Tag Archives: airliner

A National Airlines A330 Comes to Town

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Seeing that a National A330 was coming in to SeaTac one evening, I figured I couldn’t pass it up.  Sure, they don’t come here often but they are also one of the few airlines that has a relatively interesting livery.  Plus, it would be later in the day when light should be good so why not go?  With SeaTac you always wonder whether the heavies will come in on the outer or inner runway.  Fortunately, there was a lot of other arriving traffic at that time so it was a good bet they would come on the inner runway.  A heavy can disrupt the flow of the lighter wake turbulence category jets.

That proved to be the case.  They came to the inner so I was positioned well for the arrival.  However, the weather wasn’t playing ball.  A bunch of clouds were building off in the distance and they drifted across the sun shortly before arrival.  Rainier was already obscured by cloud/haze but losing the sun was annoying.  Fortunately, the silvery scheme allows a bit more tolerance of less than ideal light.

Caribbean Airlines – Didn’t Know You Existed!

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Being close to the 737 production line means you see all sorts of airline markings on jets.  That includes seeing an airline you didn’t know anything about.  Caribbean Airlines had an upcoming delivery of a 737 Max 8 and it was out on test the day I took off.  Not the most dramatic livery but still not too bad.  The predecessors, Air Jamaica and BWIA were more colorful, though.  It taxied passed me as it headed out so I got shots of it taking off.  Later in the day it returned just as I was thinking it would be time to head home.  It arrived and then I left.  Quite a good end to the day.

Two Max Jets on Test But Only One Works!

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One evening, while at BFI, a couple of Max test aircraft taxied out.  One was painted up in Fly Dubai colors and the other was still in primer although the rudder seemed to indicate that it will be a United jet when delivered.  They both taxied out and then held on the taxiway.  The primer jet was second in line and held for ages.  Eventually, it took the intersection on to the runway and backtracked to the Boeing ramp.  No idea what the issue was but it clearly wasn’t ready to fly.  Their colleagues took off a short while before in their, apparently serviceable, jet.

Air Malta Airborne

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The Air Malta Max jets have been on here before.  A subsidiary of Ryanair – everyone’s favorite airline – they have been stored at Renton for a while awaiting the commencement of deliveries after whatever delays have been preventing Ryanair from accepting any jets.  With that now addressed, both Ryanair and Air Malta have been taking jets.  Buzz still hasn’t accepted any and they still seem to be parked at Renton.  I was pleased to have an Air Malta jet come in from a test flight while I was at BFI.  It was an overcast day but there was a hint of light when it made its approach.  Not great but better than sitting on the ground!

777X Parking Lot

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Boeing is not having a good time of it at the moment.  The 737 Max saga hurt it significantly and it is still getting in to delivering jets that have been stored for a long time.  Some countries have still not cleared it to fly.  Meanwhile, the 787 program is in a bit of a hole with a variety of quality problems showing up such that deliveries have almost ground to a halt.  Those two programs are supposed to be cash generators at the moment which allow investment in the next program.  The KC-46 is also not what you would call a success!

That program is the 777X and it is not going well either.  In the aftermath of the Max problems, the certification program is getting significantly dragged out.  Initially engine problems delayed first flight but now that is a distant memory as all sorts of other things are meaning that service entry is not likely until early 2024.  They should have been in service last year under the original plan.

Production of the last original 777s other than freighters is now complete and production of 777X airframes is well underway.  However, there is nothing to do with them for now so a steady stream of green airframes is piling up at Paine Field.  The cross runway (it doesn’t seem fair to call it a runway given that Boeing has used it as a parking lot for the last decade) is now filling up with airframes with weights where the engines would be and either no wing tips or they are covered with film to disguise the customer airline markings.  Line numbers are taped to the gear doors.  It all looks rather familiar and sad.  It will be a while before these jets are readied for customers and it will be interesting to see how many Paine Field can hold before the production line churns out even more of them than there is space for.

Boeing 737 Max 10 in Flight

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I missed out on the first flight of the first Max 10 version of the Boeing 737 family.  I got to Boeing Field as it was landing on its initial flight which I watched from the freeway as I got close to the airfield.  However, a flight test airframe is going to get a lot of use so I knew I would have more opportunities.  The Max 10 rolled out a long time ago so the start of flight test was heavily delayed, presumably as a result of the overall Max grounding and the more intense scrutiny being given to Boeing as a result.

I have now seen it flying a few times.  It is still flying around with a trailing static cone so they either haven’t completed calibration of the air data system or just haven’t got around to removing the cone yet.  It is in Boeing house colors with the large 10 on the fin being the main giveaway.  It is longer than the Max 9 but not noticeably so.  I’ll need to put them side by side to see where to identify the differences.

Lufthansa A350 Is Now Coming to SEA

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International flights are starting to increase in frequency and, it seems, capacity.  Lufthansa has been making the run to Seattle with the A330s for a while now.  Recently, they changed from the 300 to the A350.  One quiet Saturday, I figured I would head down to grab a shot.  Sadly, the old livery example of the previous day was replaced with one in the new livery.  I do prefer the old livery but that wasn’t the reason for my disappointment.  It will go away before too long so there will be plenty of chances to get the new livery over the years.  It was hot and sunny and arrival is noon so about the worst time you could think of for photographing.  A polarizer to take out some glare and to deepen the colors was the best I could manage.

A Pair of New 737s in Nice Light

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With Max flight activity pretty much back to normal at BFI, there is no shortage of opportunities to shoot the jets on the approach.  However, since it is now mid summer, the lighting is going to be pretty harsh most of the time.  A little later in the day, though, and the light can be improved.  I have also taken to using the polarizer to cut down on the harsher glare which is boosting the vibrancy of the shots.  I got two of the jets during one visit.

One of them was a Ryanair Max 8-200.  This is a special configuration that Ryanair has ordered that has an extra reader fuselage exit added to the -8 fuselage to allow the seat count to be increased.  This jet turned out to be the first one to be delivered to the airline shortly after this was taken.  The other was an Oman Air jet.  Nice colors for the livery of this airline which were enhanced with the lower light angle and the polarizer.  Sure, 737s are incredibly common but sometimes it can still be nice to shoot them.

Competitor Dreamliners

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I took this shot at Haneda Airport in Tokyo.  The 787 has sold well with the Japanese carriers – my trip to Tokyo was on a JAL 787-8 and ANA was the launch operator – and with these two airlines competing strongly for the Japanese market, it seemed slightly appropriate that they should both be in this single shot.