So, about that photo . . .

When I first took the shot that started this, what I was looking at (and what most of you spotted right away) was the three-of-a-kind line up that featured the E170. Then I noticed that all three of these airplanes had taxied around from the south side, which highlighted what a number of you also noticed: These three represent the three remaining legacy carriers (American, Delta, and United). Then another thought occurred to me: That while each of them represents a legacy carrier, none of them actually IS that carrier: Each one of these is operated by somebody else. The Delta Connection and American Eagle aircraft are flown by Compass, while the United Express airplane is operated by SkyWest.

To recap:

1. E170 3-of-a-kind
2. Three remaining legacy carriers
3. All taxied around 
4. None are flown by the legacy carrier 

I think each of these points was called out by one or more of you who sent in comments. For the win, though, was this one, sent in by Anonymous, who is a frequent commenter:  There is a stealth bomber on short final 24R   This comment makes more sense if you go back and look at the original photo; in the opening shot above the stealth bomber bears a striking resemblance to a Southwest B737 - now that's some impressive camouflage!

Technically, each of these is actually an E175; to ATC the E170 and E175 are the same, much as the E135 and E140 are the same for us. The E175 is about five feet longer than the E170, and holds eight passengers more, for a total of 76. E170s are not new at LAX, but they were a rare sight here until the arrival of Compass Airlines a couple of years ago. Prior to Compass, the only E170s to appear at LAX were flown by Republic, either for Midwest Express or Frontier. We also have had the larger E195s in Air Canada and AeroMexico Connect livery. The Air Canada E195s used to be common here, but we don't see them any more. The AeroMexico Connect E195s used to only show up at night, but we do occasionally get one now during daylight hours.

Southwest's new alternate tail

Since I first saw Southwest's new livery (seen above), I've wondered what they were going to do about putting their name on aircraft with special paint schemes. For reference, take a look at this B733 in the Arizona livery:

 Now I know, and I think I like it better than the standard new paint. See for yourself:

New arrival

Here's the first shot I've gotten of one of Southwest's new B737-800s.

Where can we go from here: Additions and Corrections

In an earlier entry, I mentioned several cities that only receive cargo flights from LAX. Since then, I've worked an overtime day shift during the week, and found a couple more:

Toledo, Ohio, is a cargo-only destination from LAX. The route is flown by Air Transport, using DC-8's. Flight time is about three and a half hours.

Another cargo flight to Brussels: Singapore Cargo lifts off from runway 25 right.

In the same posting about cargo operators, I mentioned that Fedex flies out of here to hubs in Memphis, Indianapolis, and San Jose. The first two are correct, but Fedex's west coast hub is actually in Oakland. Mea culpa. If you want to get to San Jose, you'll have lots of passenger options: American Eagle, Skywest, and Southwest all offer jet service from here to there (and back again). Flight times run from forty-five minutes to an hour. Skywest and Southwest also go into Oakland; those flights seem to run about fifty to fifty-five minutes.

In addition, I said that the Fedex flight to Fort Worth Alliance is usually done with an Airbus. So naturally, this week they had to do it with a DC-10:

A Fedex DC-10 departs off runway 25 left. On the parallel taxiway in the background is an Eva Cargo MD-11. The MD-11 was the follow-on model. Obvious differences are the MD-11's longer length and winglets. Less obvious in this picture is the MD-11's much better climb performance.

Speaking of DC-10s, a while back I mentioned former Northwest Airlines DC-10s that had been retired only to re-enter service with ATA for their military charters. Here are a couple of shots I discovered in a back corner of the iBook's hard drive:

As you can see, the transformations were not full-fledged makeovers.

One more ATA shot from the archives. ATA was the last scheduled US carrier to operate the Lockheed Tristar, my personal favorite of the first generation wide bodies. This was the last Tristar to show up here, sometime last year.

Where can we go from here: Props versus jets

Last time I discussed a few of the various destinations for flights out of LAX. This time we'll continue that theme with a look at destinations served by both jets and turboprops. As you might imagine, there are not that many places that have such dual service. JFK, for instance, currently does not have any scheduled turboprop service from LAX. All of these are cities served by one or more of the regional airlines operating at LAX: American Eagle (callsign: Eagle Flight), for American; Horizon, for Alaska; and Skywest, for United (primarily).

Boise, Idaho, can be reached from LA via Horizon's Dash 8, seen here in the foreground, or via Skywest's CRJ-200, in the background. The CRJ, while somewhat faster, also has less seating capacity: 50, versus around 70 for the Dash 8. Ironically, although they have different brand names (Canadair builds the CRJ's and de Havilland the Dash 8, which is officially the DHC-8), they're both built by the same parent company, Bombardier Aerospace of Canada, who also owns Learjet. Bombardier is better known to most Americans as the builder of Ski-Doo snowmobiles; producing snowcats and snowmobiles was how the company got its start in the 1930's. Just as the CRJ series was an outgrowth of the Challenger CL-60 business jet, the Dash 8 was a descendant of the Dash 7, which was in turn preceded by the de Havilland DHC-2 Twin Otter. Bombardier actually calls the turboprop the Q400, but you'll never hear pilots or controllers refer to it that way. The flight plan times are about 1:35 for the Skywest CRJ and 2 hours for the Horizon Dash 8. At LAX, the Horizon gates are a good deal closer to the preferred departure runway than are Skywest's.

Monterey, California, is another destination with turboprop and jet service from LA. In this case, American Eagle E135's and Skywest E120 Brasilias. Both of these aircraft are built by Brazil's Embraer, which has made itself a major player in the regional airliner market. The ERJ series is itself a development of the E120. The E135 is the smallest of the ERJ's, with a seating capacity of about three dozen; the Brasilia seats thirty. The jet is less than 15 minutes faster to Monterey than the turboprop; flight plan times are about 50 minutes and 1:04, respectively.


