Sunday, May 31, 2009

Who's That? Answers, Part 3

Every time I think I've run out of easy ones for you, a few more pop up. Some of these, however, are not quite as easy as the others.

This one was a little tricky: Virgin America's tails look very similar to Virgin Atlantic's new design. The US flag and registration should have been a tip-off. Yes, I know I told you not to run the registrations, but I didn't say you couldn't look at them!

TACA, in an A321. The A321 is the longest of the 'small' Airbuses; compare to the Virgin Atlantic A319 and A320 in the picture above. The one still on the gate is a 319; besides its shorter length, the A319 only has one over-wing exit, while the longer A320 has two. The longer-still A321 has none!

An early morning arrival: DHL A300. The Airbus 300 series is very popular with the freighters; besides DHL, Fedex has a bunch of them, as do some other operators at LAX.

This is Northwest's old paint scheme. Despite the poor quality of the photo, shot through the tower window shades (I thought this might be the last one I saw) , this was taken only a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I've seen two or three more of the 'old school' Northwest planes. Oddly, some of the new scheme Northwest aircraft have already been repainted in Delta colors, while some of these old ones fly on. While we don't get Northwest DC-9's here at LAX, a Northwest pilot told me just a few days ago that those planes are getting the Delta treatment, too (I figured they'd just park them- they're all old enough to drink! The DC-9's, I mean! And compared to the newer Airbuses, they drink the Jet A. They're also smokers.)

Japan Air B744, maybe half a second before touchdown on runway 24 right.

Mexicana, seen here in an A318. The 318 is the shortest of the narrow-body Airbuses. It's so short, in fact, that the vertical tail had to be extended to regain control authority lost when the fuselage was shortened. Airbus had to do the same thing on the -200 version of the A330.

An Air France B773 towing into gate 23. I've recently noticed that all of the Air France flights at LAX are now in B777's, both -200's and -300's. No more A343's.

El Al used to bring in B747's back before I started taking pictures, but nowadays all we see are B772's. As you can tell from the sun's angle, El Al is an early arriver - sometimes the first of the west arrivals, occasionally the last of the east. A few weeks ago, they were both - They were set up on 4-mile final as the last over-ocean arrival when the ILS failed, so after they went missed they got to be the first west arrival.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Who's That? Part 3

I started you guys off easy, but today's going to be a bit more challenging. Answers tomorrow!









Friday, May 29, 2009

Who's That? Answers, Part 2

Pretty easy, after all: Some of these in Part 2 could have been in Part 1, but it starts getting tricky here.

US Air, seen here in old and new (black and white, respectively) schemes, along with their Arizona special. The Arizona is an A319, the others are A321's.

United, in their new 'white top' scheme, seen here on a B752.

Northwest, whose logo makes more sense when seen from this side.
This is an A319.

AirTran, in a B737. If you look back at yesterday's picture, you'll see that I had to crop it pretty tightly to omit the winglet - which lists their web address on the inboard side.

Air Canada about to touch down on runway 24 right in an E190.

Lufthansa in an A346. I've just noticed that we're getting more Lufthansa A346's, and fewer of their B744's. They bring in two or three flights a day, and on at least one day last week, they were all in Airbuses.

This one's a little tricky: the tail says 'Fiji', but the carrier name is Air Pacific.

Qantas, seen here in a B744.

Okay, so these were mostly gimmes also. Keep studying!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Who's That? Part 2

Today's quiz is going to be a little bit harder; as before, answers tomorrow. Enjoy!









Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Who's That? Answers, Part 1

As promised, here are the answers from yesterday's quiz.

Southwest, here represented by a pair of B737's; the silver one is a -300, while the blue one is (I think) a -500.

Fedex, seen here as a DC-10 departing early one morning

Delta, here seen on an ex-Northwest B753

American, in a B763

United's old 'grey-top' scheme, also in a B763

This one was a little tricky: Virgin Atlantic, in their old scheme, seen here in an A346 pushing out of the D-8 alley.

Okay, so these were pretty easy. Study up, because tomorrow's gonna be a bit harder!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Who's That?

It's quiz time here at the ole blog. Airlines spend lots of money painting their aircraft, and some reportedly also spend a good bit on consultants for logo design and such. So let's see how well it's paying off for them. I'll show you the tail, and you guess who it is. Answers tomorrow (if I remember). No fair looking up the registrations!

Since it's early in the week, I'll start you off with some easy ones:






Thursday, May 21, 2009

More heavy metal

Yesterday I showed you an Antonov AN-124. That got me to thinking about another recent heavy visitor, courtesy of the USAF: A C-5A Galaxy. As you can see, the weather was also a little bit nicer, although the afternoon sun isn't great for photography: