Mensagens

A mostrar mensagens de maio, 2009

New Photo of the Week - Navy Lynx

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This week, the Photo of the Week is dedicated to E24th HM (Navy Helicopter Squadron). One year ago, the Navy Day celebrations were carried through at Madeira. Like I said before, a fantastic week and also the first time I got to see the Navy Super Lynx in action. This photo was taken from Funchal "beach" with the Lynx almost on vertical with me in the final part of the demo. Pretty sure the pic isn't able to pay justice to the moment, the sensation of noise and power... Took lots and lots of photos and it's allways hard to choose, so today, I'm sharing a few ones of the 24th May 2008 demo. It's just a small random selections of the pics I took that day. The rescue demo The boarding demo. On that day, we also got the first visit of the Independence of the Seas, which was, at the time (don't know if still is) the world's biggest cruise ship. Inserting marines The ending of the demo with one of the Lynx landing on NRP Álvares Cabral getting ready to retur

CS-DIR Crashed

Yesterday afternoon, the well know local aerobatic Zlin142 CS-DIR crashed at Madeira Airport. No photos or any other comments, just a word of sympathy for the two people on board, specialy the one that was most injured, evacuated this evening to the mainland.

100 Anos de Aviação em Portugal

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(100 Years of Aviation in Portugal) A Força Aérea colocou on-line um site relativo a esta comemoração: The Air Force has put on-line a site regarding this event (portuguese only): Site das Comemorações do 100 Anos da Aviação em Portugal

US Navy and XL colors

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Last Tuesday ( 19th May ) we had a couple of very rare movements around here. The first was a C40 (B737) from US Navy. Military planes are rare around here, specially US ones so, although this hadn't many differences form any B737 civil airliners, it's allways an interesting catch. Its presence had probably something to do with the scale of USS Nashville at Funchal Port. Went for the afternoon traffic and as I arrived it was getting ready to leave. What a luck. Anyway, its departure was quite delayed as they realised upon cleared for push-back that they had no push-back tow.... I'm guessing that someone forgot to contract one... Finally, after almost 45minuts, they managed to get a tow for the job and linned up on runway 05: Although it has winglets now, the US flag and "United States Navy" were removed, so the plane is visually less actractive... You could notice in the comunications that the crews wasn't used to navigate around here, as they were carefully (

Bad Weather

Today, the weather outside is quite bad. Looks like we're in the middle of Winter...brrr Lots of rain and low clouds. Traffic at LPMA is beeing diverted to Porto Santo and at least a couple of planes (Air Berlin's 757, from Zurich and Transavia, from Amsterdam went to the Canary Islands...) Current METAR: LPMA 210900Z 25016KT 4000 SHRA BKN015 FEW018CB 16/15 Q1013RS22014KT 0522017KT 2324016KT=

New Photo of the Week - NRP Corte Real

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This week, the Photo won't be from a plane. I'll be heading to sea... Exactly one year ago, on the 18th May 2008, NRP Corte Real, a Portuguese Navy frigate was arriving to become part of the Navy Week celebrations at Madeira (included in the celebrations of the Funchal city's 500 Years). It was indeed a fantastic week, full of activities and a with a naval movement never seen (by me) around here. The arrival of Corte Real, with a couple of Lynx helicopters on board also marked the arrival of the air branch of the Navy. It would be the first time I'd see Lynx helicopters flying and thanks to the fantastic cooperation of the EHM (Navy Helicopter Squadron) and of CTen Hugo Cabral (also my thanks to Luís Laranjeira) I was able to follow the flights and air activity in a much better way than ever before. So, some pics of the arrival...

PoAF C295 training at LPMA

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Squadron 502 keeps training at Madeira with its new airplanes, the C295M. Last 13th May, got a call form Jorge: the C295 was at Funchal area and would go to the airport for a couple of touch and go's.... Was nearby my place, so run into my home to get my camera and the car and went "low flying" (obviously withing speed limits....) to the airport. Managed to get near runway 05 treshold as the C295 was entering short final to this runway. Made a quick stop and a few shots...not the best light but...new registration, was 16703. While it was making the second circuit to 05 I went to a better location, on the "rampa do Dionísio", on the road behind the runway, for the second touch and go. The sun, at this time it's still backlit but is the best place for approach/touchdown. After this touch and go, it went 3000ft to Porto Santo. Made a warn call to Paulo, at Porto Santo and headed home... A real quick but also real worth trip...

SAS retro and Flyglobespan / Oman Air

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So, here's the rest of the traffic for the Monday, 11th May . As I said a very nice day for spotting with some really interesting traffic. On the afternoon, besides the more interesting traffic, the sunlight was also better (on its location and quality). In little more than half an hour there was a lot of traffic. Good, that's the way I like it, specially if I was supose to be "somewhere else" :)) Anyway, we had the SAS with retro livery, which is always a nice catch. Until now had only caught it once and the photos were real crappy... This Flyglobespan returned back to its operator just a few days, after a lease to Oman Air and it's still wearing hybrid colors (very nice ones, be the way...) Transavia, as usual, with the regular livery...no PH-XRA... It made a bit of a longer and... ...quite a smoky landing... And at this time, it even looks like its orange time with lots (for our kind of traffic) of Easyjets... Luxair new colors is allways a nice catch. Much bet

Travel Service A320

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Last Monday morning (11th May) we had something new around here: first time Travel Service flew to Madeira with an A32o (until the day before, I didn't even knew they had those planes...) Ended up beeing a very nice day, as in the afternoon there was also some very interesting traffic...but, I'll leave the afternoon traffic for the next post....let's talk about the morning... Usually I don't find the monday morning traffic to interesting...it's mainly First Choice/Thomsons, TAP, Easyjet and Transavia (with no intentions on bringing the PH-XRA special livery...) This monday we had also a couple of Travel Services and like I said, one was an A320, reason enough for a ride to the airport: The other Travel Service of the day, on final to runway 05, with "Gelo" on background and "Santa Maria" Caravelle sailing to Funchal A nice condensation effect on the left engine of this Thomson. The other guys said they'd seen it in other planes taking off but