October 2012 Archives

While the press release from ATR boasts of its first delivery of an ATR 72-600 to Air New Zealand, we're pretty sure the accompanying photograph shows the turboprop - complete with distinctive All Black livery - flying over ATR's home city of Toulouse. The delivery is the first from a 2011 order of seven 68-seaters, with a further five aircraft on option. Deliveries will be completed during 2016. The pictured aircraft will enter service in November, with ANZ subsidiary Mount Cook Airlines.

ATR

The US Air Force titled this picture "A long way home" and for once, that's no exageration. The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II - usually based in Arkansas - was on its way home from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, accompanied on this "coronet mission" by a Boeing KC-135 tanker from RAF Mildenhall in the UK.

US Air Force

Now this is nice. Posted on our AirSpace forum is this little gem from Croatian snapper Boran Pivčić. He writes: "By far the most impressive visitor to our little airfield - Lucko (LDZL), Zagreb, Croatia - is seen hover taxiing to the helicopter start gates for a night mission behind callsign Crazy 21. An impressive piece of kit - this extremely rare special operations machine and its sister ship 08-03775 - both part of the US Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment - are in town to participate in the annual Jackal Stone 12 NATO exercise."

Boran Pivčić on flightglobal/AirSpace

Boeing is saying a big happy birthday to the youngest member of  the US Air Force's B-52 Stratofortress fleet which was delivered from its Wichita facilty a half-century ago. The H-model bomber - 61-040 - was assigned to Minot AFB, North Dakota, and remains in active service. Here it is earlier in its life:

Boeing

I love this shot. I stumbled across it on the Canadian Department of National Defence website - absolutely gorgeous colours. And the Boeing F/A-18s (CF-18s if you want to be picky) are pretty awesome too.

Department of National Defence

Ahhh, tis a truly lovely thing. Taken from the winners of the RAF's annual photo competion, this image shows Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft from RAF Coningsby practicing for the Royal Jubilee celebrations by performing a diamond-nine formation over Lincolnshire.

SAC Graham Taylor/Crown Copyright

Because I linger on the mailing list of a number of logistics companies, I still receive the odd truck and trailer releases. Still, they occasionally yield some gems like this series of pictures from Dutch heavy haulage firm Van der Vlist, which shows the company moving a beautifully restored Fokker F-27 to a position of prominence at a logistics park that occupies the site of the former Fokker factory near Schiphol. (And if anyone cares, that appears to be a rather nice MAN TG-X heavy haulage prime mover too).

Van der Vlist

Taken from the US Air Force site is this cracking picture of too many aircraft all trying to occupy the same space. It was shot at the 2012 Kaneohe Bay Air Show on Marine Corps Air Station, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii last month and shows a US Air Force Lockheed Martin C-130, a pair of Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallions, a Bell AH-1 Cobra and a Bell UH-1. Phew, did I forget anything?

US Air Force

Lovely, lovely, lovely. Gorgeous light on this shot of a British Airways Boeing 747-400 departing from Heathrow from AirSpace user Hounddogone. Shows the great, gross beast to superb effect.

User Hounddogone on flightglobal/AirSpace

AirSpace user Duncan Monk captured this stunning image of a two-seat Eurofighter Typhoon operated by the RAF's 6 Sqn from RAF Leuchars in Fife, Scotland.

Duncan Monk/Flightglobal AirSpace

A couple of images from this year's UK Army photographic competition caught our eye. The overall winner, taken by Sgt Mark Nesbit, shows British soldiers climbing on board a Boeing CH-47 Chinook at the end of a joint mission with the Afghan army.

Sgt Mark Nesbit/MoD/Rex Features

A runner-up, shot by Cpl Wes Calder, also features an aviation element, showing soldiers from a reconnaissance force protecting themselves from the rotorwash of a US Marine Corps Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion in Afghanistan.

Cpl Wes Calder/MoD/Rex Features

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the maiden flight of the iconic Antonov An-124-100 Ruslan freighter, one of its biggest operators - cargo airline Volga-Dnepr - has organised a photo competition to capture the raw beauty of these bulky lumps of aluminium. Over 130 professional and amateur snappers entered images, with the pic of the bunch these two. The overall winner was Ognyan Stefanov from Bulgaria for his photo of an Аn-124-100 freighter taking off from Sofia Airport. Stewart Marshall, from Hamilton in the UK, took the second shot of an An-124-100.

Ognyan Stepanov

Stewart Hamilton

Nice picture from British Airways showing the installation of one of four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines on its first Airbus A380. The engines were attached to aircraft MSN095, the first of 12 A380s the airline has on order.

The supermegauberjumbo is due to be delivered to British Airways in July next year. We should have coverage later this week of the BA A380 in Airbus's Toulouse factory, so stay tuned.

Airbus/British Airways

I know it's meant to represent the abiding love afair between Alaska and a type of fish, but really, if you saw this giant piscine image looming at you through the window of an aircraft or terminal building then you'd run away screaming. Anyway, Salmon-Thirty-Salmon II - as Alaska airlines is calling its nightmare-provoking Boeing 737-800 - landed at Anchorage last week. The intricate paint job "celebrates the partnership of Alaska Airlines and the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute", says the press release, and replaces a similarly-liveried 737-400 which has now been repainted.

Alaska Airlines