Tag Archives: aircraft

Bell 430

If you watched Airwolf many years ago, you would be familiar with the Bell 222 helicopter. It is a sleek looking machine and one that gave the impression of being powerful. Consequently, I have always been pleased to see one. Bell have taken the airframe and made some updates. The result is the Bell 430 and I saw one recently at San Jose. The addition of a four blade rotor to replace the two blade system is a good change. While it doesn’t have the thwack sound of the old rotor, it provides a cool sound of its own.

The replacement of the retractable gear with the skids, though, it’s not a cool update. The retractable gear helped make the airframe look so purposeful and the skids really hurt the lines. For me, it is a combination of a hit and a miss with these changes. No doubt there are many more subtle improvements that have been made but, overall, I still think the 222 is cooler.

A380 Gathering

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Heathrow is an airport that was probably at the heart of the thinking of the Airbus team when they conceived of the A380. A busy international airport with tight constraints on movements, it is the sort of place that requires higher capacity aircraft for some routes. Therefore, it is of no surprise to find that plenty of the A380 operators bring their aircraft to London. I wasn’t hanging around at Heathrow on our trip to the UK but we were there waiting to head home. Also, at various times we were around the city and its surroundings so arriving and departing jets passed overhead.

Consequently, I got to see a few different operators’ jets while we were there. I wasn’t always well prepared for them. Wandering along the south bank of the Thames, I was not carrying a long lens and was caught out by one coming over the top turning on to final approach. Other times I was a bit better prepared. These images are some of the jets we saw while we were there.

San Jose for R2-D2 Boeing 787

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The arrival of a new Star Wars movie is not really a secret. There are more promotional efforts associated with the film by businesses of all types than I can remember for any other release. All Nippon got in on the game quite early and announced that a number of their jets would be carrying Star Wars markings. The first to break cover was a 787-9 with markings to represent R2-D2. My friend Hayman and I made it to San Jose a while back to catch it arriving.

The story of finding it made it to a blog post for GAR which is here. Therefore, I won’t repeat the whole story of how I nearly missed the arrival. If you want to see that, click on the link and you can read the whole thing. After the arrival, we hung around and then headed to the departure end of the field to be ready for its return journey to Tokyo. It is a pretty cool scheme that they have implemented. I will now have to keep an eye out for the other two that they are doing.

State of Kuwait 747-8

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While it was part of the original plan, I found myself going through Dallas Love Field recently. I had changed flights and the new routing took my through Dallas and on to Oakland. This was the second time I had flown through Love Field. The previous time I had only my phone with me but no other camera. This had been frustrating because I saw something pretty interesting but couldn’t get a good shot of it. The State of Kuwait has bought a 747-8 to use as a VIP transport and it is being fitted out in Dallas. This time, I did have a camera so was able to get some pictures.

The jet is parked across the runway from the terminal building so it isn’t too close but it is not that far away. It is strange to see it parked outside each time but I guess the interior work does not require it to be indoors. I imagine in the summer, keeping the jet cool while they work is no small task. Fitting out these wide bodies can be a very long process. Everything is custom designed and manufactured and 18 months is not unknown. Given that it is a governmental jet, it might well have even more complexity and could take more time – I don’t know. A search online suggests it may be close to delivery and that is why it is not in a hangar. I didn’t find the arrival date but it does appear to have been there for quite some time. Maybe I was lucky to get it before it leaves?

Boeing 727 in OKC

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It’s not often that you see a Boeing 727 in service any more. There was a time when FedEx were still using them in substantial numbers. Now you are most likely to see a FedEx machine parked up since most airports seem to have acquired one of them somehow! Finding one actually in use is a far less common occurrence. However, they are still out there and every once in a while, you will get lucky.

I was in Oklahoma City heading home after some meetings when I glanced out of the window and saw a 727 taxiing past the terminal. It caught me out and it took a moment to get a camera out by which time it was a bit further away than was ideal but I did manage to grab a couple of shots. I was hoping that it was taxiing for departure so I would have a second opportunity as it took off but I guess it had just arrived and was heading to the ramp to park. It had text on the side suggesting it was for transporting horses. I had previously seen a similar jet at Van Nuys a few years ago. This time I only got some rough ground shots but any active 727 is worth noting these days.

Virgin Dreamliner

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Not long ago I wrote here about the effort to get a Virgin Atlantic A340-600 before they were retired. At the time I noted that Virgin had added a second flight to SFO and it was using the 340 prior to the availability of the Boeing 787-9 later in the year. It turns out that things have changed a little. The 787 is now operating the service but, rather than replace the A340, it has replaced the 747-400 and the A340 is running the additional flight albeit only on weekdays.

