2014 Florida Aviation Photography Convention - Ramp Tours

Once a year, a large group of aviation photographers descend on South Florida for the annual Photography and Slide convention that has been going on for 20+ years!   Part of the convention thankfully includes tours on the ramps of both Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport and Miami International Airport.  This year, the ramp tour at Fort Lauderdale was in absolutely perfect but cool weather.  A few of the subjects from that tour.

There was another special sighting on the Fort Lauderdale tour - what was an ex-American Eagle ERJ135 that is now adorned with South African Airlink colors, but no titles yet.  I can only guess it will be winging its (long) way to South Africa in the near future.

The ramp tour at Miami started off in beautiful weather, but unfortunately, an approaching cold front decided to present a layer of cloud that was frustrating to all the photographers, however, any time spent on the ramp of an airport in any weather is much better than time at work :) - unless you are a pilot that is.....  Here are some of the subjects from the Miami tour.

Hopefully, the tours next year will both be in perfect weather - we can only hope!

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

A NICE welcome to the New Year!!

First of all - Happy New Year to everyone!!  May 2014 be all you would like it to be!

The first couple of days at Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport have been different - on one, the temperature was in the 80s and humid.  Then, in came the cold front and with it some cooler temperatures.  And - with the cooler temperatures, can some hot equipment!

 The first was fashion executive Peter Nygård's Boeing 727-17 - what a beauty of a plane this is!

Following that, came this lovely Twin Otter float plane.  First time I have seen this at Fort Lauderdale as far as I can remember!

The year is starting off well!  I can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings!

In the meantime, some more time spent behind the camera lens....

Merry Christmas!!

Santa has already started his magical run across the world and his progress is always available here.  To all my readers and viewers, I wish you safest and happiest of holidays and peace and prosperity in 2014.  Just in case Santa has a problem with his sleigh, there is always the backup :)

Another year of moments behind the camera lens gone.....

Texas Special in Florida - 12/20/2013

Today was one of those days - the weather started out nasty - then got better.  During the morning however, I had seen that the new Spirit special scheme A320, N618NK, Greetings from Dallas, had arrived at Fort Lauderdale.  So, in the good weather, I decided with a couple of other spotters decided to go and see what was going on for the lunch hour.  Nothing moving - nothing special moving - we were just about to leave, when, I happened to see this blue tail with a S on it come out with a long orange stripe.  And - lo and behold - here came - N618NK...

Spotting highlight of the month so far!!!!  More (great) time spent behind the camera lens!!!

New Canadian Charter Season

Well, that time of year is upon us again - Canadian charters have started again.  Once again, Sunwing has added some leased aircraft to the fleet, a lot of which are painted with great logos and I am looking forward to catching those.  In the meantime, the first two that I caught are new for me too - a lease from European operator Smartwings - nice winglets they have and a Czech registered Travel Service jet.

Air Transat has also been flying in their Airbus A310s - the one I have been looking for with the Welcome titles arrived on a glorious day.  This season might be the last time we see the A310s in Florida as in 2014, air Transat is due to take delivery of the first of their Boeing 737-800's that are on order.  While those will make for nice shooting, I'll miss the powerful A310s.

Finally, while not a Canadian charter, something I have been looking for for a long long time, the Tiara Air from Aruba has been making more regular stops at Fort Lauderdale and so I was glad to be able to strike this from the list of wanted aircraft too!!!

It looks to be a promising season with some great aircraft to shoot!  In the meantime, more time spent behind the camera lens....

Bad weather - good friend!!

It is always great to meet up with a fellow blogger and in this case, it is always a pleasure - Cap'n Aux made a trip to Ft Lauderdale recently.  While the weather was terrible for pictures, I still managed to get a couple of shots on approach.

 

On approach - being followed by a very nice looking Gulfstream G650 - you can tell the weather wasn't the best!

 

Final approach - about 500 yards from touchdown.  The good Captain will be back at the end of this week - hopefully the weather will be a lot better too!

More time spend behind the camera lens!!

Short time shooting - two great results

I managed to get a little bit of time today to head up to Ft Lauderdale to see what was floating around.  I knew the one arrival - the Air Transat A310 with the Welcome color scheme, but the other one was a great surprise - my first American Eagle E145 with the new color scheme.  Now that the AA/US Airways merger has been approved - it's going to be interesting seeing this color scheme on an A330 - we already have seen it on A319's and A321's.

But, here are the two new ones today...

Some more time spend behind the camera lens...