Tag Archives: airplane

LAX is Attracting the Neos

The A320neo (and more recently the A321neo) has been a big seller for Airbus. However, introduction has not been smooth with both of the engine suppliers struggling to meet their commitments for powerplants (Pratt and Whitney definitely having the worse time of it). Despite this, the neos are turning up in service in a lot of places but I had not seen a lot of them. My trip to LAX changed that a bit.

Here I got to see a few operators with the neos in service. The far larger fan diameter of the new generation engines makes the neos reasonably easy to spot and I like a big high bypass engine so I appreciate the change. It won’t be too long before they are around in huge numbers and won’t be worthy of comment but, on this trip, I was pleased to see so many.

Qantas Celebrates Aborigine Art Again

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Qantas has decorated previous aircraft with liveries that encompass aborigine art. Their Wunala Dreaming aircraft was well known around the world and, in an age when airline liveries tend to be rather bland, these colorful jets are a welcome change. They have taken a similar route with one of their new Boeing 787-9s and I saw it at Paine Field during test flying. It came in from the south and executed a go around from relatively low level.

Then they caught me out by heading north to turn and make an approach from the opposite direction. This required some rather swift repositioning by me. In fact, I got to the parking lot as they were on final approach and, rather than park, I just pulled to the side, ran up the bank, grabbed the shot and then got back in the car to park properly. It was tight but it worked out okay.

Pegasus Testing with the Hornet (and it’s not raining)

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My luck with KC-46s and bad weather broke recently with a Pegasus launching out of Boeing Field on a glorious day. It was carrying out trials work with a US Navy Hornet. This jet was the subject of its own post. The KC-46 followed it down the runway. It rotated in a good location and the light was so much nicer than I have had recently so I was very happy to get shots of it as it climbed out and headed off to the airspace set aside for testing.

Antonov Hanging Around on the Ground

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I have shot a lot of AN124 Ruslan movements in recent years whether in the Bay Area or now we are in Seattle. I am still happy to see them, of course, but something a little different is welcome. When I arrived in LA, there was one parked up on the ramp near the museum. I figured it would be gone by the time I was back for my helicopter flight but I was wrong. It was still there. Consequently, I was happy with a few new views on a familiar beast.

Salty Dog Hornet Goes Tanking

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The never-ending test program for the KC-46 Pegasus involves testing with a variety of receiver aircraft. Recently, the Navy has deployed jets to Boeing Field to work with the tankers. While I was there, it was a Boeing F/A-18D Hornet that was sent across. Operating with the call-sign, Salty Dog, the Hornet blasted out of the field ahead of its tanker. They were scheduled to be up until after dark so I didn’t hang around for their return.

Most West Coast??

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The merger of the Virgin America operations into Alaska Airlines means combining the Airbus fleet with the Boeings. Virgin America had ordered some A321neos and these are in the process of delivery just as things are being merged. Alaska chose to change the livery on the next one off the line and adopted a scheme designed to reflect the number of flights they now operate on the west coast. The Most West Coast jet has not been popular since it seems to lack branding of either airline. It was at the gate when I landed in LA and I saw it taxiing out later that morning. I wonder how long it will last in this form?

Wamos – A New Airline for Me

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There are many airlines around the world so plenty that you probably haven’t heard of and may never see. Finding one in your backyard is a surprise though. There I was hovering over LAX in a Robinson shooting pictures of the arriving and departing jets and a 747-400 appears on the approach. Since they are becoming fewer and further between these days, this was a good thing. When I saw the name on it, I had no idea what it was.

Wamos is apparently a Spanish airline. They have been operating some flights to LA but, up until this point (and the subsequent research I did), I had never heard of them. I guess we just never crossed paths. A new airline and a 747 was a pretty sweet combination. I was definitely on a roll on this flight as I got a number of treats.

P-8 Heads Out on Test

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Every once in a while, you just get lucky. I happened to be at Boeing Field on a sunny day with operations in a southerly direction and a bunch of cool traffic. Most of the traffic shows up on Flightaware so you have a clue it might be flying but my recent experiences have been that the P-8 test flights have not been listed. Consequently, I was a little surprised when a P-8 pulled out of Boeing’s military operations ramp and taxied for departure. It came right past me as it made its way to the departure end. A short while later it rolled.

The sun was out, the light was nice, they rotated at a good location to get some nice shots and then, as they climbed out, the clouds were really nice providing a mottled sort of background. The colors looked great behind the grey jet. What a great combination!

Wingtip Treatments

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Richard Whitcomb was an aerodynamicist at NASA who pioneered a number of technologies that benefit the aviation world today. One of those was his development of winglets. These are the wingtip treatments that improve lift to drag ratio and climb performance without significantly extending the wing. While his work was clear, it took a while for them to be implemented widely. Now, most aircraft involve some sort of wingtip extension. However, the first aircraft to replicate his design approach was the MD-11.

The MD-11 had a split winglet with a larger extension upwards and a smaller one downwards. This reflected some of Whitcomb’s original drawings. Strangely, after this, the focus was on upward winglets only (although the Airbus approach for a while was what they called a fence on the wingtip which was something more in keeping with the Whitcomb approach). Recently, there has been a return to the original with APB introducing the Split Scimitar and Boeing producing their own Split Winglet design (not as elegant as the APB approach in my mind.

Most airliners and many business jets now incorporate a tweaked wing tip configuration. Maximizing the aerodynamic performance requires squeezing as much as you can out of the design within the space constraints you have. The following pictures are examples of the different types used.

Tahiti Nui Comes Up Trumps

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A favorite airline of mine is Air Tahiti Nui. I have never flown with them but they have a colorful livery and they still fly Airbus A340-300s so they get points from me on two fronts. The only place I ever get to see them is at LAX. Normally they operate off the southern runway complex and I saw a couple on the ground while I was there on a recent trip. While I was doing my flight over the airport to photograph operations, I knew the timing was right for one of their flights to come in. However, things were pretty busy that day and we were reluctant to move over to the southside to get them arriving as we feared we might not get back into the center area to shoot arrivals on the northside again.

I was resigned to not getting them when my lucked took a very positive turn. For some reason, and I don’t know what it was, the controllers brought them in to the north runways. They came to me! I didn’t have to do anything to reposition and I hadn’t even been aware at first that they were coming that side. Needless to say, when they appeared on final, I was pretty stoked. I imagine these jets will be replaced before too long so I was delighted to get these shots of them airborne.