Summer Happenings...

It's been a really nasty summer in the sense of spotting.  The weather has been incredibly hot, creating masses of the dreaded heat haze, over-exposure and all those sort of not so happy photographer things.  As the end of the summer has drawn near, our rainy season has kind of picked up, and of course, that seems to have been mainly when I can get to the airport - during lunchtime.  But, as ever intrepid as any aviation photographer can be, I've managed to get some highlights and some lovely new things during the summer, so here are some of the happenings...

The runway on the south side of the airport has become more and more a Spirit/JetBlue highlight runway with some internationals (look a little further down for them) and customs types featuring.  This, of course with its nicely shaded Greenbelt Park, gives some nice close ups, especially for the special schemes, in this case, the JetBlue NYFD special.

Talking of special schemes - there have been some new ones around and some older ones that I have not managed to get.  Delta has their Spirit of Seattle B737-900ER.

Azul has their Tudo Azul (the frequent flyer program of Azul).

And Allegiant has their new "Make a Wish" scheme.

There has been a new airline as well, Dynamic Airways has started flying from Fort Lauderdale to Caracas, Venezuela using a Boeing 767-300ER.  They are soon to get competition from Albatross Airlines - a Venezuelan company using a Boeing 737.  This was taken the first day of operations.

Another new airline for me is one that has been around for a while, but only seems to come into Fort Lauderdale on occasion.  Not a big aircraft, but an extremely nice color scheme - the Embraer E120 of Inter Caribbean.

Volaris, the Mexican airline, has been flying into Fort Lauderdale for a while now with flights from Mexico City and Guadalajara.  Their planes normally just have names on them and one particular day that they were late, I thought it would be the same until it got close to the runway, and it turned out to be a brand new special scheme for them, celebrating the Guatemalan rock band "Alux Nahual".

Spirit has taken delivery of the first two of their new A321's that were ordered last year, and they are in their new yellow color scheme.  They have started revenue service and are in and out of Fort Lauderdale all the time.  The yellow color scheme has invoked a few nicknames for them - the yellow taxi, the banana plane, and some that are not able to be posted on a family safe blog :)

Finally, there was one very special visitor to Fort Lauderdale for a couple of weeks over the summer and this caused photographers from all over the country to take quick trips down here to catch her.  NASA brought in their special DC-8-72 with her lovely CFM-56 engines from her home at the Neil Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, CA.  She was brought over to Florida to fly over weather, and some tropical storm formations to study ice crystals.  Most of the time she was in Fort Lauderdale, the weather was pretty nasty and wet.  However, on National Aviation Day, August 19, a spectacular morning was on hand for me to catch her departure on another study mission.

The day of her departure back to Palmdale, was however another nasty day, with the remnants of Tropical Storm Erika that they had been studying for a few days bringing rains to the area.  However, it was still a wonderful departure view.

So, the fall shooting season approaches and with it, some uncertainty of what will be coming down from our northern country with the failure of Canjet which was a very regular visitor - watch this space I guess....

In the meantime, a whole lot more time spent behind the camera lens....

A tale of one airframe.....

To it's owners, Southwest Airlines, it is N280WN, manufacturers serial number 32533, a Boeing 737-7H4, delivered on June 22, 2007.  However, to spotters all over the US, it is one of the special schemes that all aviation photographers chase.    That hasn't always been the case though.  When it was delivered, it worse the standard Southwest Canyon Blue color scheme.  Six years later though, it received it's first special scheme, and with the partnership between Southwest and SeaWorld, it became Penguin One.  This is the first time I managed to catch it in my camera lens.

However, with the dissolution of the partnership between Southwest and SeaWorld, all the special schemes like Penguin One, Shamu, etc. needed to be be repainted and so in April 2015, Penguin One, gave way to the latest in the state special schemes, and became Missouri One.  And, recently, I managed to catch that in my camera lens too!

And, so some more time spent behind the camera lens, searching for the elusive special schemes.

Finally - getting around to an update...

The past few months have been very busy - and - I didn't realize how long it had been since I last updated this.  And - then - I realized - how much has gone on since I did the last update....so - for the sake of less excuses and more pictures, I'll post some of what has happened....

Back in December, scimitar split winglets were really starting to become frequent on United Boeing 737-800's - but - then I managed to get the first -900ER with them - and - a spectacular looking bird she is!!

The other thing that really started to show up back in December was the new Southwest color scheme - I really started to like it more and more after initially being a little dubious - of course, the computer screen (where I saw the first ones) and real life are totally different - and - that's what made the difference I think.

January brought around a couple of new things, one of which was a new camera body - I upgraded from the Nikon D200 to the Nikon D300 - and - that opened up a new learning process.  But, January also brought around the annual Florida Aviation Photography convention with the ramp tours of Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport and Miami International Airport.  Both of them brought around their own spectacular views - the most special was from Azul who had recently started to fly from Sao Paulo in Brazil to Fort Lauderdale.  Through some arranging, they agreed to bring the special Brazilian flag scheme in for the day and that was perfectly shootable!  Sunwing also had specials in for the day.

The Miami ramp tour also brought around some nice views - American has started to bring in their new Airbus A319's which look really nice - and - then the Bolivian Boeing 767-300ER - which is pretty new to the Miami scene as well!

As February came around, so did one of the Southwest special scheme's that I was really looking forward to shooting!  Heart One (and it's sister Heart Two which I still have to catch) came in to Fort Lauderdale.

One thing I started to discover in February was that the new South Runway (10R/28L) has some great spots for viewing, especially when the airport is in westerly operations! 

One of the older aircraft to ply the tradewinds from Canada to Fort Lauderdale in snowbird season got a new color scheme too - Air Canada finally painted an Airbus A321 with the Star Alliance scheme.

Towards the end of February, something that I had been searching for for a long time finally made it's way back to Fort Lauderdale - the "spook" bird with Comco on the tail - not a lot is known about it - other that it seems to be owned by a defense contractor - but - still - it's an interesting bird to see.

And, finally to March and some of the aircraft that have started to come into Fort Lauderdale have been new things.  Allegiant has finally started to bring in some of it's Airbus fleet and Frontier brought in the new color scheme that has also eluded me since it came out!  And - then - a surprise FedEx visitor as well - this one an ATR42-300 - something I haven't seen before at all.

So, finally I have caught up - and - hopefully, will not leave it as long to update the next time!  At least, there has been more time spent behind the camera lens!