Odds and ends

Here's something I saw that I thought was kind of interesting in a geeky sort of way. This is a flight plan strip; one of these will print out at the Clearance Delivery position for each aircraft planning to depart LAX. The interesting thing about this particular one is the callsign: AAL1050, and its assigned transponder code: 1050. There's no correlation between an aircraft's registration or callsign and the squawk code assigned to it, so this is a rare coincidence. I probably see this myself once a year or so, and it always causes me to look again at the strip to make sure that I didn't transpose or imagine the numbers. A similar sort of thing will happen occasionally in which a flight crew will input their flight number into the transponder instead of the assigned squawk code. This usually causes minor havoc until we can get it sorted out as it usually means that their transponder target appears as some other flight on the radar until they can input the assigned code.


In other news, Delta has become the third airline (after Hong Kong and Asiana) to bring the Airbus A350 to LAX, operating it between Los Angeles and Shanghai:

Meanwhile, Alaska is planning to phase out some of the Bombardier Dash 8s flown by their regional partner Horizon. In their place will be Embraer 175s. We have already started to see Embraer 175s in Alaska colors at LAX flown by SkyWest, although so far primarily covering routes not currently served by the Dash 8. This particular Dash 8 bears the colors of the University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves:

A Horizon Dash 8 and a SkyWest E175 - the airplane that will be its replacement

The Dash 8 and the E175 have similar seating capacities (76 passengers), although the Dash 8 has single-class seating while the E175 offers three classes of seating. The Dash 8 is more fuel efficient, but the E175 is faster.

Time for another construction update photo:

I deliberately took this photo under the cloudy sky because the construction near the American hangar has reached a stage where there is a great deal of exposed shiny sheet metal that glares terribly in the sunlight.

On a personal note, some of you may be aware that I am also a pilot. The CaptainVector airfarce currently consists of a tired Cessna 172. I mention this because I will soon have to bring this airplane into compliance with the FAA requirement for ADS-B. I am currently considering either a Stratus ESG or a Lynx NGT-9000:

 

 

Anybody who has experience with either of these units is invited to comment with your thoughts and experiences. These comments will not be published unless you authorize; I merely seek input before spending a large percentage of the aircraft's worth on new tech.

And finally, apropos of nothing relating to aviation, this happened:

Shot of the day: Toons!

Shot of the day: Fish out of water

Alaska has a new Salmon-Thirty-Seven, this time a -800 model (the first one was a -400); seen here on an early-morning departure off runway 25 Right. Here's another shot taken a few minutes earlier:

Holiday bonus shots of a couple more new Alaska specials:

Additions

This is turning into a week of disappointments: I had plans to go to AMVIV, but the scheduling at work has been particularly whack, so that isn't working out. I was intending to mow the yard this morning and then fly to Catalina for lunch (mmm, Buffalo Burgers!), but it's raining in LA today, so that's out too. Of course, I'll take any excuse to not mow the yard, but really - rain in LA in mid-May?! I didn't approve that!

Mind you, it's the perfect excuse for staying inside and eating cookies while writing a blog entry. Too bad there aren't any cookies in the house . . . I'll have to talk to somebody about that. Meanwhile, there have been some recent developments at LAX worth mentioning:

First is the arrival of two new regional carriers at LAX: Great Lakes Airlines started service here Sunday, flying out of Gate 65 in Terminal 6. They were formerly at Ontario, but reportedly have moved to LAX in expectation of better loads via their codeshare with United. Currently, they fly to Visalia, California, and then continue on to Merced - destinations not formerly served out of LAX. Great Lakes also flies to Prescott, Arizona, a destination that had Horizon service out of LAX for a while last year. Great Lakes (radio callsign: Lakes Air) flies 19-seat Beech 1900Ds. The only other Beech 1900 operator at LAX is Ameriflight, who uses 1900Cs for cargo. Much as I like Beech products, I must say that the D-model is not an aesthetically pleasing airplane, although Great Lakes' paint scheme is one of the more attractive 1900 liveries I've seen:


Our second new arrival is Mesaba Airlines (radio callsign: Mesaba), who flies 76-seat CRJ9s as Delta Connection out of Terminal 5. We already have SkyWest operating Delta Connection flights using all three CRJ models, and we've heard that Compass Airlines, another Delta Connection operator, will be showing up this summer. So far, I've seen Mesaba flights to/from San Francisco and Salt Lake City. Spotters tips: All the Mesaba aircraft that I've seen so far have registrations ending in "XJ"; many SkyWest aircraft, although not all, have registrations ending in "SK" or "SW", and some of the SkyWest planes may also have "SkyWest" under the cockpit windows.


While we've had Spirit Airlines at LAX for some time, it's been a while since they were seen here during daylight hours. Spirit has augmented their service to Detroit and Fort Lauderdale with several daily flights to Chicago O'Hare and Las Vegas. I must be feeling snarky today, because I have to say that I like Spirit's old livery (pictured above) much more than the new (seen below). Spirit has also added A320s to their fleet:


Here are a couple of additions to the "Seen at LAX" file:

This National Air Cargo DC-8 showed up one evening

Not being a major league soccer fan, I will confess that I'd never heard of the Portland Timbers until this Alaska B737 appeared. Since the LA Galaxy beat them 3-0 when they played here in April, you'd think they'd fly that plane somewhere else . . .