Shot of the day: 4 of a kind

There was a time when having four A380s on the ground at LAX was kind of a big thing. Some time later, I can remember the first time I had four A380s moving on my frequency at one time. Now, it's not even that big a deal to have four of them at the runway for departure. This is kind of a bigger thing than it seems, though, because the runway and parallel taxiway are so close together that if we have an A380 departing, any other A380 on the parallel taxiway must be within the first 1,500 feet of the beginning of the runway. As a result, the ground controller either has to meter out the A380 departures one at a time, and hold the other(s) back, or get all of them out there all at once, which is what you see here. This is a normal cluster of A380 departures that usually happens around 4 PM, although we don't normally get all four of them leaving at exactly the same time; however getting three of them together is pretty common. If it had been just a few minutes earlier, there could have been a fifth A380 in the picture, as Emirates has just arrived on runway 24 Right.

Retro - Retro paint

This is the third airline name to appear with this livery. It started life as American West, which then became US Airways. Now it flies with the new American name and logo. The US Airways name and Cactus callsign will cease operation next week when they officially become one with American.

Something old, something new

We've seen this US Airways Airbus with its retro PSA livery before, but now it wears the new American name and logo on the fuselage. Thanks to CG for the photo!

We've got Spirit, yes we do!

Spirit recently announced that they will be repainting their aircraft in this eye-catching scheme. This was the first one to pass through LAX, late last week. Thanks to CG for the photo!

Finally!

As no doubt happens to anybody with a camera, there are those times when the desired subject and the camera are not present at the same time, or they are but conditions are not conducive to actually getting a usable picture. Today, I get to show you three of my recent elusive subjects.

The first is this new Air New Zealand B777-300 in "All Blacks" livery. It's reportedly the largest commercial aircraft to be painted black. We've been seeing this aircraft at LAX for the last couple of weeks, but up 'til now I've only seen it parked at the terminal (see the opening shot) or at night (what's the point of trying to photograph a black airplane at night?!?). We have previously gotten to see this livery at LAX, on a couple of new Air New Zealand A320s as they passed through on their way to New Zealand. Funny thing is that this livery kinda looks like fish bones to me (it's not - those are fern fronds).

Since around Christmas, we've had two cargo carriers bringing in the new B747-8F, but they tend to do so after dark. This Cathay Pacific is the first B748 I've been able to catch with the camera during daylight. For comparison, the Polar seen in the second shot is a cargo B747-400.

I actually saw pictures of this Volaris A319 on the web long before my camera caught it at LAX; Volaris started flying into Chicago's Midway airport in December, 2010.

And here's my next target: Air China has started to bring in B777-300s, but so far I've only see them on their evening flight; the mid-day flight has so far continued to be a B747-400.

Sports fans

Some of you may have heard about a little sporting event coming up this weekend in Tampa, Florida. Featuring the Arizona Cardinals versus the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Superbowl is the biggest thing in American football. We see some sports-theme paint jobs pass through LAX, along with various visiting teams. Most of this has nothing whatever to do with the Superbowl, but then I'm not a football fan:

The favorites this year are the Pittsburgh Steelers. We have several Steelers fans in the tower, and they can't seem to let us forget it.
I apologize for the quality of this shot, but this was the one and only time I've ever seen this airplane in LA.

This US Airways Airbus sports the logo of the Arizona Cardinals, the underdogs in this year's Superbowl. Out of sheer contrariness, I hope they kick @$$!

The Philadelphia Eagles lost out to the Cardinals this year.
The Steelers beat somebody else, but I don't have a picture of an aircraft featuring that team's logo.

The sports motif isn't limited to football.

Nor is it limited to professional sports. (Is there a Texas A&M plane? I haven't seen or heard of one, but then Aggies in airplanes . . . )

Old to New

Yesterday's pictures of the retro paint jobs got me thinking about a theme that could be continued, so here goes:

We'll start with US Airways, which is currently transitioning from the dark scheme seen on this Airbus 321 to the white scheme on the B757. This is part of the merger with America West. The dark-topped scheme, which although it appears black is really a very dark blue, was part of the rebranding from "US Air" to "US Airways" in the mid-1990's. These two aircraft models are easy to mistake for one another when seen alone; seeing them here together makes the distinctions easier to pick out. While the A321 is the largest of the narrow-body Airbuses, the B757 is larger still. Other detail differences: the shapes of the noses and tailcones; the winglets (all of the small Airbuses have the same vestigial winglets, while Boeings will either have none at all or great big ones as seen here); and the main landing gear (Airbuses have single-axle main gear, while the B757's have dual-axle units). Sadly, the Boeings are gradually being replaced by the Airbuses.

