Mensagens

A mostrar mensagens de janeiro, 2011

Eyes on: Alma

O Alex Maio , outro dos Madeira Spotters rendeu-se à blogosfera e criou por estes dias o seu blog, onde partilha as suas fotografias de Aviação mas, não só. Embora num estado ainda embrionário, merece certamente ser seguido atentamente: http://mycatches.blogspot.com/

Privilege...at Porto Santo

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Today we had a charter flight from Madrid, by Privilege. It's not an usual airline around here, still, didn't go for the arrival...not really fond on their livery and already caught it a few times at Porto Santo... Planning on going to the airport during the afternoon, so I will probably be taking some pics of it on the apron... Anyway, last time I caught a Privilege was in Porto Santo, during the Summer. They were making weekly charter flights from Porto and Lisbon, to that island. That day, I had the unexpected oportunity for a special visit and spotting place... :)) (Thanks Pedro!) Joint spotting with a local spotter, early in the morning, EC-HDS on the first flight of the day. On the left, Sata's CS-TRC. Spotting from a diferent location,,,  Taxiing to runway 36 Take-off rotation....the tail didn't seem too far from a tailstrike....

Back to Airliners...

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Some time ago, decided to stop uploading pics to Airliners ...stuff was beeing constantly rejected for the most picky reasons....(although I admit some of them weren't really A.net material...) A few days ago, decided to upload a few pics. The first one was acepted today...

Memórias - Tiger!!

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Num dia destes, em que tem estado a chover forte ao longo de todo o dia (felizmente parece que ainda sem grandes consequências....) está mesmo bom é para vir para casa remexer nestas coisas.... A memória de hoje é referente a uma fantástica visita que fiz há já alguns anos ao Pólo do Museu do Ar então existente na Base Aérea de Sintra (o Museu do Ar tinha então as suas principais instalações em Alverca). Nessa altura, por motivos profissionais, passei duas semanas em Lisboa e no fim-de-semana, combinando com alguns amigos entusiastas um encontro. Esse encontro foi organizado pelo Vítor Sousa, que infelizmente já não se encontra entre nós e era um grande entusiasta das coisas do ar e com o qual aprendi imensa coisa acerca da nossa aviação militar, tendo inclusive colaborado com ele em alguns artigos que escreveu para a Mais Alto, a revista da Força Aérea.... 5454, G.91 com a pintura Tiger Um dos trabalhos que fiz em colaboração com o Vítor. O desenho e pintura em perfil

Swiftair's cargo plane

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Another great moment of last Saturday, was the possibility of visiting the inside and specially the cockpit of Swiftair's cargo plane that makes the daily cargo flights Lisbon-Madeira-Lisbon. Many thanks to the captain and everyone else that made it possible! EC-KRA , a B733 that arrived at Swiftair in 2008 The Capt. and the F/O were preparing the flight One of the few ocasions I couldn't care less if the plane was white or not....LOL

New Photo of the Week - SBA

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Last Saturday was a really nice spotting day and an even better gathering between some of the Spotters. Definitelly a day like we hadn't had in quite a while. A big thumbs up to everyone and also to the other spotters who unfortunatelly due work, couldn't join us. I was really undecided on which pic I'd choose to this week's photo. Ended up choosing this one from SBA.... YL-LCY , the 767 from SBA, ready to push back This day we managed to get some pics that were really nice and rare (premiere's to me) but decided on this one because it's been a long time since I last caught an SBA which has a really nice livery that I like and anyway, it's not everyday you get these 18mm shots...   Take off to Caracas, from runway 05 Right engine was leaving a big and dark tail of smoke....(the other one was quite regular...)

New Photo of the Week - Thomsonland and little more...

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The break in the amount of traffic is more and more visible every day and on mondays it specially visible on the Thomson traffic. Nevertheless, Mondays at Madeira are still ruled by Thomson that turns LPMA into an authentic Thomsonland during some times of the day (late morning and lunch...) G-BYAL and G-OOBC on the stands, G-OOBP taxiing in holding and G-OOBD landing on 23  Last Monday, João Melim, a spotter from Porto Santo, was at LPMA so I went to the airport for little more than an hour. The Thomson traffic was a lot more visible than the previous monday I'd been there, probably due to the Thomson cruise ship on Funchal port. G-BYAL livery looking even older again shinning new painting of G-OOBP (that came into service with Thomson in May, 2010: former HB-ISH, from Belair) The arrival of G-OOBD Departure of G-OOBP, from runway 23 and finally an big change from the blues to full red of Sterling (OY-MRF) Thomas Cook and Thomas Cook Scandinavia are also

Water mirrors & a C-295 out of the mist

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Yesterday stopped at the airport during lunch time, expecting to see something interesting... Things were pretty quiet and the weather was quite awfull with heavy rain. Despite that, during a break on the rain, noticed that the water on the apron was mirroring the colors of the parked aircraft.... CS-TKJ 's new colors were reflecting a lot despite beeing the farther one  CS-TMW PGA 's F100 are still regular around here... ( CS-TPC ) Anyway, nothing was going on and I had to leave... Not far from the airport, met a military convoy heading for the airport....so decided to go back with the hope of getting 16803, the Portuguese Air Force C-130 with the new grey livery... Weather was getting worst from the side of runway 23, specially on the visibility... Despite that was the runway in use, the PoAF crew decided to land on 05 which was still with clear visibility. Started searching for the approaching plane to check if it was the 16803 but all I could see on the

Gaining Wings...

