Fall weather has arrived in South Florida....

The fall weather has finally made a showing in South Florida - cooler days, blue skies, westerly operations (well, ok - not all of the time), and perfect photography light. Thirty minutes at the viewing park at Ft Lauderdale yielded these shots in perfect light - I can't wait for the rest of the fall/winter shooting season in South Florida - the Canadian charters will hopefully be starting soon and if the light is anything like it was this day, it's going to be a wonderful season!!











More to come over the next weeks - in the meantime though, more time spent behind the camera lens....

LAX - Part 4 - United (Continental)

United has the most different color schemes at LAX - from the old gray, to the blue/white to the new Continental merger color scheme - a lot of movements from United too...

LAX - Part 3 - Delta

Some of the Delta movements - it was interesting to see SkyWest still has some CRJ's in the old Delta colors - Delta mainline is completely in the new color scheme.

LAX - Part 2 - American

A lot of American movements at LAX - these are a few of the ones that I took.

LAX Part One

As mentioned a couple of days ago, I managed to spend some wonderful hours at LAX - sitting at the Proud Bird Restaurant on the south side of the airport.

LAX is so totally different to a lot of places that I have been to before - there is so much traffic that I don't normally see and so I took full advantage of it. These are some of the shots that I have edited since I got back - there are many more to come....

Volaris is an airline that I have never seen before - they don't seem to come to the East Coast of the US - so I was happy to get 3 of their aircraft on approach.



While I've seen lots of United jets, their B744's have eluded me - so I was really happy to catch this one - still in the pre-merge (with Continental) colors.



I've seen Turkish Airbuses before - but - never their B773's - so this was a lovely one to catch too..



This private/corporate B762 was one of the highlights of the day - I've never seen or heard of this one before, so to get it in lovely light was a bonus - one of the catches of the day for me.



This Tahiti A340 is another of the catches of the day - I've heard of them - seen others pictures of them - but - never shot it - until now...a really lovely color scheme.



Air New Zealand is another first timer for me. When this B744 came in on the south side of the airport - I had all hopes for the B773 as well - unfortunately - that came in on the north side - well away from me.



This Aeroflot A332 is another first timer for me - soon after this came in - the famous LA marine layer came in with clouds - bringing an end to the spotting day - but - what a great day it was.



More will come as I edit more and more of the 500+ shots from that day - concentrating more on the local airlines....

A lot of time spent behind the camera lens....

Watch this space.......

I'm about to enjoy my first spotting trip at LAX. I'm going out to Southern California for another reason - but - will be able to enjoy a few hours spotting at a couple of locations close to LAX. So - hopefully - weather permitting (and it looks nice at the moment), there will be some shots here over the next week or so....

Rain..storms...and ...surprises!!!

Rainy season has struck hard here over the last couple of weeks - the winds have been coming from the west - which means the storms come from the west too - and - that basically shuts down spotting at Ft Lauderdale. Only in the last few days though - has the wind turned, the rain held off for a while and I've finally managed to get out to see what has been happening. Of course, even though the winds are right - the storms are around - they just stay out to the west....



The big surprise today was this little beauty from Canada. I'd seen it once before - but in really terrible cloud and couldn't get a decent shot of it. This time, it nearly caught me by surprise. For those that don't know, the viewing park at Ft Lauderdale has a public scanner that broadcasts the tower frequency. I normally have my own scanner as well, but didn't today. I thought I heard the Air Canada callsign but I saw the grey off in the distance - I thought I must have mistaken it for a Spirit A319. I took my eyes off it for a while - and when I turned again - I saw what it was - it was a frantic scramble to get the camera up .. but I got it and I am very happy!!



Sun Country is still traversing the airways from Jamaica to Ft Lauderdale - substituting for Caribbean Airlines.



Nice to see some classic Southwest colors flying around still.



I added one more...another with the storm in the background



So - now that the weather has turned a little I hope - except for Hurricane Irene this week - I should be able to get more time out and get some more shots.

In the meantime - more time spent behind the camera lens....