Planes and stuff

  Condor A320 D-AICG departing from runway 05 back to Frankfurt This spot allows some really nice shots but it's not spotter friendly....got lucky with this one, taken through the hole of the needle...trough the fence...

The lastest Condor special livery, featuring the Saxony region as a holiday destination, has been coming to Madeira since Christmas day 2014, unfortunately never had the oportunity of making a few pics of it, until last Thursday...  Not the best pics but still, here it is... D-AICC ready for push-back ready to taxi to runway 05 while another Condor A320 (D-AICG) takes off from that runway 

Como a notícia da semana é aparentemente a intercepção de Bombardeiros Tu-95 russos pelos F-16 da Força Aérea Portuguesa, fica um registo do A321 D-AIAD da Condor, com sharklets, em estilo intercepção aérea...em voo e " limpinho " (ok...ainda tem flaps metidos mas, façam de conta que não...)   ;) Descolagem da 23, não sou grande fã de fotos apenas contra o céu mas, foi o local possível e acabou por não ficar muito mau, mercê do facto do avião já estar mais ou menos nivelado e com os trens recolhidos... Descolagem do A320 D-AICG, ainda a recolher os trens e com uma subida mais acentuada...

Last Thursday had to go to Machico. If things turned out ok, I could manage to get the right timming to catch the arrival of the schedulled Monarch. Unfortunatelly, didn't manage to do so... Still, made a quick stop on one of the best and usual spotting places just in time to get the arrival of D-AICG , from Condor (come on Condor, how about bringing the retro D-AICA to Madeira??) With a regular A320 from Condor , decided for a diferent view on its landing Indeed a fantastic spotting place (it just needed the matching traffic....) G-MONX , the Monarch A320 had already arrived. It was the first visit from Monarch since they stoped flying to Madeira, at the end of last Summer season. A charter flight, from Manchester, via London Gatwick that is schedulled to depart Sunday. Anyway an already well known registation at Madeira... On its regular parking, CS-TKJ , from Sata... It sure spends a lot of time stoped over there... Rumors on Sata International p...

Yesterday's afternoon traffic was nothing really special but the Condor 486 flight, from Hamburg, was beeing flown by a captain that had exchanged a few emails with me so, decided to go for some photographs. Despite the sun and quiet day at Funchal, the weather at Santa Cruz (Airport) was completely diferent: the sun was shinning at the airport but the approach from east was completely covered with low compact clouds and rain. Also the winds were blowing quite hard and in an erratic way...for some time there was tail winds in both runways or also some crossed winds. ATC was informing planes to expect to be visual to the runway on the downwind (usually they come visual to the  runway much sooner...) When the A320 came for the landing, the winds on the runway looked ok but they came all the final to 05 with strong tail wind, getting suddendly head wind, with positive windshear over the runway treshold... Anyway, they managed to hold it... ...and make a very nice landi...