Shot of the day: Toons!

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:

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.

More super shots

I lucked into a nice shot of Asiana landing on Runway 24 Left this weekend. Since I knew it would be featured here, I took a look through the cameras to see what else I had in the same vein. The opening shots are mine; the remaining four I believe are credited to CG (again).

 

Emirates arriving on Runway 24 Left, with a KLM B747-400 on Taxiway Echo. This summer, we've been getting two KLM flights per day, both in B744s. Some of you may recall that the last two summers, the additional seasonal flight was often operated with MD11s, but not this year.

Three of a kind! To produce this shot, the ground and tower controllers had to work together, since we have some draconian restrictions on A380s on the runway and the adjacent taxiway at the same time. The British Airways jet would have had to wait in position on the runway until the Air France jet could approach the position seen here. Not seen in this shot are the dozen other aircraft that are normally departing about this same time; the A380s most likely were held back until everyone else was out of their way.

While I was gone on MINI Takes The States, Los Angeles got rain. In late July, which is virtually unheard of. Nonetheless, here is a sequence of shots showing Korean departing Runway 24 Left. Check out the spray!

 

This post features most of LAX's A380 operators; the only ones not shown are Qantas and China Southern. As of this writing, LAX gets eleven or twelve A380s a day. I hear that there are more that would like to come, gate space permitting. Here's the current breakdown of operators, and how many A380s they bring to LAX daily:

Air France: 1
Asiana: 1
British Airways: 2
China Southern: 1
Emirates: 1
Korean: 2
Singapore: 1
Qantas: 2 or 3

For those of you who want to see them in person, your best time is between about ten in the morning through around four in the afternoon. That will let you see most of them except for China Southern, who usually arrives closer to six in the afternoon. As many have lamented, most A380 operations occur on the north side of the airport. Don't despair, though: Sometime next year, that will change, albeit possibly only temporarily, when a runway construction project will push them all to the south side. More details will be forthcoming if/when I get them.

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!

Birds of a feather

LAX serves as a hub or focus city for a number of airlines, and so it's not anything special to see a number of one airline's aircraft here at once; Air Canada, Alaska, American, Continental, Delta, Fedex, Qantas, Southwest, United, US Airways, and Virgin America all regularly have a gaggle of airplanes here. But for some of our other carriers it's not so common to have more than one plane here at once, or it may only happen once during the day. Here are some: