Opa-Locka and Miami on a cool day...Superbowl Sunday

It's early in February - we still get some nice cool days from the cold fronts that tend to drop down our way and on those days, the sky is clear, the light is perfect and it is worth getting in the car to drive down and spend a few hours at an airport. Superbowl Sunday was such a day - temperatures in the 60's and a clear day. My son and I headed out to start the day at Opa-Locka. There was one main reason for this - one of the few flying private Boeing 707's and when we got there - there is was in all it's glory. I've been trying to find this fine specimen for quite a while, so it was really nice to get a decent shot of it.

From there, we headed down to Miami to spend the afternoon looking there. This was the first time that I had shot Miami for any length of time with westerly operations. Thank goodness for a conveniently placed shooting shot and a wonderful view of runway 27. When Miami is on westerly operations, there are a lot more departures from the south runway and still a few arrivals. Hopefully, they roll long enough to get airborne just in front of the viewing spot like this Avianca A320.

Or, they land and roll long enough like this Cathay Pacific Cargo B744.

Caribbean has been leasing aircraft for a while to compliment their fleet. This is the latest one that has come from Transavia in Holland and still wears the hybrid color scheme.

With the cargo operations being on the south side of the airport, it's always nice to get these heavies lifting off in front of you.

However, if they are fully loaded like this World MD-11 (in their hybrid color scheme), then the rotation is a lot further down the runway and the lift off shots are not as spectacular.

My trusty Nikon D50 that has been shooting for almost 4 years is about to pass into my wife's hands and I am soon going to be the owner of a Nikon D200 - more megapixels, more power, I'm looking forward to seeing the results of this upgrade - watch this space....

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