Opa-Locka and Miami on a cool day...Superbowl Sunday

It's early in February - we still get some nice cool days from the cold fronts that tend to drop down our way and on those days, the sky is clear, the light is perfect and it is worth getting in the car to drive down and spend a few hours at an airport. Superbowl Sunday was such a day - temperatures in the 60's and a clear day. My son and I headed out to start the day at Opa-Locka. There was one main reason for this - one of the few flying private Boeing 707's and when we got there - there is was in all it's glory. I've been trying to find this fine specimen for quite a while, so it was really nice to get a decent shot of it.

From there, we headed down to Miami to spend the afternoon looking there. This was the first time that I had shot Miami for any length of time with westerly operations. Thank goodness for a conveniently placed shooting shot and a wonderful view of runway 27. When Miami is on westerly operations, there are a lot more departures from the south runway and still a few arrivals. Hopefully, they roll long enough to get airborne just in front of the viewing spot like this Avianca A320.

Or, they land and roll long enough like this Cathay Pacific Cargo B744.

Caribbean has been leasing aircraft for a while to compliment their fleet. This is the latest one that has come from Transavia in Holland and still wears the hybrid color scheme.

With the cargo operations being on the south side of the airport, it's always nice to get these heavies lifting off in front of you.

However, if they are fully loaded like this World MD-11 (in their hybrid color scheme), then the rotation is a lot further down the runway and the lift off shots are not as spectacular.

My trusty Nikon D50 that has been shooting for almost 4 years is about to pass into my wife's hands and I am soon going to be the owner of a Nikon D200 - more megapixels, more power, I'm looking forward to seeing the results of this upgrade - watch this space....

Some more time spent behind the camera lens.....

Tis the season - at Opa-Locka (OPF)...

I'd promised previously to post some of the season goings on at Opa-Locka. There hasn't been the level of activity that there has been at Ft Lauderdale, but there were certainly some nice sights to see at Opa-Locka over the season. This was all shot in about a 15 minute period - not a lot of time, but Opa-Locka is like that - it's an easy compact airport to shoot at, but the shots can be very rewarding.

The first shot is something that I had been hearing about from various sources and some pictures of it that were already posted. The Mexican Air Force had brought their Boeing 737-200 into OPF for some refurbishment and work. I had been wanting to go down to OPF to try and shoot is and as time rolled by, I was wondering if, by the time I got to OPF, it might had departed already. However, the day I was there, it was standing right next to the fence with the APU running and some technicians going back and forth between the aircraft and the hangar. I managed to get my shot in perfect light and came away very happy.

Sitting right across the apron from the Mexican Air Force B732 was this Global Air Boeing 737-200 with it's engines removed. This Mexican registered B732 is very plain in it's color scheme with just the 3 stripes of color. This B732 started it's life at Southwest Airlines and has gone to Japan, Kazakhstan, and many other destinations before arriving back at Global in November 2009. I'm guessing that soon enough, it will have it's engines restored and will be back in the air, but I might be wrong on that.

Talking of Boeing 737's, another model that has been making final visits to OPF have been the Boeing 737-300's of Brazilian airlines GOL and Varig. There are probably a total of 6 or 7 from the 2 airlines at OPF - sent here to end their life and be broken up for parts. This particular aircraft, PR-GLH I had seen at the customs building at Ft Lauderdale when it arrived in the country from Brazil. It then flew from Ft Lauderdale to OPF to probably end it's flying life.



Finally, I'd noted the first Siberian S7 A310 that had arrived at OPF in my last posting about OPF. Since then, that first A310 VP-BSZ has been moved out to one of the remote parking areas and it is currently having it's wings disassembled. This is the second S7 A310 that arrived at OPF not long after it's sister ship. VP-BTJ is now sitting out on the apron, it's titles covered and most likely to suffer the same fate as her sister ship.

The weather starting 2010 in South Florida has been unseasonably cold and the winds have been consistently out of the west. I'm hoping that soon enough, we'll be back in the glorious light sunny days so that a lot more time can be spent behind the camera lens. I'm also trying to work on some options to have a few special features on the blog over the next year or so, so please keep checking back..

'Tis the Season..well...it was...

First of all, Happy New Year to all - I hope the festive season was peaceful and the New Year ahead is everything that you all hope for.

Ft Lauderdale has been interesting this festive season. Having worked through the working days of the season, I was able to take advantage of some of the stunning Florida season weather to catch up on some on my list of want to have's, and there have been quite a few of them!

