Smartwings from 05

Smartwings Slovakia B738 OM-TSG

From the same day of Brussels Airlines Bruegel special livery (check HERE) decided to go to the runway 23 area for the take-off of this Smartwings...the winds were strange and the plane should be heavy so, guessed it would make a longe take-off...wasn't wrong :)

First Smartinwgs B737MAX and more...

Last Tuesday we got the info that something unusual could came for some training so, as I had the time, went to the airport to try my luck.
Wouldn't be a missed trip anyway as I still hadn't got any Smartwings and Norwegian B737MAX nor had got any Novair this season....

The expected traffic for the training didn't came after all and the weather/light wasn't that good, specially near the lunch time but tryed to get some decend pics for the record...
Unfortunatelly...Norwegian decided not to bring the MAX on that day so, still missing that one...

Anyway, one can notice the renewall of the fleets as, from the traffic I got that morning, many were NEO or MAX...

Smartwings OK-SWF arriving from Warsow

Novair A321NEO SE-RKB, arriving from Gothenburg

This season, Novair has been coming with both A321NEO's,
Recently, the other A321NEO (SE-RKA) had an incident ..Check HERE
So, I guess we won't be seeing it around here anytime soon...this SmartLynx A321 (LY-LCV) made the flight from Stockholm Arlanda

Thomas Cook A321 OK-VKD, arriving also from  Stockholm Arlanda with the fight against cancer symbol near the titles 

Easyjet A320 NEO G-UZHI arriving from London Gatwick

Photo of the Week: Memory on the Smartwings

Back to 2011, remembering Smartwings older livery and planes..back when they had the B735 (which wasn't a very common type of 737 at Madeira)

OK-SWU departing from Madeira's runway 05
13.Jun.2011...the plane was stored later that year...

Smartwings

First pic's I publish of Smartwings taken this year...
Really enjoy their livery but haven't been taking many pics of them...
Arriving on a bit of a windy afternoon....

B738 OK-TVW over runway 05 treshold...

touchdown...

Photo of the Week: Thomson

For this week, a couple of shots from April that I still hadn't published, of B752 G-OOBN taxiing to runway 05:

On the back, Smartwings B738 OK-TSA taxiing to the gate...

Week Photo: Brave first one....

Back to the begining of August...sometimes, the life of a spotter is made of much waiting...
On this day, I spent the all afternoon waiting for the planes that just kept holding at ABUSU and diverting to other places due to the winds...
Finally, after an all afternoon, the first one came for a try, on the last sunlight...
Smartwings B738 OK-TSH was the brave first one... :)

on final to runway 05...

Air Transat by Smartwings / Travel Service

Hybrid planes are allways nice catch, specially if the main livery is of an airline that doesn't visit us...
:)
This week we got lucky with the Travel Service flight from Innsbruck/Vienna to Madeira as it was carried through by OK-TVU, a Smartwings B738 still with the full Air Transat titles / tail.
A big thumbs up to Christoph for the heads-up on this one! ;)

After a morning with several diverted planes due to cross winds, on the afternoon, the traffic was already landing without much trouble...

landing runway 05

arriving at the gates with Thomson B738 G-TAWP on its side.

Head to head...with Bravo November

Created some time ago a Facebook album for head to head shots...this one seems right for that... :)
Despite the amount of Thomsons we get every week, this is the first one I publish this year...
B752 G-OOBN, taxiing to holding, at "Charlie"...

on the back, a Smartwings B738 that had just arrived...

Night shots

A couple more shots from last month when I went with a local spotter and a visiting spotter to the balcony for some night shots...
Unfortunatelly, windy night, not long exposure friendly...

Smartwings OK-TVU carrying a Travel Service flight and OO-JAX, from Jetairfly by its side...

The smaller birds, ZS-JDL, a Bombardier Challenger 300 (BD-100-1A10) and local inter-island carrier Aerovip's Jetstream CS-DVQ, getting ready to depart to Porto Santo (PXO/LPPS)

New Photo of the Week: British Airways: The return of the Union Jack colors

Yesterday, we had the return of British Airways colors to Madeira, this time with the SpeedBird itself...
After a stop of a few years (When GB Airways, that carried these flights, was bought by Easyjet), yesterday we got to see British Airways colors again at Madeira, with a first flight from London-Gatwick.

A320 G-GATK about to enter the apron which was pretty colored with a variety of traffic

Welcoming bath from Madeira Airport Fire Dept.

