Tag Archives: airliner

British Airways 787-10

I saw the 787-10 development aircraft flying and caught a couple during the hurricane evacuation but I haven’t seen many in service. British Airways has started using their 787-10s on the Seattle run so, with some nice weather on a Sunday afternoon combined with a northerly flow, I decided to see whether I could get a decent Mt Rainier shot of one arriving. It was a warm day so heat haze was an issue but nothing can be done about that. They showed up on time so I grabbed some shots and retreated to the air conditioning of the car. This will be a regular sight in future so nothing significant about it but one to add to the archive.

A Better Go at a Prime Air 737

Leave a Reply

In this recent post, I showed a shot of an Amazon Prime Air 737. With a bit more notice and better timing from an availability point of view, I saw that another jet was coming in to Paine Field from Anchorage. It was being delivered from the conversion line in China and would have the finishing touches taken care of by ATS at Everett. I was there and set up in plenty of time – except… I had one camera ready to go but the other one had been previously used for some video at home and was on manual focus. I was shooting with the 500mm initially and all was well. As the jet got closer, I switched to the 100-400 and everything was wrong. Nothing would focus. It seemed like forever but I must have realized fast and flicked the focus switch because I was able to shoot it as it came level with me and crossed the threshold. What an amateur mistake. Fortunately, I got away with it!

Ryanair Subsidiary Buzz

Leave a Reply

Ryanair has a subsidiary based in Poland that it has been rebranded as Buzz. I must admit I knew nothing about this until, on my way back home from a meeting south of Seattle, I stopped off at Renton to see what was on the flight line. A Ryanair jet was parked up and next to it was a Buzz jet. It still had some taped markings on it but it was basically finished in Buzz colors and registered in Poland. Obviously it won’t be going to them for a little while longer but, once the grounding is lifted, it should be heading to Eastern Europe.

Philippines Airlines Spot the Difference

Leave a Reply

Someone recently was after a picture of a Philippines Airlines Boeing 747. When I looked up my shots of this airline, I came across a picture of one of their A340s landing at SFO. It had an anniversary marking on the fuselage. Just below it in the catalog was a 777-300ER which also had the same marking and was also landing at SFO. The similarity of the aircraft in these shots amused me so here they both are in case something like this is of interest to you too.

Air France A380

Leave a Reply

The Air France A380s have gone away. Their retirement had already been identified prior to the COVID-19 outbreak but it accelerated their departure. I had shot them on a few occasions with SFO and LAX being regular destinations. Since I won’t be seeing them again, here is a farewell tribute to the Air France A380. Hope one or two of the airframes find a second life.

Amazon Prime 737

Leave a Reply

The Amazon Prime fleet of 767s has grown to be pretty huge. Initially, I was excited to see one out and about but now they are like Southwest 737s! However, the new addition to the fleet is the 737-800. A bunch of them have been showing up and, prior to delivery to Sun Country that will be operating them, they have been coming through Everett, presumably for some final work at ATS. Sadly, I haven’t been able to get up there to see them.

I did get one of them head past the house, though. It was departing for Minneapolis and its routing took it close to us. Not as close as I would have liked but enough for a heavy crop with a long lens. Not ideal conditions for sure. In the same way the 767s are now ubiquitous, these will no doubt be before to long. However, this was my first encounter. Maybe next time I will be a bit closer – even if it does mean moving away from my driveway!

FedEx and Mt Rainier

Leave a Reply

No great story with this one. I was at SeaTac for a different arrival on the outer runway. A FedEx MD-11F was making an approach to the inner runway while I was waiting. It provides a good alignment with Mt Rainier in the background so I figured it was a shot worth taking and I was pleased with how it turned out. Given how little I have photographed recently, a shot like this from before everything got locked down suddenly seemed like something to share!

Delta A220s (Or C Series for the Purist)

Leave a Reply

The Airbus A220 is now getting more widely established in service. Indeed, the slightly smaller and highly efficient nature of the jet means that it is likely to be pretty popular as service gets reestablished for a lot of airlines. Sadly, I haven’t seen any other than those with Delta. I have seen a decent number of those, though. As a continuation of my lockdown trawl of the archives, here is a variety of shots of Delta’s A220 flight. If you prefer to call this a C Series from its Bombardier days, feel free but that ship has sailed!

Directly Under an A320

Leave a Reply

I did a little positioning to try and get a shot from directly under an airliner as it was making its approach to SeaTac. I was out near Boeing Field so they were still reasonably high. I managed to get myself right in alignment with the jet which, in this case, was an Alaska Airliners A320. When I first saw the shot, I have to admit I thought it was an Embraer E175 but then I read the lettering under the nose and realized it was bigger than I thought. I like the idea of a very different view of a familiar subject.

When Will We See You Again?

Leave a Reply

With long haul travel having almost vanished (other than a lot of use of passenger jets for freight movements), some of the regular visitors to Seattle and now a distant memory. Virgin Atlantic was a regular visitor and they had migrated from other types to the 787-9 recently. Here was one heading to SeaTac while I was at Boeing Field. With the reduced size of the airline post COVID (and assuming it survives), will they be coming to Seattle again any time soon? I hope so.