Monday, February 28, 2011

Biz-jets again...for the Miami Boat Show

Recently, the Miami Boat Show was held and that brought more than normal General Aviation traffic into Ft Lauderdale for a few days. I managed to get up there for an hour on one of those days and was rewarded with some very nice sights.

This is the first time I've seen one of the Hawker 4000's - looks very much like an extended 125-700 or 125-800 series - but a very nice looking biz-jet!


Three in a row for Gulfstream G550's each with their own unique color scheme - but still looking stunning!




Then a couple of Canadair Challengers - unfortunately, no Global Expresses, my favorite biz-jet.




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

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Another Miami visit...another Transaero missed....

My son and I went down to Miami to again attempt to catch the Transaero B777 from Moscow - and - again, we missed it. After seeing the Lufthansa B747-400 arrive on runway 12, fellow spotter Matt Smith and I headed from the south side and runway 9 to the holes spotting location and runway 12 thinking this was the first of the European arrivals setting the precident. Of course, what came in on runway 9??? The Transaero - EI-UNW with the Cyrillic titles as well. When it left at 4:40pm, it was in cloud - this plane eluded me again - but - there has to be one day where I can get it in good light - and - hopefully, that will be soon.

But, while the clouds came and went, there were some decent catches to be had as well - mainly we stayed on runway 12, but went around to the south side and runway 9 for one visitor. This first catch, the World Atlantic is a newish airline operating out of Miami to the Caribbean and it made the catch even better by going off on runway 12 right in front of us.


More and more Continental aircraft are getting the United titles with the merger going ahead - this Boeing 757-200 came in on runway 12 right in front of us.


Another catch that has eluded me for a long time is any of the British Airways or American Airlines aircraft in the oneWorld titles, and again this was true - the regular colored British Airways Boeing 747-400 landing on runway 12.


I've been trying to catch one of these Caribbean Airlines Boeing 737-800's with the small air Jamaica titles for quite a long time - after catching the air Jamaica Boeing 737-800 in January. Fortunately, this one did the same as the World Atlantic MD-80 - it left on runway 12.


The one time that we did go back to the south side of the airport to runway 9 was to get this Aerolinas Aergentinas A340-300 - normally I miss this - so it was good to get it.


Another that came in on runway 12 - and something I've been wanting for a while as well is the new Air France colors - this Boeing 747-400 obliged us.


Finally, and the treat of the day was this Royal Netherlands Air Force KDC-10 that came in, sat for a couple of hours getting gas and then departing again to Haiti - it was the highlight of the afternoon - being such a rare catch.



Hopefully, another trip to Miami will allow me to get the Transaero Boeing 777 soon, but, in the meantime, some more time spent behind the camera lens....