Returning back to London-Gatwick, passing by Monarch A321 G-OZBZ that was redy for push-back, also for the return to Gatwick

It carried some passengers back to London but it was a really early take-off, with Ponta de S.Lourenço in the back

Curiously, at Funchal, was also P&O Cruise Ship "Britannia". Check HERE

Foto da Semana: B738 Smartwings

Já que falhei completamente a nova pintura especial da Thomas Cook Belgium esta manhã (devia estar com sono quando olhei para o FR24...) fica o meu primeiro registo da nova pintura Smartwings e o primeiro B738 que fotografo desta companhia...

Há já algum tempo que estes aviões nos visitam, efectuando voos Travel Service mas, até a semana passada não tinha tido grandes hipóteses de lhes fazer umas chapas..

OK-TVW na final para a 23
Estas cores, apesar do branco dominante, assentam muito bem neste aparelho...

Great afternoon of Spotting

It's been quite a longe time since I last went for an afternoon of spotting and honestly lately, Monday afternoons have been quite boring.
Today it seemed like it would be an interesting afternoon with some nice traffic that I haven't photographed lately and with some new stuff...
I wasn't wrong...

Probably the best shots were taken at OK-SWU, the B735 from Smartwings, making a Travel Service flight, from Prague...

Taking off from runway 05....

 On the landing, took some nice pics...regular ones...

short final to runway 05

 But for the take-off decided to go to another place.
With the strong winds, probabilities of a good shot were big....

Ponta de S.Lourenço on the background....

Will be posting a few more pics of today on the next days...Monarch, Luxair, Travel Service and a diferent one from Air Méditerranée...

A couple of worth catches on a quicky

Today was a day with some interesting stuff, specially on behalf of Travel Service that made 4 flights to Madeira.

Unfortunatelly only managed to get one of the Travel Service flights in a quick stop at the airport...

Despite having been here some times, the Smartwings OK-SWV B735 is allways a great catch for the colors and for the not so usual model at Madeira...

OK-SWV from Smartwings entering stand Alpha 03, where it will stay for a  few days...

The other nice catch was the Belgium Thomas Cook OO-TCP "Kabouter Plop".
I knew it had came to Madeira but wasn't expecting it still around here when I got there...looks like there were some serious delays.....

The A320 from Thomas Cook Belgium had still a lot of stuff around and I couldn't manage to wait to get cleared....

Jet2

For a break in military photos (there's still a lot to come but, just for the

sake of diversity, decided to share some Jet2 pics.

These were taken on the day before the arrival of Rotores de Portugal on a

morning of spotting all by myself that went very nice...

It was the first time this year that I photographed Jet2 and it was also some

of the first pics of this airline that I found to be aceptable....

Looks like whenever there is an airline with a livery I find interesting,

I never seem to get some nice pics of it....

Landing on runway 05.

Pushing back for the departure...

Taxiing to runway 05 with OK-SWV from Smartwings (Travel Service flight) on the back

(not quite a regular visitor around here.).

Also, on the back, some blue vans, from Air Force bringing some personal and stuff
from a C-130 that had just landed.

Travel Service by Smartwings

This afternoon is Travel Service day.
Let's see what will they bring us today.
There's some interesting stuff that they could bring so, let's hope they don't come with the regular livery....

Last April, 24th they came at night with a Smartwings plane, wich is allways a great catch around here due to the colorfull and nice livery and also because it's very rare...
As far as I know there was only one other ocasion Smartwings was here. It was in 2005 and I caught it's arrival together with the already gone Tony Silva......
You can check the pics HERE
Anyway, a couple of pics from last April, 24th....

New Photo of the Week - C-135FR - the Top of a Great Week

Despite all the mess created by the vulcano ashes of the Icelandic vulcano (I could copy/paste the name of it but it's definitely unpronounceable...) this was a great week regarding air traffic at Madeira, with lots of interesting and diferent stuff.
The Cherry on Top of the Cake was the French Stratotanker that visited us last Friday, staying on night-stop, specially for a military aviation fan like myself (although I'm definitely surrended to airliners...)

But there was many other stuff, like Sata's A310 with the new livery (CS-TKN), that visited us twice, the PoAF C-295 and the C-130 which made quite a low pass to compliment the French that had just arrived, the hybrid XL/Miami Air, the Smartwings, the OE-LNP in Austrian livery, the HLX Haribo and many other more regular but still interesting traffic...
Spend a lot of fuel this week on trips to the airport, on everyday of the every but it's defnitely Great to have this kind traffic.
Anyway, now it's time to start processing and sharing here all that stuf...I'll try to do it during next week....