Learning to fly the 747....a first hand account...

I have been following the blog of Capt. Rand Peck for quite a while now. A long standing NWA captain, now with Delta, in the time I have been following his blog, he has gone from the Boeing 757, to the Boeing 767 and is now qualified on the Boeing 747-400. For those that would like to know what is involved in getting rated on a new aircraft, head over to his blog, Rand Pack, A Life Aloft. He is going into great detail about the training and it's fascinating reading!

Thank you to the crew......

Ever since the runway change at Fort Lauderdale that I blogged on a while back, I've been trying to find the best spot for the departures and arrivals - going to the park on the south side of the airport, going to the viewing park and trying long range shots, and nothing has seemed to work totally the way I wanted it to. So finally, today, I thought I'd try the south west corner of the Hibiscus parking garage as that is pretty close to the end of runway 13 for lift off shots. It worked out a lot better than I had originally thought and while I still have a lot of shots to edit from that spot, I couldn't help but edit this one - Spirit flight 180 to La Guardia. The take off instructions to the vast majority of the aircraft are "fly heading 090, runway 13 clear for take off". Well, for the most part, they have been flying runway heading (heading 130) for a couple of miles before turning left onto heading 090. I don't know why this crew decided to do this, but pretty much immediately after take off, they started the left turn - I want to think it's because they saw me with my camera on the garage and wanted to give me a GREAT shot. Well, whatever the reason, they did give me a GREAT shot! The left bank in front of the clouds was spectacular and made the day for shooting! So, if any of my readers happen to know of the flight crew that flew A320 N607NK as Spirit flight 180 to La Guardia on Tuesday 6/21/2011 departing around 12:25pm, please thank them for me or even have them contact me through my blog - I'd love to give them a printed copy of this shot for their walls!

I'll hopefully get more of the shots edited over the next few days and get them up here too - another highlight for me was the Delta Boeing 737-700 that has now started to fly the CVG-FLL-JFK routing that leaves FLL at lunch time - the -700 was something of Delta's that I hadn't been able to catch before....

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

A special day - Lufthansa brings the A380 to MIA

I know that blog entries have been a little sparse lately - the heat of the South Florida summer has really set in along with dreaded heat haze and the still in effect cross runway operations at Ft Lauderdale. When this opportunity presented itself, I was very happy and I was very privileged to be part of the media contingent on Friday June 10, 2011 in witnessing a new part of South Florida Aviation History with the inauguration of Lufthansa's Airbus A380 service from Frankfurt to Miami replacing the Boeing 747-400. It also happened to be the very first landing at Miami of the Airbus A380. The press was met at the meeting area with the poster announcing the arrival.

As part of the ceremonies, the "A380's" of their day made their entrance in a procession prior to the arrival of the real thing. First was the American Airlines DC-3 Flagship Detroit,

followed by the restored Eastern airlines DC-7B.

The two "oldies" were lined up at the gate to await the arrival of the A380.

The A380 - D-AIMD "Tokyo" - made it's grand entrance on runway 9 to lines of spectators on the perimeter road and surrounding areas, it's two engine in reverse thrust.

Following which it taxied towards the terminal.

Through the salute of 4 water cannons provided by Miami-Dade Fire Department.

To it's parking gate at the J concourse.

Once all had deplaned, the crew was introduced to the media.

It really was a special day and the ability to see the first landing of this quiet giant was something I'll remember for many many years to come!

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