As I mentioned yesterday, this was America West's last scheme prior to the merger with US Air. This scheme appeared after America West's bankruptcy in the early 1990's.

US Airways has some of its Airbus A319's painted in heritage schemes: This one is the original America West scheme.

Another heritage scheme: US Air acquired Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) in 1987.

One more heritage scheme: The airline was originally named Allegheny before rebranding itself as US Air in the late 1970's.

As I mentioned yesterday, Northwest is now part of Delta, and the aircraft will be repainted accordingly. Before Northwest's current silver scheme was the red-topped scheme; a few of these are still around. Here are new and old schemes seen on Airbus A320's.

Delta has gone through several schemes since I started controlling airplanes in the early 1990's. Sadly, I don't have any shots of the original widget scheme they used all through the 1970's, 1980's and early 1990's. The B757 in this picture shows the scheme that replaced it in 1997 only to be quickly replaced itself in 2000 by the tricolor scheme seen on the B737. The last of these 'old new' schemes was repainted in the summer of 2008, while I continue to see the tricolor scheme (my favorite of all the Delta schemes I've known) daily.

Here are all three Delta schemes together. Unfortunately the airport's physical plant is just west of the tower, and thus the steam that obscures this shot.

In 2007, following Delta's bankruptcy, the latest 'lazy widget' scheme appeared, seen here on a trio of B757's with the former tricolor scheme on a B767.

One more before and after: After several decades of their original mustard brown/gold paint scheme, Southwest updated their livery to 'canyon blue' in 2001, with slightly adjusted lines. Even though this started nearly a decade ago, there are still aircraft with the 'classic' paint around.

Where can we go from here: State Capitals

Time for the oft-promised and delayed continuation of the "Where can we go from here" series. This time, I'm going to take a look at who goes to which of the state capital cities. Service to the state capitals is hampered by the fact that many states' capitals are not located in one of their larger cities. In fact, some of them are in cities which are for the most part unknown to non-residents. As examples, I'll cite Frankfurt, Kentucky; Jefferson City, Missouri; and Carson City, Nevada. Shockingly, there is no direct service from LAX to any of these. In fact, this has almost become a study of "Where we can't go from here: State Capitals"; of the fifty state capitals, only thirteen can be reached non-stop from LAX.

Phoenix, Arizona, is one of the better-served state capitals. Southwest, United, and US Air (nee America West) all operate regular flights to and from Phoenix. The United and US Air flights are often flown by their regional partner airlines, Skywest and Mesa, respectively. The US Air service was flown by America West prior to their merger earlier this year. The flight usually runs just under an hour. Because Phoenix is so close nearby (in jet terms) and pretty busy (it's a US Air hub, and Southwest has a strong presence there too), there is often a flow control program for aircraft going there: we have to call and get a "wheels up" time for each of our Phoenix departures to ensure that there's a hole in the line for them. This rarely delays them more than fifteen minutes (and there's an incentive for us to keep the delays at less than fifteen minutes: beyond that they become 'countable' delays).
A pair of Mesa (callsign: Air Shuttle) CRJ's. Above is a CRJ-900 at gate 10 next to a B737-300. Below, a CRJ-200 pulls into gate 6 with an A321 next door.

Sacramento, California, currently home of the "governator", is also about an hour away, but there's never any difficulty with traffic restrictions. Skywest flies the route for United, using CRJ's. Southwest also goes into Sacramento from LA. You'll see Skywest RJ's later on.

Denver, Colorado, gets great service from LAX: We have four airlines that go there on a regular basis. Frontier and United both operate hubs in Denver; I've seen just about every type United operates on this route. At the moment, Denver is the only direct destination for Frontier out of LA. American and Southwest also offer service into Denver. Flight time runs 1:45 to two hours.

