My quest for a Virgin Atlantic A340 had an unintended side benefit. It turns out that Lufthansa also run an A340-600 in to SFO around the same time of day as Virgin Atlantic. While the Virgin jet was on final, the Lufthansa jet was coming over the top before turning in for approach. Why not hang around for a few more minutes and get another 340? Lufthansa are not getting rid of them so quickly but they won’t be around forever so I might as well make the most of the opportunity.
Periodically, this blog gets populated with something that is disappearing be it an airline or a type of plane. Virgin Atlantic has been operating a single 747 in to SFO for years now. Recently they started up a second service five days a week. It is intended that this service will be operated with a 787-9 but the number delivered is not enough at this point. Therefore, they are using an A340-600 to start things before transitioning to the 787 in October. I have a relatively narrow window in which it will be operating and then it won’t be long before the A340s are gone from Virgin’s fleet. With a bunch of stuff coming up, I was looking for a chance to get a shot.
Having the plane was only part of the issue. Having a nice day was another. Also, it arrives around 7pm so I needed to get it before the evenings get shorter and it shows up after dark. The only problem with that is that the heat haze is bad at this time of year. Nothing I can do about that so I have to make the best of things. Fortunately, I chose a nice evening. The light was good, the timing was right and the heat haze, while present, was not so bad as to run things completely. These images won’t survive too much scrutiny but I am glad to have got them before time runs out.
The attendance of the Russian contingent at Farnborough in 1992 was pretty impressive but they weren’t the only game in town. There were plenty of other aircraft on display. The Rafale prototype was there to follow up from the demonstrator a few years before. The first A340 was also part of the flying display.
Plenty of smaller types were on show including the Optica and the Pillan. Harriers and Hawks flew and the Gripen development program was represented by one of their jets. The Tucano for the RAF was taking part and the US military had a Black Hawk in the static display. Quite a variety of stuff to enjoy and interesting to see what is still in production today and what has disappeared from service.
There are limited options for shooting at SFO and I have tried quite a lot of what is on offer. A buddy of mine was flying in a while back and he looked at a park on the bayshore which he suggested might be of interest. It is a bit further out but has some elevation so he thought it might be worth a look. I took a look on Google to see exactly where the place was and found it was Seal Point Park.
There is a small parking lot up on top of the hill with a far larger lot at the bottom of the hill. I figured I would try the top first just in case and it turned out to be almost deserted. There were some benches so I settled in for a while to see how things looked. The planes are a bit far out but they are higher which reduces the effect of heat haze. Even so, the conditions are not ideal. Quite a few shots were just not going to be of use.
There was a good view along the shore towards the airport. When the parallel approaches were being shot, you could have a nice look at the two planes heading down together. Coyote Point (another spot I have used on plenty of occasions) did obstruct the view as they got closer to landing though. I’m not sure this is a place I will shoot often but it is not bad and provides a bit of variety. You are also far enough out that sometimes the gear is still up on the planes which makes for a slightly different view.
SFO is becoming a popular spot for the A380s. Last summer Air France were bringing theirs here and over the winter both Emirate and Lufthansa were bringing the mighty beast in. With the new summer season starting, Air France are back and have been joined by British Airways. I have seen a few BA 380s in the past. We were next to one on stand at Heathrow when we last went to the UK and I have seen them at LAX as well. However, I haven’t had the chance to get a shot of one in good conditions.
A sunny Saturday afternoon came free so I decided to head along. Rather than go close to the airport at SFO, I opted for Coyote Point. It is closer to the approach path and less affected by haze. I needn’t have worried as it was very windy and the view from the point to the airport was remarkably clear. When the big jet showed up, I had plenty of time to get it approach, pass and land. It got to the gate just as the Emirates 380 was leaving. Just as well as I think they have to use the same gate!
