Photo Friday finally

Ok, so this isn't what I was originally planning for this edition of Photo Friday. But I'm about to hit the Publish button and that's better than what came before. Some recent comments will lead to a subsequent entry since that seems better than covering things in a comment thread that will be hard to find or reference later. So keep commenting!

Shamu has been retired from the Southwest fleet, but for a little while we get to see this special Shark Week paint.  On an unrelated note, this shot and the one below show the current status of the construction at Terminal 1. Gate 18A just opened up a week or so ago; in the shot below the plain blue B738 is on 18A. The new paint plane next door is at 18B, and the tail just to its left (your right) is 17B.

It's not often that we have to bring cargo B747-8s to the north side for departure, but the morning of this shot they had to taxi around because RY25L was closed. For those of you playing the home game, recall that the B747-8 and the A380 are not able to use RY25R, so if RY25L/7R is closed, then RY24L/6R is the only game in town. The exception is for arrivals; they can land on RY24R/6L, but they can't use it for takeoff. One more consideration for departures is that if we have more than one B748 or A380, they either have to be paired up, as seen here, or the second one has to be held off of Taxiway E (or Taxiway A on the south side) until the first one has gone. The real trap for us is when we have one leaving and one taxiing in after landing; they can only pass wingtip-to-wingtip within the first 1,500 feet (457 m) of the runway.