Bonus Boeing shot

This shot was originally going to be in yesterday's post, but it didn't fit with the Big Blue Boeing theme, so instead it gets a post of its own. The B727 in the background is noteworthy for having winglets, along with upgraded engines from an MD-80 installed; this mod is rarely seen on a -100. The B757 in the foreground happens to be Mexican Air Force One.

Boeing pix

This is for all of you who believe that I can only take pictures of A380s. I grant that recent posts would lead one to that conclusion, so today's post will be exclusively Boeing products. The opening features an AeroMexico B737-800 with the new split scimitar winglets developed by Aviation Partners. United was the first carrier to put these on their planes; I also have seen them on Alaska, Southwest, and WestJet.

Kalitta Air (callsign: Connie) is a regular at LAX, but rarely seen during daylight hours. I got lucky last week when they showed up -- not only during the day -- but also on Runway 24 Left:

Next, we have another arrival:

Now that FedEx has retired their B727s, the B757 is the smallest FedEx airplane we see at LAX. At the moment, I believe we get two per day; the remainder of the FedEx flights are A300s, DC-10s, and MD-11s. 

United is the first carrier to bring the stretched B787-9 to LAX. The shot above shows a B787-9 getting towed onto the gate, while a "normal" B787-8 rolls for departure. Below, a B777-200 passes behind in a shot taken slightly earlier.

Wake Turbulence: Part 4 - Exceptions

In this on-going series on wake turbulence, I've been showing you the various heavy jets that we see at LAX. But for every rule, there's at least one exception (it's a rule). This time around, we're going to look at the exceptions. There are two that affect us here at LAX, and each of them features a different model of aircraft.


First is the 525-passenger Airbus A380, the largest passenger airliner in the world. Compare its maximum takeoff weight of 1,200,000 lb (560,000 kg) to that of the freighters in the previous entry in the series, and the next-largest airliner, the Boeing B747-400.
This airplane's huge weight disparity with everything else has earned it a separate moniker. Whereas we refer to all the other heavy jets as "heavies", the A380 is referred to as a "Super". Examples:

"Qantas 94 Super"

"Super Airbus 380"

Besides the uprated terminology, the A380 also imposes additional separation requirements. Similar to the Heavy wake turbulence spacing requirements, the mileage required behind the Super is determined by the size of the following aircraft. Another Super only needs four (4) miles in trail, while a heavy jet requires six (6) miles behind a Super. A "Large" aircraft, which is is defined in Appendix A of the 7110.65 as one weighing more than 41,000 lbs and up to 255,000 lbs, has to be at least eight (8) miles behind a Super. Typical Larges include B737's, MD-80's, the A320 series, and regional jets. An aircraft of less than 41,000 lbs is considered a "Small", and must have at least ten (10) miles of separation behind a Super. At LAX right now, the most common Smalls are the United Express E-120 Brasilias, along with most of the corporate aircraft such as Learjets, Citations, and King Airs. Operationally, the Super poses other difficulties at LAX: When one is on a taxiway, the wings overhang the vehicle service roads, thus requiring any Super movement to be accompanied by airport operations escorts, who block off the service roads in much the same manner as funeral escorts. And, like its smaller A340-600 cousin, there are only certain taxiways and intersections that the A380 can use - Except that the A380 can use even fewer than the A346 (and B773). There aren't as many gates that can accommodate the A380 either; I think we have six right now, and only two of those at a terminal. Fortunately, Qantas is the only carrier bringing them into LAX at present, and so far I don't think we've had more than two here at once. We do keep hearing rumors of other carriers with plans to start using them here; Singapore, Lufthansa, and Virgin Atlantic are the names I've heard mentioned most often. And if all that isn't enough, Airbus has plans for a stretched model, which would have a standard (3-class) seating capacity of 650!

UPDATE:  The wake turbulence spacing behind a Super has been revised to six (6) miles in trail for another Super or a Heavy; seven (7) miles in trail for a Large, and eight (8) miles for a small. See this post for a quick reference.

One of my best shots: A Qantas A380 touches down on runway 24 left.

Mutt and Jeff: the largest and smallest of the airliners at LAX. An Emirates A380, here on a publicity tour, and a United Express (Skywest) E-120 Brasilia.

UPDATE: The following section is now obsolete; the B757, regardless of model or weight, is no longer considered a Heavy. See this entry.

Exception number two: The Boeing 757-200. This particular aircraft is an anomaly (and a pain in the @$ for controllers); it's not a heavy, and yet it has its own wake turbulence requirements. Whereas a Large aircraft behind another Large aircraft requires three (3) miles of spacing, a Large behind a B752 needs four (4) miles. That same Large needs five (5) miles behind a heavy jet. However, it gets even better: As I mentioned early on, the FAA defines any aircraft capable of operating at a weight of more than 255,000 lbs as a Heavy. There is one variant of the B757-200 that has a maximum weight of 255,500 lbs, and thus is a heavy. As far as I know, there is no visible differentiation between a heavy B757 and one that isn't a heavy. The paperwork is the only way to tell the difference. Fortunately for us, only two airlines at LAX operate the "heavy" version; unfortunately, both also have non-heavies. Oh, and there's one other minor detail: A quirk of our flight plan computer keeps the airlines from correctly filing the heavy B752's as "Heavies"; it just won't let them do it. Controllers can put it in as an amendment though, and so the Clearance Delivery controller gets to play a question-and-answer game with all the pilots of the out-going B757-200 flights for US Air and American: "Are you a heavy today?" Sort of like going to McDonald's: "Would you like to supersize today?" It doesn't take much imagination to see the possibility for this system to go awry. There have been cross-country separation errors caused by an aircraft's heavy status being missed at the departure point; a solution is in the works, which I've heard will be effective this spring.

