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.....
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