Tag Archives: airliner

Sunset Into Midway

Southwest Airlines and I are quite well acquainted. I am on one of their 737s on a rather regular basis. These days I am making the trip back and forth to the west coast a lot. Coming back from there usually means me arriving back into Chicago towards the end of the day. At this time of year, that can be around the time of sunset. I tend to sit on the side of the plane that gives you a nice view of the sunset as we are getting close to home.

I don’t always have my camera with me (although I always have the camera in my phone) and the combination of light and clouds is not always ideal. However, sometimes it just seems to work and give me something I am happy to remember. These images aren’t something that is ever going to be a big deal to anyone else but they are nice for me. No-one is going to want a wing and engine in the way either! Since you can’t change position, the view is a variation on the same theme all the time. That isn’t the point. I just have to remember to look backwards sometimes to see what is going on.

New Angles on O’Hare

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I hadn’t been out to O’Hare for a while and with a sunny Sunday according to the forecast and no other things needing to be done imminently, I decided to head out. I spent the initial time out there getting some pretty normal approach type shots. A couple of new things for me to see but nothing terribly dramatic. Then I decided to try some other places.

I headed around to the west side of the field and looked at what the departures had to offer. A level of cloud had moved in which was making the sky a little gray in the shots, even if there was still a good level of sun on the planes. The sun was causing a lot of heat haze and the backgrounds weren’t making for great shots so i decided to bag that idea and head to the approach lights. With departures off 32L, I could go to the place where the approach crosses the main road and get some head on shots of the departures.

It is a bit of a game since the planes appear quite suddenly and are soon over you. However, it offered some different views. Not something I will do every time but it was good to get a slightly different perspective on what is on offer.

Airlines That No Longer Exist

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A while back I put together a few shots of Northwest Airlines planes when it occurred to me that I had shots of an airline now departed. For some reason, this topic popped back into my head again and I started wondering what other airlines I have shots of that no longer operate (at least under the name they had at the time). I thought about a bunch of airlines that have disappeared but it turned out that I did not have shots of many of them.

However, there were a few that I came across as I went through the files. I got interrupted in the process and was not able to search through all of the possibilities but I did get a few from days gone by – some from quite a while back. Here are some examples. (Some might find the Continental planes barely gone but they are United these days.)

Other SeaTac Stuff

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The SeaTac shooting had a number of specific things that I have already covered. However, since it is an airport that serves a lot of destinations and carriers, it has a bunch of other things worth seeing. Long haul operators include Delta (serving a lot of routes that were once Northwest), British Airways and Icelandair. I have always seen the Icelandair aircraft on the ground when traveling through SeaTac but they seem to have a schedule that means one arrives at around the same time the previous day’s arrival departs. Not a very efficient use of the airframe but I guess it works for them.

The domestic carriers were also there with Alaska making up the majority of the movements – at least in the time windows I had.

Horizon schemes

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Seattle is a busy airport with plenty of operators coming through. However, the home airline is Alaska and their regional affiliate is Horizon. Consequently, both of them are very busy. Horizon operates a fleet of Bombardier Q400s. They used to have some CRJs too but these have been moved to another operator and now they are dedicated to the turboprops.

They do seem to have really gone to town in applying special liveries to some of their aircraft. These are focused on a lot of the local colleges and universities. They do paint up a lot of planes in school colors! While I was there, I got a surprising number of them passing by. Here are a few samples of the different schemes they have (along with one normal one just to show that they aren’t all specials).

FedEx shots

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A recent trip to Seattle gave me some time at the very beginning and end of the day to pay a visit to SeaTac. Plenty of interesting things are to be seen there. One specific area of interest for me was the amount of traffic for FedEx. They had a lot of movements with a variety of types. (A contractor operates Cessna Caravans for them which I saw but did not get any shots of sadly.) With FedEx just having announced a reduction in types in their fleet plan, this was a more interesting opportunity than it might otherwise have been.

