Tag Archives: Airbus

Tahiti Nui Comes Up Trumps

A favorite airline of mine is Air Tahiti Nui. I have never flown with them but they have a colorful livery and they still fly Airbus A340-300s so they get points from me on two fronts. The only place I ever get to see them is at LAX. Normally they operate off the southern runway complex and I saw a couple on the ground while I was there on a recent trip. While I was doing my flight over the airport to photograph operations, I knew the timing was right for one of their flights to come in. However, things were pretty busy that day and we were reluctant to move over to the southside to get them arriving as we feared we might not get back into the center area to shoot arrivals on the northside again.

I was resigned to not getting them when my lucked took a very positive turn. For some reason, and I don’t know what it was, the controllers brought them in to the north runways. They came to me! I didn’t have to do anything to reposition and I hadn’t even been aware at first that they were coming that side. Needless to say, when they appeared on final, I was pretty stoked. I imagine these jets will be replaced before too long so I was delighted to get these shots of them airborne.

One More Chance With Virgin’s A340s

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Substitutions on the Seattle route are not just limited to Lufthansa. Virgin Atlantic has been flying the route with the 787-9 but, as with a lot of the Rolls Dreamliner operators, Virgin has been suffering from engine shortages while the blade cracking problems are dealt with. They have brought the A340-600 on to the route in the interim. I thought I wouldn’t be seeing these again after the last examples at SFO I saw but I got another chance. Not great light but it was good to see one more time.

Every Morning You Great Me (Well, Evening This Time)

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A bit of a crummy song reference for which I should really apologize. Edelweiss is a Swiss airline that flies to Vancouver. Their flight arrived while Mark and I were on the north side of the field. Lighting is less than ideal in that location but, once the plane is passed and turning to taxi to the terminal, you get some nice angles and very good light options. This was my first encounter with an Edelweiss jet and I was pleased that the livery is a bit more interesting than the average these days.

Finally an Air Transat

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Air Transat is an airline that I haven’t seen much of. I recall them flying to the UK decades ago with TriStars (if I am thinking of the right airline) but, since then I have not really come across them. To be honest, I actually thought they were long gone but it turns out they continue to ply their trade. As I was heading to Vancouver International, I saw one of their A330s climbing out and I was a bit annoyed to have missed it. However, it wasn’t their only scheduled departure for that evening. A later flight went while I was there and I managed to get my first shots of them in action.

Sunset BA Arrival

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My friend, Mark, suggested we head to the north side of Vancouver for a couple of the heavy arrivals. The light was not on the right side for shooting there but you can get a good angle on the arriving jets and, rather than fight the light, you can embrace it. The sun is behind the planes and on the other side so it is very backlit. It is the end of the day, though, so the sky does look nice.

The British Airways A380 was on the approach when we got there so a quick run from the car got us in place. The A380 is large enough that you often think you need to hurry more than you actually do because it appears closer in. Let the heart rate settle a little and be ready to get some shots. With the backlighting, it looked pretty impressive. Once it was off the runway, it did need to taxi back to the terminal so that brought it into some better light.

The Spooks Are in Town

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The subject of this post ended up getting some coverage but, when I saw it, I didn’t know about the interest surrounding it. I was at BFI awaiting the departure of another aircraft when a turboprop took off over me. I had the camera to hand so grabbed some shots of what I realized was an Airbus CN235. Painted in a dark gray scheme, it looked a little odd. A closer look at the shots showed it had a few lumps and bumps suggestive of an array of antennae. I figured it was just passing through en route to somewhere more interesting.

However, that wasn’t the case. It had been spotted flying some patterns over the city. I had seen some odd flight paths on Flightaware being flown by a plane called Spud21. I loved the name! it was flying orbits over the city but I couldn’t see anything else about it. However, when I saw the plane crop up in the media, the article identified that it was the owner of the Spud21 callsign.

I don’t know what the purpose of the flights was. It is suggested that the aircraft is owned by the US military but whether it is for their use or is in support of an overseas operator, whether these flights were for testing purposes or were checking out the residents I don’t know. I do know that it was something a little out of the ordinary though.

Armee de l’Air A400M

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The A400M Atlas is now in service with a number of air forces. My encounters with them, though, have only involved the development airframes displayed by Airbus. That changed in Sacramento when The Patrouille de France arrived as part of their North American tour. They brought an A400M as he support plane. I was rather disappointed that it arrived late in the evening, after I had gone home and disappeared early the following morning to recover some delayed jets.

It was back for the day of the display though. It started up at a remote location but then proceeded to give a short flying display. It then taxied back to the crowd line where it shut down and was opened up for visitors. The people were lined up to get inside it for ages. The plane still looked pretty clean so I guess it had not been in service too long. I was glad to get a close up look around the outside as well as to see the crowds inside and the flying display itself. Not a dramatic performance like the test crews have put on but still good to see.

When United Thought That Ted Was a Winner

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Occasionally I post about disappearing airlines. Normally they are airlines that went away because they ran out of cash. This one is a different story. The arrival of low cost airlines caused a lot of the majors to think that they could fight the newcomers by setting up their own lost cost operation. United came up with Ted. I guess this was like half a United! They moved a bunch of their Airbus A319s and A320s from United to Ted and set them up on services which, I guess, did not have the premium passengers and so was focused on the economy traveler.

Ted lasted for a while. I don’t know whether it was ever a profitable business or not. When you viewed it in the context of the overall United business, it might have been good for a while. However, whatever the underpinnings of the business were, eventually United came to the conclusion that Ted was not a good idea. I don’t know whether the cost base was too high to sustain it or whether it was just undercutting revenue from United but they gave up on the idea. The jets got repainted and became part of the United fleet again.

At Last a Voyager – But…

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The Royal Air Force has replaced its tanker force since I left the UK. The VC-10s and TriStars have been retired and there is a public private partnership in place to deliver tanking support. This uses converted Airbus A330s. They are able to provide tanking and transport services (with some of the aircraft configured only for transport). In RAF service, these jets are named Voyager. Red Flag 17-1 was my first real opportunity to photograph a Voyager in action. (Annoyingly my sister has shot them before me and has been on a refueling mission with them!) While an A330 might not be the most exciting jet to see, I was really looking forward to photographing it.

As the mission was recovering, the light was great. Low sun providing a warm and soft illumination on the returning jets. Then, the Voyager called up. Just as it did so, the sun went in. The Voyager came down the approach, its gray fuselage in the shade of some clouds. It landed, taxied in and then the sun came right back out again. Arghh! Sure, I can bump up the white balance a bit to warm things up but the jet was in shade and there is not much I can do about that. I had to leave before it recovered on the following day so no luck then. They will be around for a while so I guess I will get any crack at this at some point.

Air China A330

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Boring paint schemes are far too common these days on airliners. The all white plane with just a hint of color is a little too much of a feature of things these days. A few airlines break the mold but not enough. One of the boring ones is Air China. They are not at all interesting for most of their fleet. However, some of their Airbus A330s are painted in a livery that is a bit more interesting. Sadly, I had never seen one. They fly in to San Jose but almost always they bring a jet in plain white. However, they changed it on a day when we were going to San Jose for some shopping so I added a small diversion.

This scheme is not the most dramatic and shooting it in the middle of the day is not going to emphasize it in the best way but I wasn’t going to miss the chance. San Jose provides a great location for getting close to the jets. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one interested in it coming. A few people showed up just before arrival and left straight afterwards. I just wish more airlines would adopt interesting colors. The planes are not very varied so the liveries are all that is left to mix it up.