Is it a heavy, or isn't it? In this case, a definite 'yes' for the B762 on the taxiway; and 'maybe, maybe not' for the B752 on the runway: American has both.
The flight crew knows, and hopefully so do we . . .

Is it a heavy, or isn't it? In this case, 'yes' for the gray B763; and 'no' for the white B752.
United doesn't operate heavy B757-200's.

Continental's B752's are not heavies.

Nor are Delta's.

But this one might be: US Air has a few B752's that qualify as heavies.

Link to next part: Exceptions addenda

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.

No Good Deed . . .

Happy Birthday to me! Well, that was supposed to be the idea anyway - a friend from the theater had planned an informal get together, and I ended up being a no-show. I hear the cake was great, though. While most people have cards and perhaps presents for their birthday, I instead had a tentanus shot and antibiotics, with a flu shot as lagniappe.

For the background of this story, I'll refer you to my last entry, wherein I mentioned operation fix-a-cat. Saturday, as I was leaving for work, I discovered that the trap under my motorhome contained a cat. It looked like one of the ones that we're targeting, but I opted to deal with it when I got home that evening. When I arrived home it was becoming noticeably chilly, and so I chose to bring the trapped cat inside and transfer it to a larger crate. I thought the cat could be kept more comfortable that way, since the next appointment at the clinic isn't until nearly the end of the month. The transfer went well up to the point when I went to remove the trap from the mouth of the crate so I could close the door. The cat made a break for the gap between the trap and the crate, and not wanting it loose inside, I grabbed it. It then grabbed me with teeth and claws. Once it was in the crate and the door safely latched, I assessed the situation. My left hand had taken the brunt of the onslaught and had seven or eight scratches and easily twice that many puncture wounds, while the right got off lucky with about ten bleeders. Several minutes of running water was followed by soap and then a couple minutes' more water. I ended up wearing gloves to bed to keep from getting blood all over everything.

Having to be at work first thing in the morning, I took no further action until Sunday afternoon. Brandishing my scarred mitts earned me an early departure from the tower despite the fact that I was the third person asking for leave. Upon reaching home, I transferred the cat to a smaller crate (being sure to wear gloves this time) and hauled it over to animal control. Since it had bitten someone, there was extra paperwork involved in getting rid of it, and the weekend part-timer at the counter was agog at the condition of my hands (by now the left had swollen to about softball size, and my right thumb was sufficiently swollen that it was very difficult to hold a pen and fill out the form). The standard procedure in cases like this is to quarantine the animal for ten days to ensure that it doesn't have rabies. When I asked about how and where it might be possible for me to get a rabies vaccination if that became necessary, the people behind the counter (now three in number) seemed horrified, and had no useful suggestions beyond that of getting a tetanus booster.

The fortunate and ironic thing about this whole thing is that my yearly FAA flight physical was scheduled for the next morning. Despite my still swollen and scab-covered hands I managed to pass. Upon hearing my tale of woe, the doctor prescribed a course of antibiotics as well as a tetanus shot. However, discovering that he hadn't any tetanus vaccine on hand, he did give me a flu shot (at my request) in addition to the antibiotics, which he provided gratis. He also said that he could have the rabies stuff on a days' notice if it became necessary.

I wouldn't have thought that a tetanus booster was as hard to come by as mine turned out to be: Besides the doctor's office, I had to try seven more places before finding one that had the stuff in stock. You'd think there'd been a run on the stuff!

These shots were taken Sunday night, not quite 24 hours after the excitement.
The swelling was worse the next day!

I started this entry during a break at work on Monday, but at my next opportunity to get to the iBook I had sufficiently reduced mobility in both hands that trying to type was a ridiculous exercise in frustration. It's now Wednesday afternoon, and the swelling in my left hand has subsided such that some of the normally-visible tendons have reappeared. My right thumb, however, is still unbendable and, if it weren't rather red, would look like I stole it from the Pillsbury dough-boy or the Michelin Man.

Okay, that's enough about cats and my sado-masochistic tendencies. For all of you who stop by for airplane or LAX stuff, here's a couple of shots of the first Northwest aircraft to show up here in their new Delta paint schemes:

NWA 2, arriving from Tokyo.

While we see plenty of Delta B757's each day, this was the first Northwest repaint that I've seen.

And while I'm at it, here are some other recent special shots:

I first saw this American B777-200 with its Breast Cancer ribbon when I paid a visit to DFW's East tower last month. This is the first time I've seen it at LAX. That's a B737-800 holding on the center taxiway (now H, previously AC). Though it seems inconceivable, there's a runway between these two aircraft. One of our whole runway complexes would fit between one of DFW's runways and its adjacent taxiway.

Here's a neat early-morning shot of the setting full moon, reportedly the biggest-appearing of 2009, along with the tower's shadow.

A couple of retro paint jobs: in the foreground, America West's last paint scheme before becoming US Air. In the background, Alaska's 75th Anniversary commemorative.

Several of my coworkers told me about this Mexicana Airbus long before I was able to catch it with the camera. Note that it has a US registration number. I've seen this on some other foreign carrier aircraft as well; presumably they're leased from a US-based company.

Gratuitous A380 shot, with a B747 in the background.

Another, this time with a B777.

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!