Tag Archives: airliner

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.

Practicing Angles Before the Westwind Arrives

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.

The Second Freighter Conversion Finally Arrives

Alaska Air Cargo has been having a tricky time with its new freighters.  These are conversions of some of its older 737-800s and will provide more capacity than the current 737-300BDSF fleet.  I got the first of the jets not long after it arrived, but it then was out of service for ages.  They have finally got it in regular use now but the delivery of the second aircraft was delayed while they sorted things out.  It is now delivered and operating regularly, and I caught it climbing out of SEA one weekend.  The second shot is the same airframe back when it was in passenger service a few years ago.

Marks of a Mixer Nozzle

I was running through some images of a Dornier 328Jet that I had shot at Boeing Field.  I was zoomed in close to check for image sharpness when my eye caught the inside of the nozzle of the engine nacelle.  There was an interesting pattern on the inside.  Judging by the layout of the staining, I think the mixer in the exhaust results in varying deposition of material on the walls.  This is the sort of thing that really appeals to me and probably no one else but it is my blog!

Welcome Back the Lufthansa 600s

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

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.

Vistara Flying at Last

With so many stored 787s at Everett in recent years, I have seen a bunch of Vistara jets on the ground.  However, I hadn’t really done very well in catching them moving.  Not very well is generous – I hadn’t got anything worthwhile.  Then I was up at Paine Field earlier in the day for something else and a Vistara jet taxied out for a test flight.  Thankfully it ran reasonably long on its takeoff roll and I was able to get some good shots of it.

Finally, the Jetz Black Jet – Just No Sun

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.

328Jet Departure Only

A period of some pretty frequent visits to Seattle of 328Jets was nice to have.  Unfortunately, I was unable to be there when one of them was arriving.  Not chance to get the landing configuration but I was there by the time they were heading back out.  I wasn’t sure of how quickly they would be off the ground given that the 328 is able to handle some short fields.  As it turned out, they ran a reasonable distance and I was happy with the results.

Reinforcement Around the Freight Door

While Alaska Air Cargo has been struggling to add its new 737-800BCFs to the fleet, the -7000 freighters have continued to provide service to them.  I have shot these a few different times, but I got some more recent shots of one of the jets at a time when the sun angle was such that the surface of the fuselage was illuminated in such a way to show up the textures of the construction.  The conversion to freighter involves a lot of reinforcement around the aperture for the freight door.  The light really highlighted this reinforcement well.