Tag Archives: jet

Down By the Lake at Love Field

Bachman Lake sits at one end of Dallas Love Field. Early one morning, I decided to see whether the trail alongside the lake made for a good spot to get some shots. The traffic at Love Field is heavily skewed towards Southwest 737s so I wasn’t expecting a lot of variety but instead wanted to see what angles I could get. It also would be nice to have a stroll along the lake in the morning light.

There are two runways at Love Field so you have a bit of a guess as to which one will be used at any one time but that is fine. The view across the lake as the jets come to the northerly runway provides a nice wider view of things. The near runway allows getting together front quarter shots or to go right underneath for a different perspective. While most arrivals were Southwest jets, I did see a couple of corporate jets while I was there so there was a bit of variety.

Wright Patterson C-17 Visiting Texas

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I headed to Alliance during my time in the Dallas area. There was a C-17 parked on the ramp a bit away from where I was. However, it was in nice light at the beginning of the day. Things improved a lot when I saw the beacons come on followed by the sound of engines cranking. It wasn’t too long before the jet taxied for departure. The Wright Patterson markings on the fin meant it was easy to see that this jet was from Dayton. I don’t know if that was where it was headed or whether it had stopped at Alliance en route to somewhere else.

United Retro Jet

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I once got to shoot the United retro colors on the A320 while I was at SFO up the tower but I had not got a decent shot of it actually flying. When it showed up on approach to SFO, I was pretty pleased. Sadly, the cloud cover was not cooperating terribly well. Only when it had got past me did it pop into better conditions. It was okay when further out on final but neither of these were too helpful. One day!

A Pair of Beale’s Jets Show Up at BFI

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Boeing Field gets the occasional military visitors and you never know what might show up. I glanced up and saw a pair of T-38s downwind for arrival. They came in with about a minute of spacing between them. The tail codes showed them to be Beale jets. They headed to the FBO at Modern and were soon being refueled. The canopies stayed up so they may have been heading out again a while later but I had to move on so I didn’t get to see them depart.

A330 CEO Versus NEO Courtesy of Delta

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While I had headed to SeaTac to see the 21Air 767 arrive, I hung around for a couple of other arrivals. Delta operates a variety of long haul types into the airport and this includes A330s of the older and newer generations. First to arrive was an A330-300. A little while later, it was followed by an A330-900, the A330neo version. I thought I would try and get identical shots of both jets to see how much the engine and winglet changes showed up when looking at them in flight. Here are shots to compare the two types for you to make your own comparisons. I think the differences are there but they are not drastic.

Rush Hour at Founders’ Plaza for Qantas

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During my weekend in Texas, I headed to Founders’ Plaza to shoot some arrivals. I timed my time there to start around the time when the Qantas A380 was due to arrive. I got there with a few minutes to spare and struggled to find a parking spot. The place was packed. I found a space in the overflow area and got the camera out just in time to get a shot of the arriving jet.

As soon as it landed, everyone started to go. A short while later, there was a backup of traffic as the cars filed out of the parking lot and away. Within ten minutes, it wasn’t deserted but it was significantly quieter. The thing is, shooting in the middle of the day was not great from a light perspective and things got progressively better as the afternoon wore on. However, most people were interested in the A380 and after that they were done.

What to Do With A Big Tow Bar

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One of the regular Volga-Dnepr AN124 flights to Everett was departing. The jet was towed out of the Boeing ramp and on to the taxiway for start up and departure. The Antonov is a big jet and its four wheel nose gear needs a special tow bar. When you are one of the largest freighters in the world, why not just take it with you. Once he plane was in place, the crew rolled the tow bar around to the rear cargo ramp. There, they hooked it to two lifting hoists and the tow bard was hoisted into the aircraft and the rear doors closed.

If someone knows whether they leave it on the hoists in flight or whether it is stowed and secured in some other location when inside, please let me know in the comments. I do like the self sufficiency of the whole approach. Given how often they come to Everett, having a tow bar on site would seem plausible but I guess they will need it at any of their other, less frequented, stops so they have to carry it all of the time. You never know where you are going next.

Never Heard of 21Air Before

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One Saturday morning, I was scanning what was moving around the Seattle area and saw a Boeing 767-200 coming to SeaTac, operated by 21Air. I had never heard of this operator before and the picture online made the jet look like it was painted more interestingly than the average freighter. I figured I would pop down to get some shots, even though the conditions were not great. The light actually perked up a bit when the jet arrived so the results were better than I hoped. I asked a buddy about the operator and he, having never seen them before, was actually looking at two of their jets in LA. I wonder why they are suddenly on the west coast.

Founders’ Plaza at DFW

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I had heard about Founder’s Plaza at DFW before but I had never been there. I took a couple of trips there during my free weekend in Texas. It is a nice place to watch the planes and had a steady stream of visitors while I was there. Not only are there seats with sunshades, but there is plenty of grass on which to hang out and kids can run around without parents being too worried. You are close to the approach path for the western runways at DFW and there is a lot of traffic to watch.

You also see the planes taxiing out for departure on this side but the shots of those planes are sketchy as heat haze is a bit tricky for most of the day. It does appear that you are able to walk around towards the centerline of the outer runway but I didn’t try heading over there on this occasion. As the evening light settled in, the conditions got better and better. I imagine it gets a bit repetitive if you are a regular but, as a visitor, it was great to try somewhere new. I did end up with a lot of American Airlines jets, of course.

Tornados and a Jag – My Old Handling Buddies

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In my days in the aerodynamics department at Warton, I spent time working on the current aircraft handling section. This included a number of types but the main focus was on jaguar and Tornado work. When we were walking around the hangars at Duxford, there were examples of both jets on display. The Tornado was a big part of what I worked on and I had always loved the jet as it was coming in to service at the time I was getting interested in aircraft. The GR4 version is on display.

The Jaguar had been around a long time when I was getting into planes and the Tornado ended up replacing the Jaguars in the RAF Germany strike role. The jet continued for a lot longer though and got some decent upgrades late in life. I had a great time climbing over a jet in the hangar at Warton as we were looking at clearing a new store on the overwing pylon. A lot of fun!