Planes and stuff

Apesar de ainda ter uma série de fotos deste mês para publicar, decidi dedicar a foto da semana às memórias de outros tempos. 2004 não foi assim há tanto tempo mas, foi o primeiro ano em que comecei a dedicar-me ao plane spotting fotográfico mais a sério e, se calhar influenciado pela recente publicação do livro acerca da TAP Air Portugal, cá ficam algumas memórias, do tempo em que ainda havia A310 na TAP, as cores eram outras e o handling também ostentava as cores e sigla da TAP, ao contrário da actual GroundForce... CS-TEI fazendo o push-back Tenho quase a certeza que aquele tractor de push-back também já está reformado....

The posting on some FB aviation groups reminded me of sharing these pics on the A310 at Madeira. It doesn't show every A310 I've caught but as far as I can remember it does represent each livery I managed to get around here ... (got a few regs from TAP and Sata...) CS-TEI, with TAP old colors and one of my favorite shots ever 4th, Sep. 2004 Now on duty with Portuguese Hifly CS-TEX, the first A310 with TAP new colors at Madeira Feb.16th 2005 It was quite an early wake... F-GEMO, from Eagle Aviation. Got it a couple of times. It went on duty with Ariana Afghan Airlines and scrapped in June 2006... D-AHLZ, with old Hapag-Lloyd colors The same D-AHLZ, already using the colors of its next (and last) user, Siberian S7. It was quite a surprise to get this fantastic livery around here D-AIDD on Apr.19th 2005 and a very nice double catch.... This nice A310 (T.22-1), from Ejercito del Aire (Spanish Air Force) was also at Madeira, back in 2009, suppor...

Today is Portugal's National day (you can check some of our more than 900 years history HERE ) It's also Luís de Camões Day, he was one of our greatest poets who wrote the great Epic Poem "Os Lusíadas"... You can check more on him and his work HERE Anyway, for this, decided to antecipate next week's photo of the week to share one of my favorite pics with national colors: TAP A310 CS-TEI landing on runway 05