Photo Friday: New Qantas Dreamliner

Qantas has been replacing their B747s at LAX with new B787-9 Dreamliners. Just last month we saw the last Qantas B747 flight between LAX and JFK; that route is now covered with the Dreamliner. There will still be Qantas B747s at LAX for a couple more months, but they are expected to disappear from the LAX scene by the end of this year.

This new Dreamliner has been on the LAX-JFK route several times recently. It's named Emily Kame Kngwarreye, in honor of the artist.

Links:

Qantas unveils special Boeing 787 Dreamliner livery

Qantas switches New York flights from 747 to Dreamliner

Qantas retires legendary Boeing 747 from iconic New York to Los Angeles route

Qantas retires another 747 to California desert

Photo Friday: Qantas Boeings

This weeks' edition of Photo Friday features a pair of Qantas Boeings. A B787-9, freshly-arrived from Melbourne, waits as a B747-400 departs from Runway 24 Left enroute to New York JFK.

Bonus shot: The next Runway 24 Right arrival was this Delta B767-300:

KLM refresh

A recent reader comment alerted me to the LAX debut of KLM's revised livery. I have to admit that when I first saw it, I thought that I'd gotten the wrong day, as the new paint scheme isn't dramatically different from the old scheme. As a refresher, the opening shot shows a recent arrival of the old livery. The following shots all feature the new:

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2015! I'll start the new year off with a collection of noteworthy heavy jet shots taken over the holidays. These first don't seem so notable at first, until you consider that we hardly ever get Delta or United B747s at LAX anymore. These two both showed up and then left again on the same day.

KLM still brings in a daily B747. This one is marked to commemorate their 95th anniversary:

Next, the latest carrier to replace their B747s at LAX with B777s:

China Airlines (callsign: Dynasty) has recently started operating B777s between LAX and Taipei

Air Canada's Rouge normally operates A319s at LAX, but during the holiday season they've also shown up in a B767:

Besides the Rouge B767, also notable in this shot is the TACA Airbus; we don't see this livery at LAX much anymore; most of the TACA aircraft we see now bear the new Avianca paint scheme

Gratuitous dragon photo:

Bye-bye birdie?

Thai Airways has a limited presence at LAX, namely four weekly B777 flights to Seoul, South Korea. Formerly, there had been a non-stop flight to Bangkok in an A340-500, which at the time was one of the longest scheduled airline flights in the world: Sixteen to eighteen hours in the air. That flight was discontinued in 2012, and marked the departure of half of the A340-500 operations* at LAX. The replacement flight to Seoul does continue on to Bangkok, and has recently been upgraded from a B777-200ER to a B777-300ER. There has been talk of Thai bringing an A380 to LAX, but so far all I've heard is talk.

Something that has not been a regular sight at LAX is a B744 in Thai colors. We had one pass through a couple of weeks ago, though -- on its way to Mohave. Mohave is one of the places where airliners get parked; Victorville, California, is another. There are also several locations in Arizona where airlines and leasing companies store aircraft. Is this aircraft going into storage? I don't know; there's not much information on the web about Thai retiring its B744s, although some other types are known to be on the way out and many other airlines are parking their B747-400s. Since most of the airports that host parked airliners also offer heavy maintenance facilities, it could be that this airplane will return to the skies in the not-too-distant future.

Besides this Thai B744, I've also recently seen an Air New Zealand B744 and a KLM MD-11 pass through LAX on their way to the desert.


* - The other A345 user at LAX was Singapore, who flew theirs non-stop to Singapore, a similarly long (16-17 hours) flight that has since been discontinued in favor of a flight to Tokyo that then continues on to Singapore. We no longer see A345s on a regular basis at LAX; both Singapore and Thai have dropped the type from their fleets. Etihad brought one in during their first weeks of operation here earlier this summer, but they now use B777s.

And now, for more sport

I've been wanting to catch the Qantas World Cup B747 for some time now, so even though it was really hazy last week, I grabbed this photo from the catwalk. I believe the Virgin America Airbus in the lower shot is the same one that sported a mustache last season:

Big Blue Boeings!

After my last post, the Blogger dashboard showed a very inauspicious number of posts, so I hurried to put together another one. So here are some more Boeing shots. It would appear that the color blue is a common factor in all of these shots.

And now, for sport

Wow -- two posts in one weekend. Clearly somebody needs a social life. Meanwhile, there was recently in Brazil a little get-together about some ball games. Excuse me, matches. While I didn't follow the World Cup closely, I did hear about it hear and there. A couple of B747s might have clued me in.

