Tag Archives: falcon 2000

A Quick Visit To LCY

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.

Union Pacific’s Falcon 2000

Union Pacific is one of the large freight railroads in the US.  Their fleet of locomotives is commonly seen across the US west of Chicago.  They are painted yellow and carry a large American flag on the side.  However, trains are not the only way that staff of UP get around.  They also own a Dassault Falcon 2000 and I saw it come in to Boeing Field.  While it isn’t painted like a loco, it certainly shares a few design cues with them and it looks a bit more interesting than the average all white scheme.

Falcon Go Around

C59F4138.jpgThe 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.

C59F4262.jpgI 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.

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