daily pic

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I've been writing a bit again.

We are grinding our way westward into a rising wind that is blowing across the islands of Japan and rushing outward over the rapidly darkening waters of the Pacific Ocean, now just barely visible in the pre-dusk murk below us. The captain has been talking for the past 600 miles, while I have split my attention between his story of purchasing a new car and my view of the sun, as it dropped towards the horizon—the light outside the cockpit windows slowly changing from a bright white glare to a subdued bluish-orange glow. We have been chasing after the sun at just over 80% of the speed of sound for almost ten hours now, but despite our best efforts, the sun is finally going to win the race.

The sun sets—a perfectly round marble slipping beyond the curve of the earth in a shimmering mirage of yellow and red—just as the defused ground lights of Tokyo come into view below a gauzy layer of clouds. Even with the sun gone, a pale gradient of orange glow still runs along the horizon line, casting dim illuminations across the softened world that unfolds around us. Off our nose, Tokyo Bay—with the mass of humanity that surrounds it now represented only by the thousands and thousands of points of light—shimmers and reflects a muted version of the orange streak at the world’s edge. Out my right-side window however, farthest from the last rays of today’s light, the world is a ghostly gray and blue swirl of sky and clouds and sea, rapidly fading into the approaching darkness.

We cross over the coastline as the rainbow of orange continues to evaporate into the deep blue of the night. Visible in the distance, although only as a darkened shadow against the landscape, Mt. Fuji’s cinder cone silhouette pushes upward through the low-lying blanket of translucent clouds that seem to crash against its lower flanks. We cast no shadow in the dim light as we fly over the northern edge of the Bay and directly over the top of Tokyo’s Narita airport, while the mountain in the distance grows in size even as it fades into the darkness that fills the spaces between the ground lights.

Fifteen minutes later we pass just north of Mt. Fuji, and I unbuckle my harness and take three shuffling steps across the cockpit to crouch down in the space behind the captain’s seat, staring out the left side windows at the vague form of the mountain drifting by us in the darkness—its 12,000 foot summit still some five miles below our wings. As it slips out of sight and disappears towards tomorrow, I twist and stretch, my back popping satisfyingly. I then sit down again, adjust my seat, and stare forward into the night as a scattering of stars wink into view in the inky black evening sky.
 
A few from a quick LAX trip with @JordanD last week to catch the cargo action into LAX. Compared to Xmas 2018 when I spent 5 days down there shooting freighters, I was surprised to see that most of the FedEx action was in the early morning and after dark instead of all day long like 2018. However, due to COVID-19, there was an endless stream of Asian passenger jets full of cargo all day\night long, with China Airlines alone having 8-10 daily LAX-TPE flights(of which some left just 5-10 minutes apart!). The H Hotel rooftop patio was perfect for getting plastered with Inglewood's finest off brand vodka after dark and trying for handheld night pans of planes landing on the 24s with waning sobriety.

Luckily for us, one of ATI's ex-American 767-300s was dedicated on an LAX-HNL-SEA-LAX route allowing us to catch it from different angles. It was very cool to catch her departing to HNL past the AA terminal which she frequented months ago. Also managed to convince a security guard who came over asking if we had sniper rifles to let us hang around a high rise parking garage and keep shooting long enough to catch an albino Atlas 747 touching down in front of us. Never a dull trip to LAX.

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However, due to COVID-19, there was an endless stream of Asian passenger jets full of cargo all day\night long, with China Airlines alone having 8-10 daily LAX-TPE flights(of which some left just 5-10 minutes apart!).

I was wondering why there was so many of them leaving daily when they are probably empty passenger wise. Saw it the other night on FlightAware and just assumed it wasn't reporting right with so many TPE bound flights.
 
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United 872 from TPE was usually the only chance of a sunrise 747 arrival at SFO after NCA stopped flying here, and I shot the crap out of it every summer lol. He it is demonstrating textbook seawall clearance with a Compass 175 backtracks on 19L\1R after waiting out a flow delay to LAX around 7AM. It was crazy the last few summers how bad the Bay Area to SoCal flow would be even in the early AM thanks to all the traffic. I recall something like 20 flights from SFO to LAX alone by 8AM in the summer of 2018. This summer it was like 10 RJs a day in each direction between AA\UA\DL\AS. COVID...
 
Saw we were in a very blue thread. Thought I'd share one of this airline's two fleet members, seen down in Newark while I was there for a bit.

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F-HNCO is the second of LaCompagnie's 3N1s. The things took over the 757s they had, with an all-business cabin. I THINK these guys took over for MaxJet or SilverJet or whatever, back in the mid 00s when everyone was in the business class fuss.
 
Also couldn't help the "ten years goes by fast" theme from a few posts back. Back when I would just keep my nose plastered to the cabin windows flying home to Philly, I'd occasionally take the big ole camera out before landing.


Photo credit me.
That DH8C was N326EN, and at 30 years old amazingly, is still active as 5Y-ELX in Kenya. The E70 was N812MD with MidAtlantrepubliegional . . . .lines.....
aaaaand ended up in Siberia as VQ-BYF. 30th E-Jet built.
 
Saw we were in a very blue thread. Thought I'd share one of this airline's two fleet members, seen down in Newark while I was there for a bit.

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F-HNCO is the second of LaCompagnie's 3N1s. The things took over the 757s they had, with an all-business cabin. I THINK these guys took over for MaxJet or SilverJet or whatever, back in the mid 00s when everyone was in the business class fuss.
Yep didn't take over directly but the same concept as both of those as well as Open Skies, L' Avion, ect who also offered all biz class Transatlantic to Paris. Caught one in early 2020 doing ORY-EWR-LAS for CES2020. What a pretty plane.

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Reminds me of the time my wife (gf at the time) made me get up at 4 am in Bar Harbor to go to the dang mountain top at sunrise. It was a solid 36 degrees out and I was amazed the the hundreds if not thousands of people that were atop the mountain at 5 am when the sun started to rise. Supposedly its the first place the see the sun in America in the morning. I didn't fact check it.
 
Reminds me of the time my wife (gf at the time) made me get up at 4 am in Bar Harbor to go to the dang mountain top at sunrise. It was a solid 36 degrees out and I was amazed the the hundreds if not thousands of people that were atop the mountain at 5 am when the sun started to rise. Supposedly its the first place the see the sun in America in the morning. I didn't fact check it.


Just since I know this, it's indeed Acadia National Park from October to March.

You're welcome. :)
 
I was just about to go to bed Tuesday morning when I checked on Flightradar24 and saw UA955 from TLV land on 01R at SFO before 5AM, followed by the next few arrivals and a FedEx 767 which did a go around, tried 10R, went around again, and diverted to SMF. Gusts over 60MPH. So I chugged a RedBull and got up to the SFO area just before dawn where my mental planning for the last 20 years of cool sunrise\early morning locations finally came in handy. Not a single plane landed or departed the 28s for several hours. If any of you got to shoot that approach, I probably caught you (though during the RJ parades I usually used it as a cue to switch locations LOL). An ATI\Prime Air 767-300 decided to follow 101 and then do a tight-ass(you can totally say ass on here) approach which is probably going to go viral as all sorts of spotters got video. It was amazing to watch, but the pilots of the internet seem upset that they were obviously not stabilized at any point of the landing LOL. Oh well, hope they don't get in trouble as we all appreciated it. Kind of like how Jerry does what he does but somehow usually sticks the landing.

Here are a few of the shots I've edited:

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And here is the 767 landing:

 
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