JANUARY 2009

[jpro747]

Happy new year to everyone,

Here is my collection of photos from Saturday. A lot of Gatwick departures to the US were directed overhead, some with contrails.

Thomas Cook 757, heading south (and miles away from its assigned airway )



Gatwick Departures:
Northwest 757


US airways A330


First Choice 767


BA 777


Delta 767


BA 777


Thomas Cook A330



Asiana Airlines 747 heading East from New York JFK to Brussels


Monarch A320 heading West to Tenerife from Birmingham


Some cool sunset pics






Best Regards,
James

[Asdrius]

Hello,

The skies over my home in Lithuania continue to be completely covered by clouds for many days.
But recently I had been on vacation in Austrian Alps. I took my Sigma 300mm lense and captured some of the many contrailing jets, which could be seen over the Austrian Alps every day.

2009/01/08

10:20 A320 Swiss on UL607:


10:20 A319 CSA, heading north from Milan to Prague:


10:37 CRJ900 Adria, routing Zurich-Ljubliana on UL607:


10:55 A330 Swiss, flight SWR154 Zurich-Mumbai on UL607:


10:56 A318 Air France, flight AFR2988 Paris-Belgrade on UL607:


11:04 A321 SAS, flying from Copenhagen to Rome on UM736:


11:28 A320 CSA, Prague-Barcelona on UM736:


12:28 A319 Croatian, flying from Zurich to Zagreb on UL607:


12:31 A330 Gulf Air, flight GFA18 Paris-Bahrain on UL607;


13:51 A320 WizzAir, heading south on UM736, probably routing Warsaw-Bergamo and soon will cross the remains of 747 contrail :


14:34 B737-400 Olympic Airlines, flight OAL202 Paris-Athens on UL607:


14:57 B777-300 Air France, routing Paris-Dubai on UL607:


15:04 A319 Easyjet, heading north:


15:17 A330 Emirates, UAE88 Zurich-Dubai on UL607:


15:41 A321 Aegean, flight AEE611 Paris-Athens on UL607:

[jpro747]

Hi,

Nice photos, I love the Wizz with remains of 747 contrails. All the aircraft contrast very well with the blue sky. I wonder if its to do with snow cover?

That airway UL607 is visible from my house and is usually very busy, but too far for photos. How did you find out the aircraft routings?

[Asdrius]

Well maybe snow cover helps, but I think altitude helps more. All the photos were taken from altitudes between 1200-3200 meters. Contrailling planes are a bit closer, and atmosphere is not so thick. All these photos were made with cheap 70-300mm Sigma lense, handheld. Think about the results, which could be achieved from 3000 meters with more serious equipment .

For identifiyng aircraft routes, this Zurich radar site helped a lot: http://radar.zhaw.ch/radar.html. It covers also a part of Austrian Alps.

[Asdrius]

Some more pictures from Austrian Alps:

2009-01-09

10:17 A330-300 Air Berlin heading south on UM736 airway, probably on route Nurnberg-Monastir:


11:40 A330-300 Lufthansa, on UM736, flight DLH590 Frankfurt-Khartoum:


11:50 CRJ200, I think it's Adria Star Alliance colors, S5-AAG, heading east on UL607, probably routing Paris-Ljubliana:


12:01 A340-200 Royal Jordanian, flight RJA262 KJFK-OJAI on UL607:

And after 18 minutes another similar A342 flew on UL607 -RJA264 KORD-OJAI

12:22 B737-300 TuiFly, I think it's one of their logojet's D-AGEJ, heading south on UM736:


14:02 MD-80 heading south on UM736. It's difficult to identify airline from this angle, but I think it's most probably Alitalia, flight AZA513 Prague-Rome:


Also during my vacation in the Alps, I saw a helicopter leaving contrails . It's a pitty I didn't have camera close to me at that moment.

[jpro747]

Think about the results, which could be achieved from 3000 meters with more serious equipment .

It would be like almost 10,000 ft lower and with contrails

Some from me today, good conditions, so I got the barlow out.

BAW2233 routing London Gatwick to Bermuda, FL290


TOM80K heading SE, FL330


Regards

[jpro747]

Hello,

Today contrails were forming only between FL 280-310, which gave me the oppertunity to shoot some low contrailing aircraft :D


TOM73D, G-THOH cruising at FL350


Gatwick Departures:

VIR15, G-VXLG FL250


BAW2167, G-VIIR FL280


BAW2233, G-VIIE FL300


Regards :)

[grztus]

VIR15, G-VXLG FL250

We are trying to catch the VIR351: it is usually flying at A346, but now it is operating at B744 (untill 25th january?). Unfortunatelly the weather is really poor and he is flying very late afternoon, still in the darkness... (we have many Virgin A340s over Poland, but any B744).

[Asdrius]

Here is of Nordic Airlink MD-80 on a rather exotic flight routing Stockholm-Erbil . I decided to post this not too good quality photo, because I heard Nordic airlines stopped flying recently. I will not have an opportunity to make a better photo of this airline.

2009-01-13

14:57 UM870
MD-80 Nordic NRD853 ESSA-ORER