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......

Introducing.....The Bandit.....

This has been a very long wait - something I've been trying to catch for a very long long time - The Bandit - the private jet of Russian billionaire and businessman, Roman Abromovich, a Boeing 767-33A/ER registered P4-MES (home country Aruba) - he is also known in the soccer world as the owner of Chelsea Football club in the English Premier League. While I've seen her once before at West Palm Beach, but she was not in a shootable, and not even very viewable position, so when I looked at Flightaware this morning and saw a flight plan from St Maarten to Ft Lauderdale, I was keeping a keen eye on the time. Operations at Ft Lauderdale were westerly, so I knew I was going to be on the top of the parking garage to get her arrival. And, on time and using the callsign P4-MES Heavy, she approached runway 27R in what were perfect conditions on a cool Fall day. Fortunately, the approach was high so it offered a great shot in front of the refinery towers.

Then the even approach to the landing on runway 27R.

I'll have to get down and edit the last few in the sequence that I took because, while the approach was graceful, the landing certainly wasn't as there was bogey bouncing (left main gear, then right main gear, then back to left main gear) down a long section of the runway, accompanied by the obligatory tire smoke, before rolling out all the way to pretty much the end of the runway. I'll try and edit that section and get it posted soon....

But in the meantime, welcome to a view of one of the ultimate business jets plying the routes around the world.

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

A quick post.......

Weather in South Florida, as I think I might have mentioned, has been terrible of late - stormy, hot as heck, heat haze all over the pictures - it's been downright nasty. However, the last few weeks have started to bring one hybrid scheme into Ft Lauderdale that I have been trying to catch ever since I saw the pictures from others - Aires Columbia has a couple of Boeing 737-700's that are in Globespan hybrid colors. I've seen them from a distance a couple of times, but never up close. The other day, I was heading to Ft Lauderdale to try and catch it - when I saw it on approach while I was close to the airport. I knew I would get a touchdown shot, but knowing where it parks, I headed for the east side of the airport and down a little side road, I caught it approaching to the terminal. The light just happened to be good at that point...it was another stormy day, but another of the wanted pictures taken from the list....

There are some good shooting opportunities coming in the next month or so - can't share them at the moment, but, as soon as I can post the results.....I will....

A little more time spent behind the camera lens....

Ft Lauderdale - I must have done something......

And - I don't know what. I wonder if the spotting gods decided to listen to my "Ft Lauderdale is getting boring". Or, maybe they liked the diet that I started and saw my salad that I took to Ft Lauderdale for lunch and liked it, or someone reading my blog contacted friends to get some schedule changes. I don't know what it is or who did it, but all I can say is THANK YOU!!! :) For the last two days, I have taken my lunch and headed up to Ft Lauderdale for about 30 minutes over lunchtime to take a break from work and on both days, there have been special schemes all over the place.

It started on Wednesday with Southwest's Nevada 1. There is a little story behind this one. Several years ago when I started spotting a Ft Lauderdale, I used to stay to the last possible moment before heading back to the office. One particular lunchtime, I did decided to head back a little early as all I saw in the distance was a blue aircraft - obviously thinking it was a regular Southwest. As I headed over the bridge over I-95 back towards the office, I turned and saw it was Nevada 1 - it was blue - it was a special blue! Ever since then, I have wanted to catch this - and - finally Wednesday was the chance again!

There is a difference between the special airTran sports colors and some of their other special schemes. Usually, the sports special colors can be seen a long way away - Falcons 1 with it's read and black, Colts 1 with it's blue with white writing. The other special schemes have to be searched for - like the one below - Orlando makes me smile.

Two days after this jetBlue special scheme went into service, I saw it on a terrible day at Ft Lauderdale - cloudy, dark, no hope of a decent shot. Wednesday was totally different weather, and I'm glad I finally caught it.

Those three all came in a matter of 30 minutes. So, salad in hand, I decided to test my luck again on Thursday lunchtime - again - 30 minutes was all I could spare. And, testing my luck was really worth it again. First of all, this Sunwings with it's Viking hybrid scheme came out. Sunwings has been one of the regulars this past winter season, sticking to their regular schedule, but always with the regular color schemes. Finally, the Vikings scheme came today. Now there is only one left that I need to catch of theirs - the Travel Service hybrid. Anyone have friends at Sunwings? Next Tuesday - Sunwings 025 - lunchtime - Travel Service??? I wish!! :)

This Continental started taxiing out during a dark cloud period, and I thought it was just a regular -800 or -900 color scheme until it got closer to the end of the taxiway and then I finally realized it was the Eco-Skies color scheme. The cloud was still covering the sun and I was starting to wonder if I would get it in decent light. But, thanks to landing traffic, it stayed on the taxiway, the cloud disappeared, and it's green winglets stood out in all their glory! Another nice job Continental!

Finally, as mentioned above, the non-sports airTran special schemes can be a little difficult to tell from a distance, and again this was the case. As it taxied out, I could see something on the fuselage, but thought it might be the Orlando scheme again. And, I'm glad I was wrong! Little Debbie adorning, interestingly, only one side of the aircraft - if you saw her from the other side, you wouldn't know - it's a plain scheme on the other side. So, if you see N950AT from the wrong side - try to get to the other side!

I guess the next few days, I'll be filling up the salad bowl, packing the ranch dressing and see what hopefully the spotting gods might reward me with again. Greedy? Sure - why not - lots of special things still to catch......

Another few days spent behind the camera lens....

A real special visitor to FLL

I haven't been around for a while, because, it has been one of the worst winter shooting seasons in years - many people have said that. A lot of westerly operations because of cold fronts, airlines going out of business, like SkyService, and generally lower volumes of operations.

However, at the end of March, there was a really special visitor to Ft Lauderdale. I missed it on the way out - it was in transit from Russia to an airshow in Chile. After missing it on the way out, I was hoping that it would come back through on the way back to Chile, and on Tuesday, April 7, 2010, it did - and - I was able to catch it - a Beriev Be-200Chs from the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations - here is the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beriev_Be-200.

I'm hoping that we are going to get some better traffic soon - Ft Lauderdale is getting a little boring :)