Planes and stuff

These last days, this kind of refueler (on wich the versions may differ), has been on the highlight, with the accident with 2 US KC-135, one of which crashed and another recent news that some others may have been damaged  by a Iran atack on a Saudi Air base... Definitely diferent birds and ones quite unusual here... The only time I had the oportunity for some photos of this type was back in 2010, during a technical stop of French Air Force C-135 474, for a night-stop.

 Despite the light and shots are definitely not the best, the arrival of Armée de l'Air C-130 61-PO is well worth the photo of the week. Pretty sure it's the first french C-130 I get and with the extra of beeing a special livery one...too bad about the time of the day and light... Special livery for the 10,000 flight hours of the Franco-German Binational Air Transport Squadron (BATS). I guess its arrival is related to the presence of a French navy training Squad at Funchal (check HERE )

  French Air Force livery is not bad at all...except when it's all white........ Falcon 900 F-RAFP arriving at runway 05, from VIY/LFPV - Vélizy-Villacoublay Air Base

After quite a long time without going to the airport for some pics, a quick stop for some rather rare birds (for me....) French Air Force Socata TBM700 F-RAXJ arriving from Faro  and (a lot more common but, still one of the few for me, this summer), Air Nostrum CRJ-1000, arriving from Madrid...

Um dos aparelhos na exposição estática do Festival Aéreo de Beja / 70º Aniversário Força Aérea Portuguesa, era o 30-GD, um Rafale C, do Régiment de chasse 2/30 "Normandie-Niémen", do Armée de L'Air Francês, com a pintura alusiva aos 80 anos do Esquadrão, celebrada no passado dia 21 de Junho de 2022. Teria sido curioso ver este aparelho em voo, até porque a parte superior, pouco visível do chão, está bastante interessante.... Um par de registos ao início da manhã, ainda com o céu bem forrado, com o sol ainda "dorminhoco"

Encontrei esta semana, entre os arquivos mais antigos (de há 10 anos...) uns registos dignos de nota (não tanto pela qualidade mas, pelo momento, especialmente a esta distância temporal... ) Por hoje fica esta parelha de Dassault-Breguet Falcon 50, um da Força Aérea Francesa e outro da Esquadra 504 da Força Aérea Portuguesa....algo que nunca mais consegui apanhar desde então... 29.Out.2007 - 17403 dos Linces, em companhia de um Falcon 50 Francês.

O dia D foi há precisamente 70 anos. Fica um registo de um C-47 (42-100558) presente em Le Bourget, com a pintura alusiva ao dia D, nomeadamente as riscas alvi-negras que foram pintadas nos aparelhos aliados para serem devidamente identificados aquando das operações no dia do desembarque (e dias posteriores...) Infelizmente, fico com a ideia que pouco se aprendeu, ou que pelo menos, o que se aprendeu já começa a ser esquecido novamente, apesar dos bonitos discursos que sempre são feitos nestas alturas...

This week we had a rare visitor: an Embraer EMB-121AA Xingu from Armée de L'Air (French Air Force). According to fellow spotter RM, it operates with  École de Aviation de Transport (Transport Aviation School) and was probably making some cross-country flight. It arrived from Porto Wednesday in the afternoon and departed the next morning. 068/YI (F-TEYI) at its night-stop stand. Departed from runway 05...it's not a big bird but at least it's a different one... (and a dirty one, also...)

Once again, was still unsure of what pic I'de choose for this week's photo but, this afernoon, while talking to my colleague about the curiosity of beeing 06/06, realised that it was the aniversary of " D DAY " and instantly remembered this fantastic C-47 at Le Bourget that I had photographed back in 2005, bearing the colors of an American C-47 during that operation, with the white and black stripes... Decided that it would make a nice pick for this Week's photo...(and gave it a litle bit of a processing to make it more on the spirit of D-Day.... ;) ) 42-100558 at the Air Museum of Le Bourget.  Preserved at the Musée de l'Air since 1970, but in 2004 it was repainted in these fake colours. It now represents USAAF 42-100558 'Buzz Buggy', but it is in fact ex FAF 92449, F-BEFB, USAAF 42-92449.

Still no traffic today at Madeira. The ashes are really giving a hard time to aviation and everything else depending on it... Anyway, still lots of traffic to share from last weeks... This one could be the military traffic of the year, if the PoAF wouldn't be making its celebrations at Madeira, this Year (at least I hope that the PoAF can really make the celebrations worth it, around here....) Anyway, it was the first time I had the oportunity to shoot and have a close look to a 707 or, in this case, a C-135.... Somehow, the US KC-135 look more imponent on photos than this one, anyway, my own photos didn't turned out nothing special....a big thumbs up for the guys at Lajes that can make those amazing military photos! It landed on runway 23 on the very beggining of the runway, when it got near us it was already coming on the runway... Like we talked about then, I guess the last 4 jet plane that was around here was the inaugural 747.... Looking in this perspective it l...

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 s...