Atlanta, Georgia, being the busiest airport in the country, not to mention the home of Delta, gets regular service from LA. Besides Delta, AirTran also flies from here to their hub in Atlanta. Flight times are four hours or a little less. Delta has run nearly everything on this route, but AirTran only uses their B737's; I don't think the B717's have enough range and payload to make it worthwhile. When AirTran first started flying into LAX all they had were the B717's, and they went from here to DFW. The non-stop to Atlanta came later, when they got their B737's. For a short time, until they got the 737's, AirTran contracted with Ryan Air to fly the route for them, using Airbus A320's. I wish I'd gotten a picture of one of those, since they've long since gone elsewhere and been repainted.

Honolulu, Hawaii, is served by the widest range of airlines from LA: Six different airlines fly this route, and each of them a couple of times a day. American, Continental, Delta, Hawaiian, Northwest, and United all currently use B757's and B767's. Not surprisingly, flight times are all about the same, at around five hours and fifteen minutes. I can remember when Hawaiian used DC10's and Amtran used Tristars, but no more.

After Honolulu, it's not nearly as exciting to talk about Boise, Idaho. It's not as exciting to go there either: From LAX, you've a choice of Horizon's Dash 8's or Skywest's CRJ-200's. Horizon flies for Alaska out of LAX, and their flight time for this route is right around two hours. The Skywest CRJ's fly for United, and they're about twenty minutes quicker.

Indianapolis, Indiana, gets passenger service from Northwest and cargo service from Fedex. Either way, the flight takes about three and a half hours. During the summer a couple of other airlines also went from here to Indy; maybe again next summer? We can only hope.

Boston, Massachusetts, my mother's home town, gets several flights a day via American and United. Flight times hover around five hours. Boeings predominate on this route, although I have seen United slip in an Airbus from time to time.

A pair of heavy Boeings: An American B767-200 and a United B767-300.

Although it's not easy to see, the -300 is longer; compare the distance from the nose wheel to the wing root.

St. Paul, Minnesota, gets regular service thanks to sharing the airport with its neighbor Minneapolis. Northwest has their big hub there, and I've seen them use short Airbuses, B747's, and everything in between. Sun Country also goes from here to MSP, using B737's. Flights run around three hours, give or take.

United offers service into Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport using Skywest CRJ-700's. Flight time is about two and a half hours. Come to think of it, I haven't noticed this flight go out within the last week or two, but I'm including it here anyway.

Nashville, Tennessee, is served by both American and Southwest. Both use B737's and have flight times around three and a half hours. Amazingly, I don't seem to have a picture of SWA and AAL B737's together; gotta work on that.

Austin, Texas, gets flights from American, Southwest, and United. American uses MD80's while Skywest operates CRJ-700's for United. Flights run about two and a half hours.

Salt Lake City, Utah, is a Delta hub, but also gets service from Southwest and United. Skywest flies the United flights using CRJ-200's and CRJ-700's. Oddly enough, Skywest also operates Delta Connection flights to SLC out of LAX. This creates the paradox of having two Skywest flights with different parent airlines' paint schemes going to the same place at about the same time. New ground controllers at LAX sometimes get surprised by the Skywest that doesn't park where all the other Skywests do. After a couple of times they figure it out (usually) because the flights operating for Delta, besides being painted in Delta colors, also have a different range of flight numbers (the Delta Skywests are usually in the 4000's, while the United Skywests are usually 5000's and 6000's. Usually). Another clue is that the Delta Skywest is often in a CRJ-900; Skywest doesn't operate -900's for United at LAX.

It figures - after all that blah about the Delta Skywests often being CRJ-900's, all I have is a picture of one that's in a -700. The -900 is longer, and can be identified by the two emergency exits over the wing; the -700 only has one; check the -900 in the first Phoenix photo above.

As I mentioned in the opening, this has become just as much a study of where you can't go from here: I counted eighteen states that receive no direct flights from LA at all. I'm not going to make a list of them here; I've been trying to avoid this whole topic becoming one great big list. A US map showing the affected states would've been nice, but the idea just occurred to me and it's already taken a week to put this together. For that same reason, most of the photos will have to go without captions - just imagine that each one has its own pithy remarks. For added interest, you can read this entry again tomorrow and imagine new pithy remarks!