Another destination that offers a choice of jet or turboprop service also offers an additional choice of carrier: Reno, Nevada, can be reached from LAX via Horizon Dash 8, Skywest CRJ, or Southwest B737. The Skywest flight seems to be the shortest, by a whopping one minute. The CRJ's and 737's average just under an hour, while the Dash 8 takes about an hour and ten minutes.

San Diego and San Luis Obispo, California, offer not just a choice of jets or turboprops, but different models of turboprops as well. Skywest uses the Brasilia for these routes, but American Eagle uses E135's and Saab Fairchild 340's. Flight plan time for the Brasilia is about 25 minutes to San Diego. The jet is only a minute faster, but the Saab is about five minutes slower. I've mentioned before that the SF34 is the doggiest of all the aircraft regularly operating at LAX, and we controllers were encouraged by rumors that the Saabs were going to be phased out. If so, it hasn't happened yet (sigh). The E135 flight plans about a half hour to San Luis Obispo, the Brasilia about five or six minutes more. The Saab needs about forty-five minutes for the same flight.

On all of these routes, the jets are slightly faster, but what's not reflected is the greater fuel and maintenance requirements. That stuff doesn't show up in the flight plans, so I wasn't able to figure it in. Turboprops are generally more fuel efficient than jets, however, and don't have to climb as high to achieve efficiency. This plays in their favor, especially on short routes, as the airspace congestion in southern California often means that certain routes are held to pre-designated altitudes, regardless of what altitude the pilot files for. For instance, the San Diego flights are capped at nine thousand for the turboprops and eleven thousand for the jets. Below ten thousand, all aircraft are limited to 250 knots, and on these shorter routes there's just not much chance for the jets to go any faster.

On the other hand, the flying public has a definite preference for jets, even little ones, over prop-driven aircraft. The perception is that the prop aircraft are smaller, slower, bumpier, noisier, and more dangerous than the jets. I don't have any factual information to hand on whether any of these is in fact the case . . . but then neither does the flying public.

Recent Happenings

I apologize for the dearth of recent entries; traffic's been slow and we're having a resurgence of summer temperatures; the two combined have pretty much sapped my inspiration.

There has been a bit of recent aviation news. The first item comes from Allentown, PA, where a Mesa airlines CRJ700, operating for United, narrowly missed a Cessna that had just landed but missed its assigned exit. The controller apparently didn't hear the Cessna pilot say that he had missed his exit and was going to take the next one, and cleared the RJ for takeoff. After starting their departure roll, the RJ pilots saw the Cessna and aborted - from 120 knots. Reports are that the aircraft missed each other by about ten feet. There were no injuries reported, but the Mesa flight was cancelled. NATCA, the controllers' union, claims that the two controllers on duty were both trainees, with no 'adult' supervision. While this sounds unlikely to me, I'll concede the possibility. The timing was great for NATCA though, as the House Aviation Subcommittee was scheduled to meet two days later - to discuss runway safety. NATCA has maintained for some time now that the nation has been facing a growing controller shortage, and (naturally) lays the blame on FAA managements' ineptitude.

We don't have Mesa flying for United here at LAX, although they do operate here for USAir. Instead, the United RJ's at LAX are operated by Skywest, and here are a few photos:

We rarely have Cessnas at LAX, so to give you some idea of the size difference, here's a shot of one at a local general aviation airport.

The congress has passed a bill last week that allows the FAA to continue to operate in the absence of an actual budget. Thanks to the very muddled budget process for the last couple of years, the FAA has actually been operating under various continuing resolutions that allow the agency to keep going under the assumption that funding will be unchanged from what was last approved. This process has been rather frustrating for NATCA, who has been trying to get congress to force a change in the FAA's current way of dealing with controllers (just a quick recap: the nation's air traffic controllers have been working without a contract under imposed work rules since summer of 2006). The preferred way to make this happen is to attach an amendment to the FAA budget or some other 'must pass' legislation. The continuing resolutions have so far made this an ineffectual strategy. Meanwhile, AOPA, the aircraft owners and pilots association, has declared the current funding bill as a temporary victory in their on-going fight against user fees.

Three airlines operating at LAX are each receiving $600,000 grants to install safety equipment that will provide pilots with their location on the airport and alert them when they're about to enter or cross a runway. Southwest, Skywest, and US Airways will each install the equipment in 20 aircraft by next May as part of a study on the system's effectiveness. An FAA study indicated that over 40% of nation-wide pilot-error runway incursions between 2004 and 2008 could have been prevented by this equipment.

A pair of SWA B737's. The blue one is a 737-500, while the brown one is a -700.
The irony here is that the new paint scheme is on the old airplane.

A Southwest 737-300 departs runway 24 left in the background, and a Westjet 737-700 taxis in the foreground. Sandwiched in between is a US Air A321 - easily mistaken for a B757.

A US Air comparison shot: a B737 in the foreground and an Airbus A320 in the background. New controllers often have a hard time distinguishing the A320-series aircraft from the B737's. This photo is one I use to help my trainees learn to recognize some of the differences. In particular, look at the shapes of the tail cones and the noses. Winglets are another clue: the Airbuses all have vestigial winglets, while the Boeings either have none at all or great big ones;
look at the winglets on the Westjet and brown Southwest above.

Lots of Southwests and US Airs: LAX Terminal One, as seen from the tower.

A pair of Skywests: A CRJ-200 in the new United colors takes the runway. while an E-120 Brasilia in Skywest's own markings waits its turn.

Scheduled A380 flights at LAX will begin next month when Qantas initiates A380 service from the Tom Bradley International Terminal on October 20th. We're also supposed to get Emirates in October, although I've heard that they're going to initiate service to Dubai using B777's.