I have been going back through a lot of the archive recently with the goal of culling a lot of the crap images that have no hope of ever seeing the light of day again and are, therefore, just filling up drive space.  As I do this, it reminds me of a few things I haven’t seen for a while and some I won’t see again.  Northwest Airlines is one of these!

From time to time I have done a lot of shooting of airliners.  I won’t profess to them being my favorite thing to shoot – fast jets and helicopters are probably my favorites – but when it comes down to it, I love all things that fly and airliners do just that.  Besides, they are sometimes easier to come by!  One of the features of shooting airliners is that most of what you see does not cause you any surprise.  There may be something that is rare or unusual wherever you are and that can be quite exciting but usually what you see is pretty much what you would expect to see.

It is only at a later stage, when whatever you saw is no longer around, that you can get interested in something that was previously pretty unexpected.  Such is the case with Northwest.  Before the merger with Delta, Northwest had a large fleet that covered the country.  I didn’t fly with them much but I would frequently see their aircraft.  I would take pictures of them but probably not get too excited.  I even spent one day at Detroit where they were most of what I saw.

Now, Northwest is no more and its fleet has been repainted in Delta’s colors.  To find a picture of a Northwest jet as I go through the archives suddenly takes on a level of interest that it hadn’t at the the time it was taken.  Maybe it will have the same effect for you so here are a few samples of something no longer to be seen.