Two McDonnell Douglas types came through while I was there. The MD-11s are busy as usual but I also got MD-10s. Meanwhile, the Airbus A300s were also in use. I don’t get to see them often and, since they are going to be retired in large numbers soon, I might not get many more chances. With movements at the beginning and end of the day, I was able to catch them several times. They were busy. I am assuming the middle of the day is quieter for them so I didn’t miss much while at work.

The only unfortunate side of shooting the FedEx jets was their departure profiles. When on the departure end of things, I was generally in a good location to catch the jets as they came by. FedEx was the exception. I don’t know whether they practice rapid climb outs due to flying into some dangerous places or just for noise abatement (they do have some aging aircraft) but the result is that they climb fast and are much higher than average by the time they reach you. Nothing much I can do about that of course but it was a bit of a shame. Approach shots were not an issue of course. The three degree glideslope is the same for everyone! Time to enjoy some of these jets before they go for good.

Cloudy KC

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Our journey home came through Kansas City. We got the airport in plenty of time so were hanging around waiting for our flight. The clouds were working their way across the sky and the beams of light that cut out of them at times could be quite attractive. An airport ramp is not the best foreground for that type of shot but you don’t ignore something because of that. Here are a couple of examples of how it looked.

Under Your Nose at King County

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Hayman and I had a few hours to kill after we arrived in Seattle and before we had a ferry to catch (of which more in another post). We decided to stop off at Beoing Field to have a look around. We checked out a number of places including the excellent pilot shop they have and ended up near the end of the runway. I had looked at this location on a previous visit but not shot there. A 737 was up on a test flight and due in soon so we decided to hang around.

Before the 737 appeared, we did have a couple of corporate jets show up. Identifying them from underneath is a little hard to do, even for those of us with far too familiar a knowledge of this things. However, I was more interested in getting a slightly different shot from underneath. With power lines nearby, there was a relatively short period of time in which you could get a clear shot.

The 737 showed up shortly afterwards. We did get to shoot it as it passed overhead but I did remember to stop shooting at one point and just look. The view through a wide lens tends to make everything look small. However, having something the size of a 737 right over your head is very impressive and you need to stop taking pictures and just have a look every once in a while.

Sunset Above the Clouds

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As the spring moves closer to summer, the view on my flights home changes. The timing is not any different but I get further east before the sun gives up and disappears. Arriving in the light is not far off now but I am still getting to experience the sunset while airborne. Sometimes it doesn’t appear to be very interesting. I guess this is a function of where the clouds are relative to us. However, one recent trip included a very nice looking sky. Looking back across the wing, I could just make out the sun going down.

The light on the top of the clouds looks particularly nice from above. Sadly it is one of those events where I am disappointed that the image can’t replicate exactly how it felt to be looking out. However, maybe it will give you a small example of how it looked or, if you have seen the same thing yourself, remind you of how nice it looks.

Boeing 737s In Progress

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While there might be changes afoot in Boeing’s production locations, Seattle is still the heart of what they build. A short distance from Boeing Field is Renton, the home of 737 production. However, the plant at Renton is an assembly facility as much as a production location and, while they do build chunks of the aircraft there, a substantial portion is made elsewhere.

Most notable of the parts coming from other places is the fuselage. Boeing used to own a plant in Wichita that builds the fuselages but they sold it a few years back and it now goes by the name of Spirit. The production of the fuselages is still done there under sub-contract and the finished fuselages are shipped to Renton by train. The train comes along the tracks right behind Boeing Field. Earlier in my visit I had been driving when a train with a couple of fuselages on it went by. I was pretty annoyed to have missed it. However, I would get lucky when another train with several more fuselages on board came by.

Supposedly the journey across is not always trouble free. There is no issue with the length of the fuselage. However, some of the residents along the route are not as concerned with the well-being of an expensive piece of airplane. Repairs are often required after they arrive including patching the occasional gun shots. I guess those people are not planning on flying on the plane any time soon or maybe they might be a little less cavalier!