While at Coyote Point, I was surprised to see how the wind was clearing out some of the particulate matter in the air and giving me a good view of things at SFO. A few times I watched the departure of some of the big jets including three A380s. They each lined up on 28R for departure. What I had never noticed before is how much their jetwash disturbs the water off the end of the runway. Once they get to full power and before they move too far down the runway, the water gets quite some spray in motion. Probably not a good place to find yourself if you are one of the many birds that live in the bay!
LAX is undergoing a multi-year program of rebuilding their runways. They have to make some federally mandated upgrades and they are taking the chance to relocate runway and taxiway alignments to accommodate the A380 more efficiently. This means that one of the four runways is going to be out of use for a long time. At the moment, it is one of the runways on the south side of the field which is the part most easily seen from Imperial Hill. Therefore, I decided to try something new for me which was shooting from the beach.
Most departures head out over the beach from LAS unless the winds are doing something unusual. For aircraft heading off the northerly runways, this is the only place to get a good view and, since those runways are located further west, the jets are lower as they come out. The hills along the shore used to be a series of streets which provided a perfect location for watching the jets. However, this whole area has now been closed off and is inaccessible. It is designated a nature reserve although I bet a few security issues helped with the process.
I hadn’t been down this way before so didn’t know exactly where to go. The combination of the hill and fencing makes the view a little restrictive. However, you can get some interesting angles on the jets as they take off. If the weather is nice, you also get some lovely evening light here although my visit coincided with a fair bit of cloud! I was also constantly guessing the flightpath to avoid the places with palm trees and fences – not always successfully. I include one shot through the fence to show you what you see, even if it isn’t good for getting a shot.
I saw a few of the big jets head out which was quite a bit of fun. If I find myself back, I will have a bit of further exploration down here to see what better spots (and weather hopefully) I can find.
I was in Los Angeles a little while back and managed to get a few shots of things at LAX between other activities. This is a quick picture post. The new international terminal has been opened and the big jets are often arrayed along it at the right time of day. The thing that I find funny about this shot is that the small fin in the middle is a Lufthansa Boeing 747-8. This is not a small plane but the Airbus A380 fins make it look tiny!
There are some shots that it is just hard to get. They are possible but it depends on what you have available. One idea that I have been trying to come up with a solution for is getting good shots of airliners as they lower their gear. The sequence for lowering the gear is pretty cool and the outline of the plane when it has flaps deployed but no gear is of interest to me too. However, to get a shot like that, you need to be high up further out on the approach. Unless you are in another aircraft, that is tricky to do.
From the normal locations on the ground, the aircraft is just too far away to get a decent shot. Not only is it in the distance and, therefore, small but you also have to cope with atmospheric disturbances like heat haze and dust in the air. It doesn’t make for a compelling shot! Instead, I decided to try something different. I would shoot the sequence of shots of the approach and then animate them. This would mean that the reduced quality of an individual shot would be lost as the sequence would require a certain amount of motion blur anyway.
What I didn’t realize until I tried this on an A380 was that this jet has an unusual gear sequence. I was looking at trying a 747 or an A380 since they are large and have interesting wing configurations when approaching to land. As it turns out, the A380 lowers the outer two gear legs first before the two center body legs come down. I had not appreciated this before trying this shot. Animating the sequence really put the computer under some pressure. Creating a file with over 100 layers and then adjusting each layer to align properly took some time and really made the machine work hard. Ultimately, I got the sequence you can see above.
I was on a flight home that stopped in LAX en route. I hadn’t planned anything for where I was sitting but we happened to land on the south side of the field and, being Southwest, the terminal was on the north side which meant traversing the field. This took us past the Bradley International Terminal. It was quite full as we passed with plenty of heavies. It had taken on a bit of an A380 theme so I grabbed the phone and got a few shots as we came by. Phone pictures through an airplane window may not be the best but it was what was to hand and they were hardly arranged for a great image anyway. If you like to see big planes from around the world, this will be for you. There are a couple of other visitors to LAX that day below. If not, come back in a couple of days and see if I have something better for you.
