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:
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| 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:
