Mensagens

A mostrar mensagens de novembro, 2009

New Photo of the Week - Flying with Sqd.502

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Like I already said, last week I attended the activation of PoAF's AM3 at Porto Santo. Besides the great oportunity to be present at such a moment, the other great thing about that was that I made my premiere on a Portuguese Air Force C-295, the new transport plane of our Air Force. We made the Madeira - Porto Santo - Madeira flights in it. It was really a great experience and although at first we didn't get too keen of photographing through the bubbled windows due to distortion, it allowed quite some fantastic and diferent shots, like this photo. On arrival to Porto Santo, we made a couple o passes over the island to shoot some images on the military instalations, the AM3. (great views!!) This pic was taken in the approach to the second pass over the runway. It's a shot with a lot of luck in the mix that gets the main elements of the island: the big golden sand beach, the runway and the small city of "Vila Baleira" with its old pier. Later on, i'll

Raven Team no Operacional.pt

O site Operacional.pt publicou mais uma excelente reportagem, desta feita relativa à Unidade de Protecção de Força, da Força Aérea, fazendo uma pequena resenha histórica sobre a mesma e dando especial destaque à operação desta Força mais recentemente, no Afeganistão, em acompanhamento aos destacamentos da Esq.501. Ver em: Operacional.pt - Afeganistão: Unidade de Protecção da Força em Operações

AM3 / Baptismo de voo em C-295

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A passada quarta-feira foi um dia fantástico! Tive a oportunidade de marcar presença no evento de activação do Aeródromo de Manobra nº3, no Porto Santo (área militar do aeroporto do Porto Santo). Além da satisfação de estar presente num pequeno momento da história da aviação no nosso arquipélago, ainda por cima num específico da aviação militar, para a qual vão as minhas preferências mas, que infelizmente, é pouco comum por estes lados, ainda tive o prazer de efectuar os voos Madeira-Porto Santo-Madeira no mais recente avião da Força Aérea, o C-295. Neste momento ainda só tratei algumas fotos mas já fiz um pequeno report noticioso para o site da Madeira Spotters, acompanhado de algumas imagens, referente ao evento e às "novidades" que pudemos confirmar por lá, no que toca ao futuro do AM3 e das aeronaves da Força Aérea que por lá andarão. Podem vê-lo AQUI, no site da Madeira Spotters . Por agora, deixo apenas uma imagem, que deverá ter sido das mais interessantes que

New Photo of the Week - Sdq.501 C130 - Porto Santo 2009

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It's been quite a while since I last looked at the pics I took this year at Porto Santo, during summer vacations. So, this Week's Photo is dedicated to Sqr.501 C-130 during that time. They were around more than usual due to the visit of the Kings of Spain to our archipelago. The most used was 16801 but 16805 also showed up once... This Week's photo was taken early in the morning. I woke and went to Pico Castelo. The silence and light at that time (around 8 am) was really nice and it was relaxing to be there just by myself. They were getting ready to fly to Madeira, in support of the visit of the Kings of Spain. The Kings and the Portuguese President were at Madeira and were coming to lunch at Porto Santo. Also on the main apron, it was the Porto Santo based C-212. It usually stayed on the military apron... It's now a little bit of past history, as C-212 already left the PoAF detachment at Porto Santo and probably  won't return. For a plane with such an his

Breaking of Copyright....

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Yesterday, DN Portugal , a national newspaper published a report on the next-week Portuguese Air Force ceremony to upgrade the Porto Santo airport military instalations to AM3 (manouver airfield number 3). With the report, they had a photo of a couple of PoAF Merlins taxiing into the runway at Porto Santo. The problem is that the photo in question is mine. They never asked any kind of permission, nor paid anything on the usage of the photo. It's copyright breaking , and it's specially worst if you consider that they're a national newspaper and that they have a huge disclamer on their copyrights and the usage of their things.... The image was originaly uploaded to Airliners.net, you can see it HERE . There, the statements regarding copyright, are pretty clear. I usually say, I do plane spotting for the pleasure of the hobby but photographic equipment and gasoline costs money and if some comercial company is making money with my work then it's more than fare th

The night the Alouette flew into the Fórum

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Some days ago, I found this pics while navigating through old photos. Thought that it really deserved to be shared, if not for the pics quality, at least for the event. It's not everyday you get to see an Alouette II at Madeira, and even less you get to see it on a "night flight"...hehe! The year: 2006. The event: A military exhibit at the Fórum Madeira Shopping. Had the info that an Al.II would be present in the exhibit and had the schedule of its arrival on the day before its opening. It was late, as the exhibit was beeing mounted after the closing of the shopping center. Anyway was well worth it. I'm pretty sure it was the first (and only) time we had an Alouette II at Madeira. It arrived on a tow truck, the surrunding area provided some nice backgrounds (although the sprinklers on the grass didn't help at all on the positions to photograph....) The military personal was nice and allowed me some close-up shots, in this case on top of the tow, r

Music... Oldie

Was just listening to some oldies and decided to share this one, one of my favs. (both the music and the vídeo)

New Photo of the Week - First A380

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With the news of the first A380 for Air France, decided to share as this week's Photo of the Week a memorie of the first (and only) ocasion I saw the A380 live. It was back in 2005, in the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget . Definitely the star of the Air Show, the teste plane was beeing seen for the first time on an Air Show. We (Madeira Spotters) stayed really near the bird and what a sight... (although I remembered thinking I was expecting something more "outstanding" when it was on the ground) But in the air....really honours it registration (F-)WWOW!! For now, only this pic, will share some others later altough made some really bad shots due to inexperiency...

