the Airvan crew was made to park on the other side of the field and they had to be driven across. Meanwhile, the Astar crew had their helicopter on the line and so was able to answer questions from the visitors.

The Airvan crew may have been feeling a bit left out but they certainly made their presence felt when they departed. The aircraft is equipped with a PA system and it had the siren going as it took off. Everyone was in no doubt who they were. I am glad they didn’t get completely left out. The Astar also headed out. The CHP operations are pretty interesting so I shall be trying to do a bit more with this operation soon.

Wow (and I Mean That Literally)

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Yes, no exaggeration in this case. It really is Wow! Of course, Wow is an airline, not something so unusual. They are a low cost airline operating out of Iceland and they have started direct flights to San Francisco. I hadn’t managed to see them since they started service. They come in on certain days and later in the afternoon but had not been helped by air traffic delays in Iceland which had meant the flights were arriving late on a regular basis. I did finally get to see one of their A330s come in – late but not as late as had sometimes been the case.

The light at this time of year is not so easy. At the end of the day, the sun angle actually moves sufficiently far around to be on the nose and then even slightly backlit. The late arrival exacerbates the issue but the sun was still slightly on the right side when they came in. It does result in quite some contrast between the nose and the fuselage sides which, with a dark color like they have, makes for a more difficult exposure. I want to visit Iceland at some point so having a direct flight is definitely something to consider for me.