The loss of the 747 is another example of how quickly they are disappearing from services as I have written about a few times now. However, it is nice to have the new type and still retain the increasingly rare A340. Unfortunately, getting out on a weekday to catch the 340 is not usually practical. I have managed to see the 787 at last though. Winter can be a great time to photograph aircraft with low, soft light. It can also combine with crappy weather in the form of high and gusting winds though. Such was the case this time. Hiding behind a tree to try and minimize the impact on the camera does help though. Interestingly, the colors of Virgin Atlantic’s latest scheme do not seem to like digital capture. The red seems a lot more subdued in my images than I recall it being!

Nippon Cargo 747-8

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Today’s pictures involve a shout out to Roger Cain who was the one that let me know that this movement was happening. Nippon Cargo operates a regular service to SFO with their Boeing 747-8 freighter. Normally it arrives early in the morning and departs not long afterwards when the light is just coming up. This does not make for a good opportunity to get a good shot of it. For some reason, it was running late and was showing as due in to SFO shortly before sunset.

I was in the East Bay dealing with the replacement of a tire on my car. Roger called to tell me about it. What I didn’t know was a) whether I would be able to get across in time based on the tire being fixed and b) whether it would actually depart LAX, its previous stop, soon enough to arrive at SFO before it got dark. Driving across the bay to miss the light was not something I wanted to do. Both Roger and I were tracking the jet online and, as I got the car back, he called to say it was taxiing for departure at LAX.

I headed across the bay and got to Roger about ten minutes before it was due to arrive. The light was beginning to go down but it looked like it would work out okay. Sure enough, it came into view just before the sun went below the hills. We got some really nice light on it. I continued to track it to touchdown but, by the time it got to the runway, it was already in shade. It was that close!

Diamond DA62

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I was actually looking for something else when I headed to Livermore. An interesting aircraft had come to the field from Denver and a friend had given me a heads up about it. I went over to see if I could see it. As it turned out, the tail was just visible in a hangar across the field but there was nothing much to see. I decided to hang around for a short while before heading home.

As I was wandering along the fence line, a light twin came in to land. I got some shots as it landed and could read the DA62 logo on the aircraft. This is Diamond’s newest product and this appears to be the first example to show up in the US. I had just been reading the flight test on it in Flight International. It turns out the wife of the pilot was standing nearby. They were due to head off but we chatted for a while about their training operations and now the role of distributor for the type.

The DA62 has a change for Diamond in that it can be painted in colors. Previously, the airframes were white and all you could do was add stripes to customize them. They have done something new with the composites and this example was in a really nice metallic gray finish. They soon loaded up and headed out. This is a cool plane and a comfortable seven-seater. If you are in the market, give these guys a call!

Zoomify the SFO Departures

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I was recently drawn back to something I had experimented with a long time ago but had since forgotten about. I was at SFO when the wind was strong enough to require all departures to operate from the 28s. This resulted in a long line of jets along the taxiway beside the runways as they waited their turn to take off. I shot a very wide panorama shot of them all lined up. It didn’t help that they weren’t bunched too tightly but, even if they had been, the pano that results is very wide and shallow.

There is nothing much you can do with this unless you have a long wall waiting for a mural (which I don’t). However, I still liked the shot. What to do with it? Then I remembered Zoomify. This is an output format embedded within Photoshop that creates a web page that you can zoom in and out of and pan around. It allows someone to explore a large image in more detail if they want to do so. Not quite on the scale of Gigapan images but still a neat tool when you need something slightly different.

Zoomify Panorama

Delta 717s

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When Southwest bought AirTran, they inherited a mixed fleet of 737s and 717s. AirTran had been a 717 only fleet for a while but had expanded to include 737s as they grew and the production of the 717 ended. It didn’t take too long for Southwest to announce that the 717s were going away. Where to was the question. That was soon answered when Delta picked them all up. Consequently, there has been a steady stream of 717s showing up in Delta colors recently.

I have come across a few of them recently on both sides of the country. Despite the age of the basic DC-9 design, the updates introduced and the chunkier profile of the more modern engines means that there is something slightly different about the appearance of the jet. I quite like the look of it. Previously, the majority of the examples I had seen had been Hawaiian (including those I had ridden on). It is nice that the type has found a new home which means they shall be around in the US for a while to come.