Nov.9th - New Colors, Winglets and others...

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On this Monday wasn't feeling much in the mood for going to the airport but then I noticed that one of the Thomson flights from Manchester was beeing made by G-OOBA, which had changed very recently its colors from the First Choice livery for the Thomson and also had gained winglets. The Cimber Sterling flight was also beeing made by the OY-MRG, with new livery, so decided to go to the airport. Despite beeing sunny at Funchal, the weather at Santa Cruz was quite crappy, cloudy and with light rain... Anyway, the pics... This Thomson, like I said, was the star of the morning but it still is a bit disapointing, until now I was expecting that Thomson Airways got some really nice and different livery but looks like it's confirmed they'll keep TUI's "boring blue"... The winglets look real nice on the plane, though... and the colors are quite darker than the ones in use by the "old" planes. This was the other nice catch of the day. Love this livery,

Luxair

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Jorge called my atention today on a new plane to Luxair ( info on Skyliner Aviation ), so in lack of new traffic (still processing the pics from last monday, with a couple of nice catches, specially G-OOBA, with new colors, Thomson ones, and winglets...) decided to share some Luxair pics, remembering old and new colors... The next two are definitely my favorites on this airline: Taking off from runway 23, in the afternoon... Landing on runway 23, on the afternoon... Taking off from runway 23 in bad weather...This is the only pic I have published on paper for this airline: Still old colors and another take off from runway 23 on the late afternoon... New colors landing on runway 05 by the afternoon... and taking off, from runway 05, also on the afternoon... Want to know how to get into these locations? Have a look at Madeira Spotters Webpage ...it's mostly there.

Still no Air Berlin's A330

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Well, still no Air Berlin's A330 around here... Instead of using one big plane from Nurember they used a couple of smaller ones.... Lets see next thursday. Meanwhile...a photo of a rare A330 around here, LTU titles on new Air Berlin livery landing on runway 23.

33...

and counting... This one was released in 1975 but was one of 1976 Top's and it's definitely one of my favs. of all times... HB to me...lol

New Photo of the Week - Air Berlin's A330 from 23

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This week's photo will be dedicated to Air Berlin's A330. Now that winter season has started, Air Berlin's filight with this bird should have started... Last week we had days with a couple of flights (B737 and/or A320) from Nuremberg that should have been made with only one A330. Let's see if this week they start bringing the A330. It's allways nice to see that bird (which is my fav. airliner) around here with other colors than TAP...

Working Merlin...

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On the same day of the arrival of the Atlético Bilbao, the Portuguese Air Force EH-101 based at Porto Santo was quite busy during a few hours. It made a couple of Medical Evacuations on the sea. The first one was from cruise ship "Aida Vita", 240 miles from Madeira and the second one was from a petrol carrier ship 70 miles off our island. After the arrival of Privilege with the spanish team, I left the airport. Not longer after that received a call telling me that there was one of the new C-295 of the Portuguese Air Force (16704) at the airport and that the Merlin was also there refueling, before proceeding to another Medical Evacuation on the sea...crap!! The problem with military traffic, specially on a civilian airport is that you never know when they're coming... Anyway, later (around 15.30) was driving at Funchal when I noticed the EH-101 descending into the west part of the city...it had to be landing on the Hospital helipad. Went there, off course. Not many

The arrival of Atlético Bilbao

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Yesterday (04.Nov.2009) the spanish football (soccer) team arrived to Madeira, to play with local team C.D.Nacional for the European League. It was the first of 4 planes chartered for this event (lots of spanish coming)...2 from Privilege ( EC-ISY and EC-HDS) and another couple of flights made by White's A320 ( CS-TQK ). EC-ISY was the only one I got. Weather wasn't smilling to receice the spanish team/fans on this flights... Some noticeable condensation effect coming out of the flaps...

Ao pôr-do-sol

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Estava hoje na varanda a apreciar o por-do-sol, por trás dos edifícios circundantes quando reparei nuns "trabalhadores" em final de dia, no topo de um edifício ao fundo. Achei que valia a pena ir buscar a máquina, pois estava um enquadramento muito bom, contra a luz do por-do-sol...

Testing, 1, 2, 3...

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Got myself some new gear. Birthday is coming closer and decided to gift myself. (and also my "old" 300D has been announcing its eminent death for a long time...). I'm now the proud owner of a Canon 1000D. Well, it's just an entry level camera (and so the 300D was) but I guess it's good enough for my skills. If I don't take good pics with it, then using a better camera wouldn't help at all... Anyway, still testing some definitions as it brings a lot more features than the 300D... A rather quick stop at the airport, on a Saturday late afternoon was the first plane spotting photography with it... The second day of Aigle Azur to Madeira on A319. Coming on final with some backlit but a lot of great reflections... The other French of the afternoon, taxiing to 05 to departure... An old LTU plane, now with Air Berlin livery but still with a sticker with "Operated by LTU" And finally, the home land airline... Conclusions? Well, will let