Review Of 2004-3

The Canadian Air Force Challenger in special colours had brought in high ranking officals to investigate the near sinking of a Canadian Submarine and it departed Glasgow about 20 minutes after I arrived so I was lucky to make it out in time.

Emirates 777-200

The first Emirates 777 to visit Glasgow and it was well publicised on the Internet so lots of photographers were out to shoot it landing, unfortunately it wasn't a particularly good weather day but at least there were Easterly winds and it arrived on Runway 05 which is better for photos.

There were 10 of us on the little rubble mound to shoot it and I've never seen it so busy, the dauly flight to Dubai is usually an A330 but this bigger aircraft was used as the flight had been overbooked and Cargo loads on the route are also very good.

From October 2005 the airline are expected to switch to the very long 777-300's.

Emirates 777-200

I was thinking that it was now the traditional time in the Glasgow area for very foggy mornings and when the next one came I would get out early to the Airport and wait for it to clear to shoot landers with condensation effects over the wings and vortex trails, much to my surprise the very next morning was thick fog of less than 200 metres visibility.

I had to wait 90 minutes for the fog to start clearing and until then I couldn't see some of the landers as they touched down but the fog lifted quickly in time for the Emirates A330 arriving.

The A330 type is usually good for condensation effects if there is the chance of it and I wasn't disappointed when it came into view being half obscured by mist.

At Glasgow the River Cart is at the Runway 23 and often makes the fog thicker at that end so it is common for a Runway switch to 05 like this day and the views are better at this end.

Emirates 777-200

Another highlight for me this year was shooting this KC135E departing Prestwick to fuel Fighter aircraft during the JMC excercise and of the three based KC's this was the only "E" so the one I was looking for.

The aircraft was built in 1958 and has old style engines that make a lot of noise and smoke so it was quite a sight with it's very long takeoff and screaming noise as it flew overhead.

F-GCBG 747
Air France Cargo
(Prestwick 25-10-04).

LX-UCV 747
Cargolux
(Prestwick 25-10-04).

G-VSEA A340
Virgin Atlantic
(Prestwick 27-10-04).

UR-42372 YAK42
Donbassaero
(Glasgow 2-11-04).

UR-42383 YAK42
Donbassaero
(Glasgow 2-11-04).

Air France Cargo 747

I had my Canon 1.4x Extender with me for using on the 100-400mm lense while looking down Prestwick's Runway at the 13 end and although it does not auto focus on this lense due to it having a minimum Aperture of F4.5 rather than F4 or below it can still be used successfully with careful manual focussing.

As the 747 Freighter came into view and decended for landing I picked a spot at the other end of the Runway and manual focussed on it until it looked sharp through my viewfinder and it was in doing this that I noticed the obvious bump in the middle of the Runway so decided to take a few shots of the 747 just before touchdown at the full 560mm distance on my D60.

I hadn't tried this shot before and it would not have been possible without my 1.4x Extender so handy that I had brought it this day, this was another that had a lot of hits on Airliners when I uploaded it.

Cargolux 747

I came back again for the same Air France Cargo 747 departing from Runway 31 and fortunately the Cargolux 747 on approach arrived just before the Air France was ready to enter the Runway and depart so when I saw it stop at the holding point this was the shot I had in mind.

As the Cargolux rolled along the Runway and was about to take the high speed turn off the Air France entered Runway 31 at the other end so I was able to get both in shot at the same time, I didn't need the Extender with this one and it was well within my 400mm lense.

Virgin Atlantic A340

A Virgin Atlantic A340 had come up from Gatwick on Wednesdays for training on three previous occasions prior to this one but only stopped for crew changes arriving about midday and parking on the short Runway for about 20 minutes and then leaving before coming back again at about 3pm for another crew change.

As on all visits it showed on Flight Tracker as due to come up so I went this day to take some shots of it looking down the Runway from the 31 end as landings were from the 13 end so it gave me the chance of a different view that I hadn't tried before.

My spot for this was in a field and at quite a distance but with this in mind I brought along my 1.4x Extender and attached it to my 100-400mm lense and used manual focus to get extra range for this shot.

Donbassaero YAK42's

I had a choice this day of whether to go to Edinburgh for a KMV TU204 and TU154 bringing in Football fans from the Kiev team Shakhtar Donetsk coming for their match against Celtic or to stay at Glasgow to shoot these two YAK42's.

It was a difficult choice with the TU204 being the first one ever to visit Edinburgh but problem with them was the early arrival time before proper daylight and the short Runway was closed for work being carried out so it was a lottery of where they would park, as it turned out the TU204 was placed very close to the Perimeter fence and it wouldn't have fitted in at 28mm on my Digital camera so I think I made the right choice.

The better coloured yellow and blue YAK was the Official Carrier for the team and the YAK had extra titles on the Starboard side which was handy as that was the side facing towards the sun, it took me an hour and a half of waiting about for the sun to get this shot and you can tell what the weather was like by the very dark background behind.

HA-TCN AN26
City Line Hungary
(Glasgow 22-11-04).

HA-LKB 737-800
Travel Service Hungary
(Glasgow 30-11-04).

City Line AN26

This Antonov is a regular at Edinburgh on Freight duty during the middle of the night so it is not seen flying that often in daylight, it was operating a flight for Highland Express taking some Freight to one of the Scottish Islands, not the best of weather this day but always worth shooting a Russian built type.

Travel Service Hungary 737

This Travel Service came to Glasgow in connection with a car promotion and when it left I decided to shoot it lifting off from Runway 23, as you can see there is a dark background from here on a cloudy Winter's day but it turned out better than I expected and the big Winglets made a difference to the shot.

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