Launch!

Just before Christmas, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from the California coast. While I was away, special photo credit goes to CS, who caught a series of shots that are sequenced below:

Here are a few more shots that didn't fit in the animation:

 

Special thanks to CS for these shots. Happy New Year everyone!

Catching up

I was doing so well for a while, and then all of a sudden it's been well over a month since I've posted. Oops. There is some good news though: in the interim I've had two trainees finish their training. Congrats to JB, our newest journeyman controller at LAX. And welcome back to TT, who was out for a while but has now returned. Of course, no good deed goes unpunished: Having gotten rid of those two trainees, I've been awarded two more!

Otherwise, today's entry is a collection of interesting shots from the time away. Enjoy!

I got to drive this!

The MD-87 was a rare bird when it was new. Nowadays, it's very uncommon indeed.

SkyWest now flies for Alaska Airlines at LAX, in addition to American, Delta, and United.

A SkyWest E-175 with a Delta A319

Horizon still flies for Alaska at LAX as well. This is the first Horizon airplane I've seen in the new Alaska livery.

Volaris has a revised livery; this is the first example seen at LAX

Full Moon Rising

Last week's Hunter's moon rose up right between the north and south finals into LAX. 

Special credit goes to UW for catching this photo!

Photo Friday

This week's edition of Photo Friday features several shots taken by my coworkers, who have many times helped out by grabbing photos when I'm not able. The opening shot is one, thanks to CG. The final Delta Airlines domestic B747 flight pushing out for departure, accompanied by a band of baton-waving ramp crew. Delta and United, the two remaining US mainline carriers who operate the B747, both have announced plans to retire the type from their fleets this year. Speaking of retiring, CG will soon be leaving our ranks as well, and we'll miss him.

 

 A comment was posted recently, asking if we have camera coverage of any of the hidden TBIT gates. We do, sometimes. When it works, this is about the best display that we get of the west side of the TBIT. The black square is supposed to be another view from a camera that we can control, but clearly we couldn't on the day this shot was taken. As you can see, the gates have been labelled for easier identification. I think SM gets credit for that. All of them are currently occupied with the exception of 134, at the far left. The gate next to it, 132, is currently closed for underground construction.

While Texas was recently in the news for hurricane Harvey, LA was in the news for the La Tuna fire. We could see the fire from the tower at night, but none of those shots came out clear enough to use. This is the towering cumulus cloud produced over the fire one day. One of our controllers had family threatened by this fire - he showed me phone pics of the fire taken from their back yard. They had to evacuate, but fortunately the fire didn't actually make it to their house. As it so happens, he is also one of the ones who particularly likes to play with the camera. Most of his shots I'm not allowed to publish, but here's one that came out really nice:

I don't recall why I took this next photo, but it was about 7 in the morning:

This one was taken just 5 minutes later:

Both of those are just as they came out of the camera. It's impressive how fast the visibility can change at LAX. 

And finally, another couple of shots that I can't take credit for. We see this way too often at LAX: