Planes and stuff

Back from March, Hungarian Smartwings B738 HA-LKG arriving from Prague, on smooth landing, despite the crossed wind...

From the begining of March, Finnair A321 OH-LZG arriving at 05, from Helsinki  On the apron, Play Airlines A320NEO TF-PPB and Smartwings B737 HA-LKG

CSA, Czech Airlines makes its last flight today, after 101 years of operation. OK767 flight, carried by A320 OK-IOO that held the 100 years speciall livery last year, will be the airline's last flight, from Paris - CDG to Prague - PRG, later today, before fully merging with Smartwings. Looks like CSA colors will still be carried by at least 2 airplanes in the future. You can check all the CSA pic's I got, HERE . Curiously, got OK-IOO last year, in June, performing a flight to Prague:

Smartwings Cessna 680 Citation Sovereign+ OK-JRT on a night-stop at Madeira... Was expecting to get Portuguese Air Force Falcon 50 17401 on a Medical Evacuation, from Porto Santo but it went for a stand far from the balcony...

Smartwings B7308 OK-TVR departing from Madeira's runway 05 to Prague. Detail on winglets, with Travel Service colors and the green part on the tail...

Free time afterwork and a very nice weather at the airport were a great oportunity for some shots from "couves" spot...not a regular spot for me but that usually provides some nice shots with today's conditions... Smartwings B737 MAX8 OK-SWF departure from runway 05, back to Prague...

It's been quite a while since I last got a Smartwings B737 (700)...even thought that they already didn't have that model....(they have 2...) OK-SWT arriving from Prague... (also the first time I publish pic's of this registration here...) Taxiing back to runway 05, for the return flight.... Condor's A320 D-AICA and D-AICC on the ramp...

A couple of shots taken this afternoon of Smartwings B737 MAX8 OK-SWA departing from runway 23 to Prague... A sunny afternoon at the airport, despite the cloudy weather at Funchal.

Yesterday, got for the first time (also think it was its first time here with this livery) the Green Stripes Condor... Aka Sporting, Rio Ave, Vitória de Setúbal, or whatever footbal club you can remember with these colors...anyway, still more keen on the original name...barraca de praia (beach tent....) A321 D-AIAC, arriving from Frankfurt... A well composed apron.... You can check the Yellow Stripes HERE

 Smartwings Slovakia B738 OM-TSG departing from Madeira's runway 05 back to Prague Passing by the area of former runway 24...that orange is getting a bit faded...

A bird on which I had been wanting to make some night-shots for some time... Smartwings B737-8 MAX OK-SWM arriving from Vilnius (VNO/EYVI) A speedy disembarkation :) 

Almost 2 years after the grounding of the Boeing 737MAX, Madeira got its first MAX, after the recent clearance to fly on the model. Looks like it was the first MAX flying to Portugal after the thumbs up for the return to duty of this model... Smartwings Boeing 737 MAX 8 OK-SWE, from Prague (PRG/LKPR). Didn't manage to get the arrival so, some shots of the push-back and line up for the return to the Czech Republic  It was the first MAX I got from Smartwings... Starting the push-back, with TAP A321NEO LR retro CS-TJR by its side.... A couple of close-ups on the engine and winglets...

 On a quick stop, Sunday afternoon.... Unfortunatelly missed by less than 5 minutes, the arrival of Tuifly RIU Hotels Special livery D-ATUZ, the main point of interest of the stop... Anyway, nice to get the take-off run of Smartwings B737 OK-SWW, back to Prague (PRG/LKPR) B738 D-ATUE taxiing to the gate, on taxiway Bravo, after arriving from Stuttgart (STR/EDDS) Tuifly B738 D-ATUM turning on the runway, after arriving from Dusseldorf (DUS/EDDL) The departure of TAP's A321NEO CS-TJM to Lisbon (LIS/LPPT)

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 :)

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.