Tag Archives: british airways

Steep Decent Config On The E190

The Embraer E190 is the most common airframe to be seen flying in to LCY these days. British Airways’ Cityflyer operation uses a bunch of them on its services. Anything flying in to LCY needs to be approved for steep approaches. This usually involves a modification to the controls for a steep descent mode. As I watched the E190s descending on the approach, I could see that the spoilers were deployed all the way down. I assume that this is a higher drag configuration that makes the descent angle needed achievable while controlling the speed.

The thing that was more impressive than the descent profile was the departures. The runway at LCY is not long. Watching the jets spool up for departure, I wondered how much of the runway that they would use. As it turned out, they rotated really quickly and the climb out angle was very steep. With the buildings of Canary Wharf ahead, they need to climb quickly but I was quite taken by just how fast they climbed.

A Quick Visit To LCY

Leave a Reply

I wanted to explore some parts of London that I haven’t been too much before so I headed east. Before I started getting my real exploration underway, though, I took a visit to London City Airport. I haven’t been there for years and things have changed a lot including the types that can access the airport. I had seen some photos from the airport but I wasn’t sure about the options for photographing there. I was also not timing it well with things being far busier in the early morning and late afternoon. Still, it was worth a visit.

I headed to the east of the airfield where a road bridge crosses the water. I was hoping that this would give a good view down the runway but the runway lights obscured things a little. An offset helped a bit. It also was a good location for some approach shots.

I then headed back towards the terminal and got some touchdown shots from alongside the runway as well as a few shots of jets taxiing out and departing. It was quite something to see the Embraer E190s climbing out so quickly. They got airborne very swiftly and climbed away like homesick angels. The majority of traffic was British Airways Cityflyer Express so not that much variety but a few bizjets came through too.

Later in the day,when crossing the Thames in the Cable Car, I got a good view down towards the runway. It would have been great if a jet had taken off while I was crossing but one took off just after I got back on the ground. As I walked to the Excel center, I saw a high level footbridge that looked like it might have a good alignment with the runway. I planned to check it out later but, having spent a long time with a friend and needing to get back, I completely forgot until it was too late. If anyone knows whether this spot works, please let me know.

Heathrow A350s

Leave a Reply

One of the things I was looking forward to seeing at Heathrow was A350s in new liveries. I have seen a lot of A350s but I have never seen the British Airways and Virgin Atlantic A350-1000s and, since they are based at Heathrow, I figured I would get a chance. As we landed and taxied in, I saw both operators’ aircraft but, because of where I was sitting, I wasn’t able to get any shots. The end of the journey and the return to Heathrow allowed me to address that.

I got to shoot an arriving BA jet while outside the airport and there were some parked up on the gates when we were getting ready to board our flights. Virgin was a bit more elusive. I could see one parked up behind a Cathay 777 but that was it. Other operators were also helping out though. Amongst the arriving jets were examples from Malaysian Airlines, Finnair and Iberia. All nice additions to the A350 collection for me.

BA’s Smallest Big Jet

Leave a Reply

British Airways was an early customer for the 787 when Boeing launched it in the form of the 787-8 and has been growing the fleet ever since. They now operate the -8, the -9 and the -10 versions. Their introduction allowed the retirement of the 767-300 fleet so the 787s are now the smallest of the widebodies (although the 787-10 has similar capacity to a 777-200ER). In Seattle, we tend to get the 787-9 or an occasional 787-10. However, Portland gets the 787-8 so, when I got to shoot one there, it was the first time I had seen a BA -8 in ages. They look quite stubby in comparison to the rest of the family.

QOTS Flashback and Gear Action

Leave a Reply

I was running back through some older shots while experimenting with some processing techniques and was looking at some British Airways 747-400 shots. With them now retired from BA service, it was a moment of reflection to see the shots again. It was also a departure sequence which meant there was a good view of the way in which the QOTS main gear tucked away. A cool looking sequence but a lot less common these days. Thank goodness for the freighters and the remaining passenger jets.

Not a British Airways Max

Leave a Reply

As a youth, a British Airways 737 was a regular sight. The 200 series got a ton of use by BA and, in later years, the 400 series did a lot of work at Gatwick. The A320 family gradually displaced them all. However, Comair in South Africa flies in BA colors. They even had 727s in BA colors in days gone by. IAG, the parent of BA, signed a letter of intent with Boeing for 200 737 Max aircraft but this has not been turned into a firm order that I know of. However, Comair did order the Max and one of their aircraft was on test recently. I am not sure if it is still going to Comair or has been reallocated to another customer but it is still in British Airways markings – for now.

Dreamliner In the Mist

Leave a Reply

During the winter, I shot a British Airways 787 as it approached landing at Seattle Tacoma International. There was some low cloud base and it was just skirting the bottom of the clouds as it passed me by. It was appearing and disappearing from view within the clouds and, even when clear, was pulling a bit of vapor along with it! An all-white jet against a cloudy backdrop does not make for a contrasty shot but the elusive nature of the plane with such a background made the shots interesting to process.

The Earliest A320s

Leave a Reply

A launch customer for the A320 was British Caledonian Airways. Unfortunately for those that liked Scottish themed airlines, BCal was bought by British Airways before the jets were delivered. I recall some dispute with Airbus about who would pay for the repaint of the first jet but maybe that is an urban legend. I think there were ten of them and BA took delivery. However, they were an orphan fleet for a long time in amongst all of the BA 737s and 757s.

That changed when BA went to an all A320 family short haul fleet breaking their long standing use of Boeing jets (plus some other stragglers). However, that cam much later. The earliest jets were A320-100s and these didn’t have the wing tip fences. The A320-200 followed very soon afterwards. Here are two shots of them. One is from 1988 with an A320 in BA’s Landor scheme on approach over my head to Gatwick. The other shot is a late in life shot of one of the earliest jets taken at Heathrow. These early examples are all gone now.

British Airways 787-10

Leave a Reply

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.

Cosford’s Civil Collection

Leave a Reply

More from the film scanning archive. I made a trip to the museum at RAF Cosford when I was visiting my friends Jon and Charlie in the area. Now Jon works there but at the time it was just an extra to my visit. At the time, British Airways had a collection of aircraft at the museum. This included lots of their older types in storage. Sadly, the cost of keeping the collection was not something BA management deemed worthwhile and they stopped funding it. The museum couldn’t afford to keep them up so they were scrapped on site. I wish I had a better record of them but this is all I have. Fortunately, others will have done better recording them.