Snapshots

Spring is sprung, and I seem to have a case of spring fever: I'll admit that I haven't been feeling terribly inspired lately, so today I'll give you a few recent snapshots that seem noteworthy for some reason or other.

I mentioned a while back that we were getting a new airline at LAX: V Australia, the newest addition to the Virgin family. I have yet to get any really good shots of them, but here's a passable one of an arrival from Sidney last week. So far, the arriving flight has parked at the International Terminal, and then repostitioned to Terminal Three for the departure, as seen here:

The amazing part is how they manage to shoehorn that B777-300 into Gate 38, which as you can see is at the bottom of the D-9 alley. So far, they're only offering service between LA and Sidney, but Melbourne and Brisbane will be added later in the year. Their arrival has sparked some fare competition with Qantas: Round-trip fares to Sidney are as low as $600!

Here's something new: a B767 with winglets. Adding winglets to B757's and older B737's has been very popular, and now the treatment has been extended to the heavy jets as well, having just been approved last month. This is the first one I've seen at LAX, and may in fact be the first B767 so equipped, as the test aircraft was an American B767-300. American expects to save about 290,000 gallons of fuel per year, per aircraft so equipped, and they've got over 50 B767's. Reportedly Hawaiian is also going to be retrofitting some of their aircraft. On the B767, they're about eleven feet tall!

Here's another unusual B767, this time a -200 in AeroMexico colors.
Unusual in that we normally see AeroMexico in B737's, or occasionally MD87's.

The Northwest freighter fleet has so far shown no signs of the Delta transition. While most of them are unremarkable, I think this one looks neat. That's a B707 just in front of the nose in the last shot; with a DC10 and a B727, along with various Gulfstream biz-jets in the previous one.

On the subject of Northwest, here's yet another shot of one of their A330's, this time one of the shorter -200 models. I know I've shown you these a lot recently, but this one is noteworthy because it's Northwest Flight One, preparing to leave for Tokyo (as is the Japan Air B744 behind it). This flight has, until last week, been solely the province of Boeings. Northwest used B747-200's until just a couple of years ago, when they went to -400's. Not just Northwest though: All the flights we have to Tokyo, regardless of carrier, were in various Boeings until this happened.

Yeah, yeah: Another RJ; big deal. Actually, it sort of is, because this is a CRJ7 flying for American Eagle. Who uses E135's out of their LAX hub. We only get this plane once a day, on a round trip to and from Northwest Arkansas Regional Aiport, which is esentially Fayetteville, Arkansas. This is the only flight from LA to the entire state of Arkansas. You can't go from here to the state capital (Little Rock), but you can go from here to the home of Wal-Mart.

And finally, what's wrong with these pictures?

If you said that the airplanes are all at the wrong end of the airport, go to the head of the class! For a couple of hours last Sunday, the winds picked up to the point that we had to go East. Normally that doesn't happen this time of year, nor is the weather suitable for photography!