Tag Archives: Airbus

Starlux Arrives in Seattle

The increase in air traffic post the pandemic has been significant and international travel has been boosted. Seattle Tacoma International Airport has been adding to its international destinations with new operators on a pretty regular basis and the most recent new addition has been Starlux. Starlux is a Taiwanese airline operating services to Taipei with its fleet of new Airbus A350-900s. I had seen that they were operating to San Francisco and was a little jealous of not getting to see this new fleet but, now they are coming here, I can see them too. Here is one of their jets on approach to SEA to inaugurate the service.

The Kingfisher is Flying but not a Demo Yet

Leave a reply

The introduction of the Kingfisher to Canadian Air Force service has been a bit drawn out and is not yet complete. This version of the Airbus C295 has some customization which has yet to be fully worked out. However, there are a number of the aircraft delivered including at Comox AFB on Vancouver Island. For the air show, there was one on the ramp and another was up and flying in the morning. It was not performing a demo, but it flew a lot of patterns before the show got underway. Therefore, I had my first exposure to a flying Kingfisher. They should be a more regular sight in the Pacific Northwest in due course.

Practicing Angles Before the Westwind Arrives

Leave a reply

A previous post covered a recent Westwind arrival at SEA one weekend. As I mentioned in that post, I was shooting from a new location for me. Having not shot there before, I didn’t want to make the Westwind the first thing I photographed. I used some of the preceding airliners to try a couple of spots to see what the angles were like and how much the surrounding trees obscured things. These shots are from the experimenting.

Welcome Back the Lufthansa 600s

Leave a reply

Just when I think I have seen the last of something, I get proved wrong. The Lufthansa service to Seattle was being provided by A340-300s over the winter but they then switched to A350s. I thought that might be the last I would see of the A340s but lo and behold, Lufthansa has switched again and this time to the A340-600s. That was a really pleasant surprise. At first, I thought it was a short-term change, but they have been in use for some time now.

I went down shortly after they returned to catch some shots. I didn’t realize that there would be plenty of chances at that point, so I figured I should try and catch them quickly. With it being midsummer, the heat haze is a significant problem – particularly at the time of day that they depart. I decided to try and slightly different location that might provide a nicer angle, would be closer but was more problematic with trees getting in the way.

The results are okay, but the conditions are just not conducive to getting the cleanest shots. Even closer in, the haze issues are apparent. A while later, I did go back to another favorite spot and shot from there with similar issues regarding the conditions. I don’t know how long they will remain on this route and whether I will have a chance to try in slightly better times – a nice delay to later in the day would help – but at least they are in the old Lufthansa colors for the most part, so we get a bit more color than is the case for most of the fleet at this point.

Allegiant’s Fleet Evolution

Leave a reply

Allegiant currently flies a bunch of A319 and A320 jets, but its most recent order was for some 737 Max8-200s. The first of these have been flying at Boeing Field. Unfortunately, my first encounter was with an unpainted jet, but I have since caught them looking a lot more like the finished article. It got me thinking of what I have seen of their jets over the years so I thought I would scan the archive. Plenty of the A320 family jets but I have also got their 757s and MD-80s so here are a few shots.

Finally, the Jetz Black Jet – Just No Sun

Leave a reply

Air Canada operates a charter service under the Jetz brand. While the A320s are not the focus of the mainline fleet, they are part of the Jetz fleet plan. With a lot of use in sports charters, they do show up at Seattle pretty frequently. One of the Jetz jets has been painted in a gloss black livery which looks pretty cool. I really wanted to get some shots of it but they only seemed to be bringing it in late at night and departing in the early hours of the morning.

I wasn’t going to be out that late and photographing a black jet at night was not going to be that worthwhile. Then I saw one was going to come in on a Sunday morning. I took a look at the forecast, and it was showing the potential for the sun to be out and I decided to give it a go. Finding a location on that side of the field for the morning light has got a lot worse since construction has taken away some of the options. However, there are still some things that can work. I was hopeful that the sun might be there but, with the jet turning on to approach, there was still some cloud taking away the best of the morning light. Nevertheless, the jet looked pretty good as it flew by to touchdown. I wasn’t unhappy with the results.

The Holidays Bring Us Some A300s

Leave a reply

The freighter fleets of the big operators like FedEx and UPS are gradually being recapitalized. The older jets are heading to the desert and getting replaced with new airframes. The A300-600Fs in both fleets are not going away quickly but they won’t be around for a lot longer. The UPS A300s don’t normally show up in Seattle with 767s and MD-11s being the regulars here. However, the holiday season results in a big increase in parcel traffic and so extra jets tend to show up. That meant some A300s at Boeing Field. Great to have them here and I hope we get another time when they show up reliably.

Sunset Comes Too Soon for BA

Leave a reply

My Arizona trip with mark started out in Phoenix. I got there earlier than he did and shot a little at Sky Harbor but, once we had met up, we decided to try what the evening shooting might offer there. I was particularly interested in getting the British Airways A350 when it arrived. Phoenix is a busy airport but does not have a huge amount of variety so this would be one of the more “exotic” arrivals. It was due to make it in just before sunset, but the flight was running a touch late, and I wasn’t sure if it would make it.

Keeping an eye on the track of the flight was one thing, but we were also keeping an eye on the horizon. There was low cloud in the distance which suggested that the sun might disappear from view before it actually set. Sadly, this proved to be the case. Things got gloomy rather quickly once the sun went behind the cloud bank and then, as it got low in the sky (out of sight) the light was fading fast. That’s when the jet arrived. Still, it wasn’t a total loss. Sometimes low light can be interesting. It wasn’t as good as the last light of the day glowing on the nose, but it was alright. We watched the jet taxi in and then decided to see what low light shots we could make work.

GlobalX Has Interesting Passengers

Leave a reply

GlobalX charter flights are pretty common in our area these days. The company is expanding aggressively, and any charter work seems to be on the cards. This one flight was a bit unusual – at least compared to what else I have seen then do. The buses pulled up with the “passengers”. However, instead of all walking up the steps, they went one at a time. A closer look showed that their hands were in front of them – presumably in cuffs. I’m not sure whether this was a criminal transfer or a deportation flight, but I suspect the latter. I have seen plenty of DOJ flights into BFI but this was a first for me to see.

A400M Atlas Demo from RIAT 2019

Leave a reply

I was working through some shots from my last trip to RIAT in 2019. Amazingly enough, I hadn’t finished editing some of the shots from that visit and I wanted to get rid of a lot of surplus shots to help the old hard drive space issues! As I was working through them, I got to some shots of the A400M displays I saw over the course of the weekend. I think the A400M is a cracking looking jet. Whether it is doing what everyone wanted of it, I have no idea. I just know it looks great and is capable of some really impressive demos.

For some reason, I had been feeling very brave during RIAT when it came to shooting some of the props. I had gone with quite low shutter speeds with long lenses and the results were not necessarily all I would have wanted. There were always going to be blurry shots to get culled, but the number of sharp ones was a little lower than I would have liked. However, all was not a total loss, and I did get a bunch of shots that I was happy with.

Here is a selection of shots from across the show including the official displays by the Airbus test crew and some of the operator aircraft too. The weather for RIAT 2019 was not that great. We did get some nice light occasionally but one of the days was very wet (and I was feeling crappy too) and the others were overcast a lot of the time. Not the most exciting light for a grey painted plane but they had the potential for prop vortices. Will I have big prints of these on the wall? No, I don’t think so. However, it was okay and there will be other times, I hope.