Planes and stuff

This week's Top moment for me was making some pics that can't be released yet so, decided to recover some interesting traffic, back from 2009, for the pic of the week G-PJPJ - B735 (rare around here) from Astreus (working for Palmair), both gone , landing on runway 05 You can check the full entry HERE , including a few shots of a Sterling and a Flyglobespan, both gone, also....

Recebi esta semana um par de cópias do nº 2306 da Air&Cosmos , uma revista semanal Francesa que utilizou uma das minhas fotos num dos seus artigos. É sem dúvida uma das fotos minhas preferidas, que conjuga uma luz de final de tarde fantástica, com uma placa bem recheada (coisa que já não vemos por cá à tarde, desde há muito....) e com um par de companhias que entretando já fecharam as portas... Para finalizar, o negrume das nuvens acaba por dar um contraste com o solzinho de final de tarde na placa que me agrada bastante... C-GOAF da já extinta XL a taxiar para a 05, com um 737 da também já extinta  Palmair em fundo. Outra nota para o 320 da Sata que ainda ostentava a pintura antiga desta companhia...

Looks like Astreus is shutting down... Check Airliners Civil Aviation Forum .... It's allways bad to ear about shutting down any company or airline but this was one of those that made some of my first shots when starting to photograph planes, back in 2004, also it was the airline where famous Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden's vocalist) was a captain.... Some shot I took during these years.... G-STRA landing on runway 23 G-STRC landing on runway 05 G-STRZ taking off from runway 05. Astreus Boeing 757 were quite unusual at Madeira (LPMA/FNC) Later, in 2009 they made some flights for Palmair with Boeing 735. Check pics HERE

I'm just curious.... One of my most viewed entries is " Nov.9th - New Colors, Winglets and others... " Even today (the last 24H) it was by far my most viewed post, way ahead the last entry, " US Coast Guard 2005 at Madeira ", in my opinion, a really nice entry... Can anyone explain me the special interest in that post??

Just this week was talking with A.L. when he remembered his first flight in a TAP B732. Well, I didn't photograph any TAP 732 but was browsing some old pics when I came up with a day where I photographed a couple of 737 that don't came here anymore. One of them was a 732 from OZJet making a Palmair flight with an amazing livery that I didn't manage to get many more times than this one...

Last Sunday, we had a Madeira Spotters (and air enthusiasts) dinner. The guys remembered something that I had forgotten completly...(time really goes fast): Yesterday was the second aniversary of Tony Silva's death ... He was one of Madeira Spotters founders, that passed away too soon and definitely one of those persons that were missed around as the great guy he was. So, this week's photo is dedicated to him as the B732 was one of its favorite planes...

On this Monday wasn't feeling much in the mood for going to the airport but then I noticed that one of the Thomson flights from Manchester was beeing made by G-OOBA, which had changed very recently its colors from the First Choice livery for the Thomson and also had gained winglets. The Cimber Sterling flight was also beeing made by the OY-MRG, with new livery, so decided to go to the airport. Despite beeing sunny at Funchal, the weather at Santa Cruz was quite crappy, cloudy and with light rain... Anyway, the pics... This Thomson, like I said, was the star of the morning but it still is a bit disapointing, until now I was expecting that Thomson Airways got some really nice and different livery but looks like it's confirmed they'll keep TUI's "boring blue"... The winglets look real nice on the plane, though... and the colors are quite darker than the ones in use by the "old" planes. This was the other nice catch of the day. Love this livery,...

A few more shots of last monday... It will be interesting to see the other side photos, taken by the inside spotter...lol This afternoon, the SAS is again the retro (OY-KBO) and Transavia is speciall livery (PH-HZL) (FINALLY!!! some special livery by Transavia around here...let's see if I can go there...)

Like I said on the previous post, last Monday was had a great afternoon of spotting. Good traffic in little time and a great afternoon light. Still wasn't this time we had a special livery from Transavia... The Cimber Sterling (from Copenhagen) had about 4 hours delay, which was great for me (not so good for the passengers...) as allowed me to photograph it and arrived with great afternoon light, instead of the awfull mid-day strong light (actually I thing that at the schedulled time it was dark, cloudy and with litle shower rain...) Anyway, a diferent registration from last week but still with Sterling livery. Maybe next week we get a Cimber Sterling livery... About to leave. Holding short of runway 05. Waiting for the departure of Transavia. Was almost forgeting this one, allways a well worth catch as the 735 is a very rare bird around here (also didn't expect to see Palmair livery around here anymore, after European bankrupt) FlyGlobespan is one of those that's allways n...

It's more than time to get a new Photo of the Week ... last one had a loooong week...lol This one's not particularly beautifull or with a great quality but it's the first time I got (as far as I can remember) a B735. Also marks the return of Astreus to Madeira and also the Palmair titles which I tought it would be gone, with the shut of European... It was its first time at Madeira, on Aug.3rd 2009....