A little closer to home, San Francisco has a baseball team:

Air New Zealand bids farewell to the B747

Air New Zealand B747s disappeared from the LAX scene over a year ago, and today was the type's final day with the carrier. The final revenue flight was from San Francisco to Auckland, New Zealand. Air New Zealand has operated B747s since 1981, but has opted (like many other carriers) to replace the type with newer, more fuel-efficient B777s and B787s. According to The New Zealand Herald, the aircraft utilized for the final flight is the same one (ZK-NBV, seen here) that made the last LAX appearance, in the summer of 2013.

References:

USA Today article

The New Zealand Herald article

The New Zealand Herald photo series 

Shot of the day

Yours truly is currently on a cross-country road trip with MINI Takes The States. In the meantime, here's a sight that's becoming less and less common at LAX: Two passenger B747s together.

Shot of the day: Load it up!

We see Antonov An-124s occasionally; I caught this one early one morning with both ends opened up for loading. On the topic of freighters, here are a few more:

Lufthansa Cargo has brought MD-11s into LAX for quite some time; this is one of the first of their B777s to be seen here  (thanks to TB for this shot)

Cathay Pacific brings both B747-400s and -800s into LAX; this is an -800. The longer -800 can be distinguished by the lack of winglets as well as the larger engine cowlings; compare to the Air China -400 seen below:

The sharp-eyed among you will notice that while this Air China B747-400 is marked Cargo, it did not begin life as an all-cargo aircraft. The long hump on the fuselage marks a passenger model; compare to the Cathay cargo -800 above.

More construction photos

Last time, I showed you construction at the TBIT. But that's not all that was happening this past weekend. We had a runway (24R/06L) closed for the entire weekend. This presented some photo opportunities for arrivals on 24L. For each of the ones I got, I missed at least one more, but then the American tax payer isn't paying me to take pictures; I am expected to do some actual work occasionally! And, as usual, there's something sneaky about one of these pictures. Guesses are welcome!

Nippon Cargo has this one plane with a green nose; I haven't noticed it in quite some time, but recently it's been through several times

I was hoping this was going to be the yellow-tailed Polar

Even when it was sunny, the June gloom wasn't far away

Submitted as proof that I am able to take a picture of something that isn't a heavy jet!

LAX aircraft spotters' guide: Boeing 747-300

I'm overdue for another entry in the Spotters' Guide series, and a recent reader comment asking about B747-300s at LAX is as good an excuse as any to bring you this one.

The Boeing 747-300 is not a commonly-seen aircraft at LAX; the only one I've seen within the last year has been operated by cargo carrier Southern Air. Even in its heyday, the B743 was not a common aircraft: Boeing only built 81 of the model. The big difference between the -300 and earlier -200 and -100 models is the -300's extended "hump" for the upper deck, which is over 23 feet (7 meters) longer than the previous models'. Dimensions, maximum weights and engines remained pretty much the same between the -200 and -300 models, but improved aerodynamics allowed a slightly higher cruise speed, and the longer upper deck allowed for an additional forty to fifty seats. The -200 continued in production concurrently with the -300, and curiously the -200 was even built for a year or so after -300 production ended in 1990. The -300, which first flew in 1983, was soon replaced by the -400, which was introduced in 1985 and retained the extended upper deck but added wing extensions with winglets. The long hump distinguishes the -300 from the earlier models, and the winglets distinguish the -400 from the -300. Nearly all the B747s seen at LAX these days are -400s, although we do see a few -200s brought in by cargo operators.

Southern Air's new paint scheme, already looking a bit weathered on this B747-300 as it departs off Runway 25 Right. The curious thing is that their website makes no mention of their having a B743; their fleet list shows B742s and B772s, with B744s on the way. That's a United B757-200 being towed in the foreground.

Here is an earlier view of what I believe to be the same aircraft (the registration is not visible in this shot) in its previous Cargo 360 livery. Southern Air was bought by the holding company that owned Cargo 360, and the two operations were merged into the Southern Air that we see today.

Qantas was the last passenger carrier to bring B743's into LAX, and in fact their last B743 revenue flight was a flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles in late December, 2008. One other distinguishing characteristic about the Qantas B747s is that the engine cowlings on their -300s were bare metal, while the -400 cowlings are painted.

This is the only other B747-300 that I've photographed (or recall seeing) at LAX, flown by Saudi Arabian Airlines. These photos were taken several years ago, as evidenced by the Ted Airbus seen in the second shot. Saudi isn't a scheduled operator at LAX, but we do see them from time to time; most recently (last week) in a B777-200. I've also seen them show up in a B747SP, MD11, and L-1011 (the same Tristar I showed you in civilian paint a month or two ago; the casino bought it from Saudi).

Update: Cargo carrier Atlas Air (callsign: Giant) showed up with a B743 a couple of months after this was originally published: