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Out with the Old and In With the Nui

Sorry for the corny pun but I just couldn’t resist. One of my favorite airliners to shoot has been the Air Tahiti Nui A340-300. I have seen them at LAX on a number of visits. Shooting them taking off on the south complex has been possible on a few occasions and I was super lucky to get one of them landing on the north complex when I was overhead in the helicopter. The A340s are getting a bit old at this point, though, so their replacement has been ordered and it is going to be the Boeing 787-9.

One of the jets was in flight test at Everett so, with nice weather on a weekend and flying underway, I couldn’t resist a trip up to get the return. I was too late for a takeoff shot. The conditions were great. A cold snap meant that the air was clear and the sun, while it disappeared for a while shortly after I arrived, was back in plenty of time for the return. Consequently, as the plane came across the Cascades, I could see it easily prior to it turning north to come in on the approach. Mt Baker was clear in the background as they made the turn to final approach.

The dark colors of the livery make it necessary to use a bit of shadow slider when processing the shots. It was just after midday so the light was a bit on the nose of the jet but you could still get something good for the fuselage sides. The touchdown was a bit firm providing a smoky cloud of tire rubber. I wonder how much tread the airline expects to have at delivery? Often the jets will come back for a rejected takeoff run but this time they went straight back to the ramp.

787th 787

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The current generation of wide body jets are being built at rates that would have been hard to imagine a few years ago. Fourteen jets a month is so much more than would have been contemplated before. That is the sort of build rate that the 787 and the A350 are achieving. The result is a lot of jets being in service not that long after the fleet first appeared. Boeing recently built the 787^th 787. It was a jet for China Southern and I got a shot of it returning to Everett. I’m glad it was an Everett jet rather than a Charleston one. I wonder who got to make that decision!

Direct to Ethiopia is Still Not That Heavy

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Ethiopian Airlines has been taking delivery of some Boeing 777F freighters for their cargo operations. One of the new jets was being readied for delivery while I was at Paine Field. Operations were in a northerly direction so, from the terrace on top of the Future of Flight, we were going to get a good view. I was hoping that a direct flight to Bole in Ethiopia would be sufficiently long to mean that the jet would be very heavy with fuel and would run long on take off giving us a good view of rotation. However, while there was a lot of fuel on board, the lack of any other payload meant it still got off the ground pretty swiftly. Still, it was a good view of the initial climb out.

Oh Man! More New 787s

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A nice early winter sunny day is a pleasant surprise in the Pacific Northwest and I was able to head across to Everett to see what was happening. Boeing is busy building Dreamliners too though and a couple were on test flights while I was there. One was Oman Air. The scheme is an interesting change from the boring white liveries. You can certainly hear the jets as they land because the test flight involves the deployment of the Ram Air Turbine and it buzzes away when they go by. The other arrival will deserve its own post.

Smoking the Ukrainian Way

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The regular AN124 visitors to Everett continue. This time of year can often bring northerly winds which means a departure up past the Future of Flight building. Having a heavy Ruslan depart that way can mean a nice angle to get on rotation as well as the climb out which, while a bit backlit, makes for a good change. I was happy with the takeoff but, as the jet climbed away to the north, the smoky combustion of the old D-18 engines was clear to see. The further that they climbed out, the less the plane was obvious and the more the smoke trail was. A bit of mixing from the trailing vortices helped as well. A lot of the people around me were commenting on how dirty it was.

Gulf Air 787-9

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I caught this Gulf Air 787-9 as it returned from a test flight to Paine Field. It was at the end of the SkyFair event so the crew will have noticed that there were a lot of people on hand to witness their landing. Not a particular problem of course but probably one of the few landings of the Boeing production tests to get a large crowd.

Stuka Time

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FHCAM opened up a new hangar at their museum facility in Everett. To coincide with the new opening, they unveiled a new addition to the collection. This addition was a Stuka. They had hinted earlier in the week that it might be a Stuka and I was hoping that would be the case. The other aircraft they were hinting at was the Me262 and, since we know they are close to flying their example of that, having a Stuka would be a significant addition. I was really pleased to see that was the case although the 18-24 months until it is airworthy will be a bit of a drag. Good things come to those that wait, though.

I put a fuller piece on GAR which you can see at the link below. Here are a couple of shots of the current state of the airframe.

Warbirds – FHCAM Stuka Unveiling

Another FedEx Test Flight

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Our visit to the Boeing Factory Tour at Everett with our visitors not only included the escapees from the hurricane that I covered here but also included the ongoing production test flying activities. The 767 line is only producing freighters and tankers these days and the majority of the freighters have been going to FedEx. This one undertook a test flight while we were there. We saw it head out and, when it returned, it flew a missed approach before landing.

Gulfstream Addition to Skyfair

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SkyFair was a great time to see a bunch of warbirds flying around. It didn’t stop the normal operations of the airport though. As the day wore on, a Gulfstream made an arrival. It didn’t do anything special for the remaining crowds but it was still something a little different to add to what had been a great day.

Alpha Jet Action

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The Alpha Jet has attracted the attention of a few owners in the Pacific Northwest. This example is pretty cool because, rather than being painted in some new scheme, it is still in the colors it wore when operated by the Luftwaffe. It flew a few passes during Skyfair so we were able to see it in action. I have seen lots of the French style Alpha Jets with the spinning nose but my exposure to the German style of jets over the years has been a lot less. The pointy nose has a slightly more purposeful look to me.