I was lucky to catch this at Ft Lauderdale today - it had left Ft Lauderdale for La Guardia in the morning and came back - seems like it had been shuttling this route for a few flights. Fortunately, the clouds that were around broke up in plenty of time for the approach.
More time spent behind the camera lens....
I've long admired the great color schemes that Frontier Airlines brings. I think a lot have seen the adverts on TV - the talking animals - Frontier had a great set of ads that ran for a while. This winter season, they have started to bring the A320's into Ft Lauderdale - the A319's have been flying into Ft Lauderdale for quite a while - as have the E190's. I'm trying to get the complete series of the A320's, but, in the meantime, 10 out of the 14 have been caught in the view finder.
A lunchtime spent at Ft Lauderdale today revealed a rare visitor to Ft Lauderdale - not only a rare visitor, but a very rare aircraft type in the US now - a British Aerospace BAe 146-100. I personally haven't seen one of these in about 10 years - not since Northwest last flew them into St Louis on occasion. This perfect specimen - N114M titled "Lucky Liz" came through Ft Lauderdale on its way from the Bahamas to its home base - Ft Worth Meacham International Airport (KFTW). Another of those - perfect place at the perfect time in perfect weather.....
Some more time spent behind that camera lens...
Every year at this time, photographers from all over the world gather in Miami for the Digital and Slide Festival. Each year, thanks to great organization, we are privileged to get access to the airport grounds and get some awesome pictures. This year, unfortunately, the weather didn't play along with the tour - two cold fronts caused cloudy conditions for most of the day, but, any day on airport property with a camera is a great day! Still, I managed to get some decent shots...
The major attraction was the arrival of the "whale" - the A380 from Frankfurt - and we managed to get right next to runway 27 for the arrival. This was one of the latest A380s in the Lufthancsa fleet - D-AIMG "Wien".
A couple of attractions that were around the field were the classic Boeing 727s - both cargo planes - the first being this visitor from Brazil.
The second being this local aircraft from Amerijet - this we were able to shoot close to the runway as she completed a long take off roll down runway 27.
One of the other major attractions was the ability to photograph right next to the arrivals on runway 30 - on westerly operations at Miami (which is was this day), the majority of the European arrivals land on runway 30 and getting close to the touchdown point made for great shots. I could live in a tent next to this spot on westerly operations!!!!
Virgin 5 from Heathrow - recently changed from an A340-600 to the Queen of the Skies - this is G-VHOT "Tubular Belle".
Iberia brought in an Airbus A340-300 instead of the usual A340-600 from Madrid.
One of the many American jets to land on runway 30.
TAM from Brazil with it's regular A330-200.
Hopefully, next year's festival will bring better weather - I really could live right next to this runway! A lot more time spent behind the camera lens....
Suddenly it appeared at Ft Lauderdale - parked over by National Jets - something that I haven't seen before - and - it turned out - a brand new airline - Fly Jamaica Airlines - with it's plain but interesting scheme. The airline plans to fly from Kingston, Jamaica to Georgetown, Guyana, New York and Toronto. The plane itself is an older Boeing 757-200 that previous served with ATA (callsign AmTran).
A really nice special catch for me...
Some more time spent behind the camera lens....
I eluded a little to this in yesterday's post, but I didn't want to say much unless I got the shot today - well - the special guest was still there today - so I can only guess that members of the United Arab Emirates Royal Family is visiting Ft Lauderdale for the holiday season - here is their ride...
This Westjet special scheme had been just a wish - Westjet hadn't brought the -800 series into Ft Lauderdale in all the time I have been shooting here. But, for the beginning of the season, they changed their schedule, and one particular lunch time, out came this beauty. There is a story to this shot too - it was a cloudy day (not evident from the picture, but to the south of the airport - a lot of clouds) - and when I first saw this, I thought- no chance with the clouds. But - there was one ray of sun that shone through the clouds. The plane stayed in that ray all the way down Taxiway Charlie to the end - and - at the end of the taxiway, the Captain even waved. Now - I'd like to think the Captain saw us photographers at the end and stayed in that ray just for us - now - if it wasn't that - well, I'm not going to think about that - but - I'm thankful for the wave - these Westjet crews are always friendly.
I've been searching for this US Airways special scheme for the longest time - this is the last of the special schemes on US Airways A319's that I hadn't got. Thank you US Airways for replacing one of the Boeing 737-400's flights with the A319 - it's brought back a lot of the special schemes.
Of course, a couple of days later, the Star Alliance scheme came taxiing out.
The early morning light on some days has been wonderful as well. I haven't been able to catch a UPS Being 757 in ages - the last one was in Fort Myers a few years ago - so it was great to be able to catch this one in some lovely early morning light on it's way back to Louisville.
Frontier had brought the A319 to Ft Lauderdale for all except a couple of flights in the past years. This year however, the lunchtime arrival has been the A320 - giving us photographers a whole new range of their great tails for our photography pleasure. This one, one of my favorites - the bald eagle.
This jetBlue A320 - I love New York - is alwayts a welcome sight at any airport - but - in the glorious Florida Fall light, it really is a great picture.
Delta's SkyTeam colors are also a great sight at most airports. Since Delta have pulled the Boeing 737-800 flights, there hasn't been a chance to get that version of the SkyTeam colors, but fortunately, with the domestic SkyTeam (below - N659DL) and the international colored aircraft, we are lucky to get them once in a while.
The one European international scheduled flight is Condor with their Boeing 767-300ER's that come in on Friday afternoons. I'd caught one of these before when on a Frankfurt-Cancun flight, the headwinds had caused them to stop for fuel, but, this is the first time that I'd managed to catch one of the scheduled flights - Snoopy and Woodstock in their glory on the side as well.
They have been late in starting this year, but Sunwing will hopefully have all different types of hybrid schemes this season - I know there is a yellow painted aircraft around, but so far in the season, we have only seen the regular Sunwing colors and the blue British-registered Thompson Fly hybrids - still a long time in the season though.
It's two days before Christmas and a little bird whispered in my ear that there is a special in Ft Lauderdale for the Xmas - I'm not going to reveal what it is at the moment - just in case it has already left, but if I can get it on Christmas Eve, I will be sharing it here.
While I've been lucky to spend some time behind the camera lens, I still would like to wish my readers a wonderful, peaceful and very safe Holiday Season...