Canjet, the Canadian charter company always seems to get some interesting schemes for the aircraft that they lease over this busy period. Two schemes that I knew were flying for them this season were both from Germany - one from Tui and the other from Hapag Lloyd. Both are yellow schemes so it is quite a change from their usual blue and white scheme. One of them I have been able to get - the Tui. I'm hoping the Hapag Lloyd scheme comes into Ft Lauderdale sometime before it gets returned to Germany, so I'm keeping my eye out for it.

airTran has painted several of their Boeing 717's in special color schemes for NFL teams and one for a NBA team. I've seen the Atlanta Falcons jet, but in terrible weather, so when I saw the Indianapolis Colts jet, Colts 1 in perfect light, I was a very happy person. I have to get the Falcons jet, the Baltimore Ravens and Orlando Magic jets in just the same light to complete the collection.

One very interesting catch of the season was a US Airways B767-200ER that came into Ft Lauderdale on a maintenance ferry. Apparently, something had gone wrong with this aircraft at San Juan, Puerto Rico, and it was ferried back to Charlotte via Ft Lauderdale. The very interesting part is that the flight from San Juan, about a 3 hour flight, was completed at 10,000' - well below the pressurization level.

Continental, for a while, has been equipping their Boeing 757-300's with winglets. Since my first Boeing 757 with winglet view, I've always loved the look of them. Now to get their -300's with winglets as well was a prize for me - interestingly enough, I caught two of them two days in a row - almost the exact same shot. I hope that Northwest (Delta) does the same with their -300's - those will make for a great shot as well

Northwest (Delta color scheme) did grace Ft Lauderdale with one nice surprise of the season - the football charter bringing the Pittsburgh Steelers in for their post New Year game against the Miami Dolphins - and - they did it with style - an Airbus A330-300 in Delta colors - I think this aircraft is probably the best for the new color scheme after the Boeing 747-400's.

Finally for this post, I always love to see biz-jets, and this one is a classic. This Lockheed JetStar was manufactured in 1966 and still flies with great regularity. I've seen flying in and out of Ft Lauderdale a few times - this is her home base, but each time I manage to catch her, there is bright sunlight, or heat haze and as you can see from her color scheme, bright light and heat haze do not do her justice.

That was just a sampling of Ft Lauderdale over the season. Watch this space as some time was also spent at Opa-Locka over the season, and there was at least one very special catch there.

More time spent behind the camera lens.....

Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Prosperous 2010!

Opa-Locka - Florida's Boneyard

After hearing about Opa-Locka for a long time and never getting there, I recently finally made the trip. Really , it was only a 10 minute diversion off my normal route to Miami, so now I know where it is, I'll be going more and more often as there are always amazing sights at Opa-Locka (KOPF). There are old retired B727's (Champion Air was one I remember), old retired DC-8's, old retired DC-10s - so many I can't remember them all now and I didn't get them in the camera lens as I had a 5 year old that had been for a photo shoot himself that morning and by the time that we got to OPF, was already dozing off - and we still had an hour plus drive home to West Palm Beach. I can tell you this will not be the last blog entry about OPF.

I will start by saying that OPF is not just a boneyard though - it's a great operational airport that happens to have some interesting airworthy aircraft too. The first one that I managed to shoot is a first for me - my first Russian-made aircraft. This AN12-B was one of 3 on the ramp that Sunday afternoon. From what I have heard, the 3 are still operational operating to the Caribbean and South America.



Gulf Air has their home base as Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. For quite a while, they operated B763's all over Europe, the Middle East and Asia and then started to phase the B763's out and replaced them with Airbus equipment. This ex-Gulf Air B763 has been at OPF for a while now, rumored to be going to a private owner, but the colors still remain for the moment.



One thing that is very evident at OPF are a lot of the old propeller engined aircraft. I saw so many, old DC-3's and this one was one of a few DC-7's that still seem to be airworthy and have been restored to their old glory. Next time I go to OPF, I'm going to try and catch more of these old graceful ladies of the skies and get a lot more information about them. In the meantime, this old lady proudly wears the colors of Eastern Airlines.



When talking to some of the other local photographers about OPF, there was a lot of talk about a new arrival at OPF that had arrived in the last couple of days. A S7 Airbus A310 from Russia. I'm not sure at the moment if this is a maintenance call or if she is here for the boneyard or fitting out for a new owner. I'll try and find out what is with her.



A few weeks ago while I was at Ft Lauderdale for a lunch time, I happened to see a Varig B733 taxing out for departure and wondered where it was going for scrapping knowing that Varig had phased out their B733's. Well, I get to OPF and am driving around looking when lo and behold, there is PP-VOZ right in front of me, along with a sister ship from Varig and another B733 from GOL also from Brazil. A little further around the airport, there were another 2 B733's from GOL - one white and one in full orange colors. The engines were being removed so I am guessing they are destined to be broken up here at OPF.



Look for more pictures and associated stories from OPF in the future....

Biz-jets - or how the other 1% flies...

Ever since I started photographing at Palm Beach International (PBIA), I have developed an affinity for biz-jets. For those of us that normally fly cattle...I mean....coach (economy, the back of the plane, etc), it can only be a dream to be able to see the inside, let alone fly in one of these dream jets that can transport the few as far as a regular commercial jet can take the rest of us. Recently, I spent a Saturday afternoon at PBIA just shooting biz-jets and, it was a busy afternoon.

Now, to start, there are the higher end biz-jets - old commercial airlines that have converted to luxury transports for those that can afford to own and operate one - some that come to mind are Dallas Maverick's owner Mark Cuban and his Boeing 767-200, Russian billionaire Roman Abromovich and his Boeing 767-300 aptly named "The Bandit" for it's color scheme (search any of the regular aviation photography sites for the registration P4-MES) and of course local entrepreneur Donald Trump with his Boeing 727 shown below (which is apparently up for sale - search Craigslist for VP-BDJ).



The rest of the biz-jets are purposefully built for the task. I will say that I have my favorites. The Bombardier Global Express has to be probably my favorite of all. It is one of the largest biz-jets on the market, but from what I have seen of their performance on take-off, it is probably one of the most powerful as well. Every time I see one of these power off a runway either at PBIA or Ft Lauderdale, I always have to go back and try to find a flight plan to see where that one has departed to. I have seen several power off runway 9L at PBIA in just over 3,000' of runway, and it's flying an overnight flight to London Stanstead - they simply are amazing. This one I caught recently at PBIA. If any of my readers is a GLEX pilot - or knows a GLEX pilot - I'd love to talk about this amazing jet.



For the longest time, the Gulfstream seemed to be the best known biz-jet. They were everywhere and so many of them still fly all over the world, from the G-II to the now G-550 and if my memory serves me, the G-650 is the next variant. This G-IV I shot at PBIA last weekend is a visitor from Canada.



Also from the Bombardier stable is the Challenger series - smaller than the Global Express, but still a very sharp looking biz-jet. They come in the -600 and -300 series - this -300 I shot at PBIA the past Saturday as well. It's a plain white color scheme - but I think it makes it all the more sleeker.



One of the first biz-jets I became interest in many years ago was a South African Air Force Falcon 900 registration ZS-NAN. It was the Presidential aircraft at the time, before the BBJ ZA-RSA came along. I had a friend who was the flight engineer on NAN and they were always off taking the South African President all over the world. The Falcon has also come in a lot of variants - the latest one being the 7X which has the blended winglets and an amazing wingspan when you stand in front of or behind it. This one below is a 900EX that passed through PBIA last weekend - going to Customs after landing and then heading off to some other location.



The last one I'll mention in this blog entry has it's roots in England, the land of my birth. When is came out originally, it was known as the Hawker Siddeley HS-125. These I also used to see a lot in South Africa as they were the executive jet of the South African Air Force. Now, they still carry the same design as the original HS-125 and still carry the Hawker name. The one pictured below is a 800 variant.




I must say, it's been so nice being back behind the camera lens in such lovely fall Florida weather. The shooting season is also getting into it's swing - I saw my first foreign charter of the season a couple of weeks ago - a Thomas Cook Scandinavia A330 at Ft Lauderdale - can't wait to see what the rest of the season holds.

Visitors from the North

Come the cool down of fall, the number of movements at Ft Lauderdale always increases. The charters from the cold of Canada as well as the increase of regular commercial traffic adds to the increased traffic. During this time, there can be some interesting schemes to be seen. Here are some that have been seen over the past years, and hopefully will be seen again this winter season.


Air Transat brings in their Airbuses - the A310 and the A330-200 and A330-300. What is always nice about their A310 is they get the Christmas treatment



Canjet got a new color scheme a couple of years ago and since then, I always wanted to get the new scheme - finally last year I did. Canjet sometimes also lease a B737-800 from Transavia in Holland for the season and hopefully this year, they will again and I'll be able to catch that one.



Skyservice is one that operates on an irregular basis and so when they can be caught, it's always nice to get them. Last year, they had just received their B757's from Thomas Cook.



Sunwings are regular visitors in the season. They normally have 3 or 4 different color schemes on their B737-800s. This one is the basic XL color scheme that their lease during the season.



Westjet is really not classed as a charter into Ft Lauderdale as they do operate a scheduled service. However, sometimes, it's nice to get their aircraft that don't normally operate to South Florida - in this case, their B737-600 - they are the only commercial operator of this B737 variant in North America.



Air Canada is the only year round regular scheduled commercial airline from Canada. However, in the fall and winter season, they also start to bring in some of the aircraft that are a change from the normal Airbuses. In this case, their B767-300ER.


Now that the fall and winter season is starting, it's going to be interesting to see what graces our runways and taxiways.....who knows.....