Tag Archives: Dassault

Falcon Go Around

The smoothness with which air traffic is usually managed means that, whenever something doesn’t go to plan, it is quite a surprise. A go around on approach is a relatively rare occurrence. I have only been on three commercial flights that spring to mind when a go around was executed. I saw a couple at SFO last year on one day but that was when two of the runways were shut and they were squeezing as much as they could in making the chance of a conflict higher.

I was watching arrivals to Chicago Midway when I saw a Falcon 2000 on approach. As they got closer, they obviously got the call and the aircraft pitched up and applied power to climb away. It made for an unusual angle at which to see the plane as it banked away on to the missed approach procedure. It obviously was not a complicated procedure because they showed up again shortly afterwards. They were then followed by a similar Falcon 2000 and it was only later, when I was going through the pictures, that I worked out which one was the jet that had made the go around.

San Jose Biz Jets

Leave a Reply

San Jose is not an airport I had even shot at before. Paul and I decided to try it out on our way back to Dublin. There appeared to be a parking area near the threshold so we figured that was worth a shot and put it in to the GPS. As we drove there, Paul checked out Flightaware to see whether there was much due in. A few airliners and a couple of corporate jets were on the system but nothing too dramatic.

We got to the location and, sure enough, there was a good parking area with a pretty clear view of the approach if you avoided some trees. As we pulled in and sat in the car, a Global Express flew by. I was a touch bummed by this since, if we had missed a cool movement, would there be anything else. As it turned out, I was wrong to worry. San Jose seems to have a steady flow of corporate jet movements. Many of them are blocked on Flightaware, hence us not knowing they were coming. We didn’t have long before we had to be somewhere else but, in that time, we got a lot of biz jet traffic.

San Jose is convenient for a lot of high tech companies so they base their aircraft there. We got the Apple G650 in the short time we spent. I have to say, I thought Apple would have made it look a bit cooler but there you go. Maybe they want to be inconspicuous. One of the local guys told us which ones were regulars based on the field. He was less bothered by them but we were interested as first timers.

Big Business Jets

Leave a Reply

I was back in Seattle recently and, while the reason for being there took up the majority of my time, I did have a couple of opportunities at the end of the days to pay a visit to Boeing Field. I had been there last year and made the best of the nice light later in the day then. This time, the light looked good but proved to be a bit fickle and the day was not as long given the time of year. However, I did get an interesting selection of aircraft to shoot. Boeing Field is a popular location for business aviation given its close proximity to Seattle city center. There were some very nice large jets visiting. An Airbus ACJ from Germany was parked up the entire time I was there but I never saw it move. However, I did get to see some Globals and Gulfstreams stretch their legs.

The Global Express is a great looking business jet. One arrived shortly after I did and I managed to get it as it came in. I was at a spot I hadn’t tried before. It gives a better angle on the aircraft as they approach and touch down but it does suffer from a more cluttered background which is a shame. The Global looked like it was heading out again as I got ready to leave for the evening so I decided to go to the departure end of the runway and try and get it head on. By now the light was really going but I ramped up the ISO and decided to go for it anyway. Having Mount Rainier in the background certainly doesn’t harm a shot but it was really a bit too dark.

The other nice visitor was a G650. The newest of the big Gulfstreams is a significant improvement from an aesthetic point of view as far as I am concerned. This one had a great paint scheme too so I was very happy to see it. The runway direction was changed just before it left so I got to see it as it was airborne rather than on the takeoff roll which was nice.

Throw in some Dassault Falcons and I had a lucky run given how limited the time was that I had there. Hopefully I will be back again sometime soon.