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Today, on the afternoon, as I was going home, decided to air-up my head a little bit while watching the sunset. A couple of newbie paragliders were having lessons at Centromar. No take-offs. Looked like one was learning the basics of gearing up with the wing and the other was traninning inflating the wing and make the take-off run (with no take-off). The sunset on the back and the orange wing gave it the final touch for the pic... Good luck on gaining your wings!

Moon by day and night...

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Last weekend was talking with A.L. about photographing the moon... Yesterday, during the afternoon, noticed that it was looking good and in a nice position to be photographed so, took some shots in the afternoon and in the begining of the evening... Both shots were made with the Sigma 50-500 handheld and ISO 400...

Portuguese Merlin on the Saipem 7000

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This morning, the Portuguese Air Force Merlin detached at Porto Santo made 2 or 3 trips to the Saipem 7000. It's definitely something out of the usual to see in Funchal bay... This time I shot the pics in raw and gave it much more processing than usual as it had to be photographed  in backlight from my work's top floor. I got there just in time to see the EH approaching for one of the landings... An overview of Funchal downtown as another surprise (a US Navy ship) was entering the port. After a couple of circles on the platform, the EH went for the landing Disembarking the passengers...

Saipem 7000

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This morning the ship spotters had a big (literally) motive for their spotting. Besides the Aidablu and the Thomson Spirit, Madeira woke up with this huge platform in front of the city.It's the Saipem 7000 , the second largest crane vessel, that stoped at Madeira for a marketing action, before proceeding to Mexico. Didn't managed to take any pics in the morning but, on the afternoon, decided to go to a small mountain, behind my place (well known by paragliders....Pico da Cruz) for some shots... Aidablu had already departed but the Thomson Spirit was still on the port.... Decided to stay to the sunset, while taking some other shots, which I'll share some other day...

New Photo of the Week - Carrier take-off

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D-AHFM taking off from runway 05 This pic has already a couple of years but I hadn't uploaded it anywhere. It's one of those that really makes you understand why LPMA-Madeira is sometimes referred to as the air carrier airport... The next two pics of this take off also turned out really nice. You can check it HERE and HERE Currently this plane is "wearing" the special Blue Haribo livery ..

Memories - The white Cook and a few more memories

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You realise your pics aren't that well organized when you take a really long time to find some pic... Usually I hate white planes (fridges...) but some time ago, I remembered of a white Thomas Cook that I had photographed some years ago which looked quite nice, the problem was finding those pics... Well finally got it. I still think this is a rather nice "fridge" and was the only time I caught one of these... G-TCAC, a white Thomas Cook... Browsing the other pics of the day, found some stuff worth remembering.... G-OOBJ, that is already on Thomson livery...    With the last one you realise that stuff really changes... On the front G-SAAW, from FlyGlobespan, that went bankrupt. On the push-back, G-BYAD, back then on Thomson, and now N901NV on service with Allegiant Air and finally old Sata's ATP CS-TGX, now replaced with the Q200 (and Q400)...

Happy Birthday!!!

...e cada vez melhor... LOL!

2500 Lifes

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Yesterday, an EH-101 from Sqn.751 rescued a young bodyboarder. This was the 2500 person rescued by Squadron 751, a meaningful number that really stands for the Squadron Moto: "Para que outros vivam!" (So others may live..) Congratulations for all these years and lifes! Keep up the good work!

Ready... Set... Go!!

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And, looks like the Thomson is winning the race.. :P Thanks to R. for calling my attention to this one. OY-VKS , from Thomas Cook Scandinavia is taxiing to holding point on Bravo, while the Thomson (G-OOBN) is already on the runway, backtracking and linning up rwy 23.

New Photo of the Week - Jet2 757 Premiere

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This winter season is beeing quite bad, in terms of traffic (variety and quantity) so, little things like a company bringing for the first time a Boeing 757 are allways points of interest :)) Jet2 has been flying to Madeira for some time but this was the first time they brought a 757 (the usual is the B733). G-LSAH, the first Jet2 757 at Madeira, landing on runway 23 Vacating through taxiway Charlie The return to Manchester was also through runway 23  The take off was made under some security measures: The current Portuguese President, arrived to Madeira, as a candidate to the next Presidential elections and we all had to back away, from the edge of the balcony... Result: got a lot of plants, light poles and other stuff in front of the plane...(anyway, it still was better than beeing evacuated from the balcony....) You can check a vídeo of the landing and take-off at AviationChannel-Madeira