Tuesday, August 26, 2014

More super shots


I lucked into a nice shot of Asiana landing on Runway 24 Left this weekend. Since I knew it would be featured here, I took a look through the cameras to see what else I had in the same vein. The opening shots are mine; the remaining four I believe are credited to CG (again).

 
Emirates arriving on Runway 24 Left, with a KLM B747-400 on Taxiway Echo. This summer, we've been getting two KLM flights per day, both in B744s. Some of you may recall that the last two summers, the additional seasonal flight was often operated with MD11s, but not this year.

Three of a kind! To produce this shot, the ground and tower controllers had to work together, since we have some draconian restrictions on A380s on the runway and the adjacent taxiway at the same time. The British Airways jet would have had to wait in position on the runway until the Air France jet could approach the position seen here. Not seen in this shot are the dozen other aircraft that are normally departing about this same time; the A380s most likely were held back until everyone else was out of their way.

While I was gone on MINI Takes The States, Los Angeles got rain. In late July, which is virtually unheard of. Nonetheless, here is a sequence of shots showing Korean departing Runway 24 Left. Check out the spray!

 



This post features most of LAX's A380 operators; the only ones not shown are Qantas and China Southern. As of this writing, LAX gets eleven or twelve A380s a day. I hear that there are more that would like to come, gate space permitting. Here's the current breakdown of operators, and how many A380s they bring to LAX daily:

Air France: 1
Asiana: 1
British Airways: 2
China Southern: 1
Emirates: 1
Korean: 2
Singapore: 1
Qantas: 2 or 3

For those of you who want to see them in person, your best time is between about ten in the morning through around four in the afternoon. That will let you see most of them except for China Southern, who usually arrives closer to six in the afternoon. As many have lamented, most A380 operations occur on the north side of the airport. Don't despair, though: Sometime next year, that will change, albeit possibly only temporarily, when a runway construction project will push them all to the south side. More details will be forthcoming if/when I get them.

2 comments:

  1. "Sometime next year, that will change, albeit possibly only temporarily, when a runway construction project will push them all to the south side. More details will be forthcoming if/when I get them."

    ...and my birthday is still months away. Seriously though, I will certainly drive up from SD when this happens.

    Oh, and China Southern might be lonely landing so late in the day, but the light is far superior to the harsh midday overhead sun. Can we restrict A380 and 787 ops to Golden Hour only?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmmm, gotta say that would be a really, really busy hour. Especially in Customs.

      Delete