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.

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.