Holiday Snaps - Part Eight

Our trip concluded with flights from Orlando to Dallas/Love Field and LAX on Southwest. A few opportunities presented themselves for a couple of snaps.

Firstly some images captured from the Southwest terminal at Orlando International. 

Next we have aircraft at Dallas/Love Field. A nice surprise was the State of Kuwait Boeing 747-8i 9K-GAA undergoing an extensive fit-out prior to eventual delivery.

Caught the above two aircraft arriving while sitting at the holding point. 

  

And the three shots above snapped as we lined up and rolled. 

Left turn out of Love Field took us directly over the top of the expansive Fort Worth airport complex. Qantas A380 visible in the third image. 

 A blah day greeted us on arrival at LAX so just a few random snaps taken from our moving Boeing 737.

Boeing 787-9 ZK-NZH - updated.

Air New Zealand's 6th Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner ZK-NZH MSN 37964 was delivered to Auckland late 01 November after a direct flight from Paine Field as ANZ6094.

The arrival of ZK-NZH will see the airline introduce the Dreamliner to its daily Auckland-Singapore-Auckland operation from 16 November replacing Boeing 777-200's ahead of their deployment to Houston and Buenos Aires next month.

As expected, ZK-NZH entered service 05 November with its first revenue flight being NZ175 from Auckland to Perth. 

According to online reports the next Dreamliner delivery for Air New Zealand will be ZK-NZI MSN 37965 in July 2016 while the next jet delivery will be Airbus A320(SL) ZK-OXL in May 2016. 

Unscheduled Stopover

Qantas Airbus A380 VH-OQF operating as QF11 from Sydney to Los Angeles 04 November made an unscheduled stopover at Auckland spending just under two hours on the ground. The flight was northeast of New Zealand when it made its southwestward passage to Auckland and the Qantas twitter feed gave the reason as "technical issues". 

Holiday Snaps - Part Seven

The trip around the Caribbean saw us call in at St Kitts and while no visit was made the airport was clearly visible from the upper deck of our cruise-ship and just prior to our departure I was pleasantly surprised to spy a British Airways Boeing 777-200 arrive after a direct flight from London/Gatwick. The American Airlines Boeing 737-800 pictured departing was a chance desperation shot taken from our balcony.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LcAKgnduxE

Our next port of call was San Juan, Puerto Rico and the cruise-ship docks in close proximity to Isla Grande Airport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Luis_Ribas_Dominicci_Airport

While a number of aircraft were observed not a great deal of flying was conducted in the time available to watch but here a couple of shots regardless.

Our return to being land lubbers saw us take a visit to Key West and while nothing was photographed at the airport we did snap the DC3 parked at Marathon Airport on the drive down the Ocean Highway and a couple of interesting aviators and they toured around Key West.

ROYAL ONE

The Royal New Zealand Air Force will be stretched over the next several days as it not only deploys resources in conjunction with exercise Southern Katipo 15 but also VIP transport duties associated with the week long visit to New Zealand of heir to the throne Prince Charles and Camilla. The Royal couple will visit Wellington, Auckland, the Waikato district, Dunedin, Nelson, Westport and New Plymouth and this will no doubt see Boeing and King Air assets on the job along with perhaps Hercules and NH90/A109 helicopters.

Boeing 757-2K2 NZ7572 was tasked to transport the couple from Singapore to Wellington arriving early afternoon 04 November with the aircraft operating via Darwin as "Royal One". The aircraft had departed Whenuapai for Darwin as KIW347 31 October and flew onto Singapore/Changi 01 November.

File photo

Corporate Corner - dominated by VH'ers

Its been a quiet couple of weeks for "visiting" corporate jets with only Citation II N112BR coming from outside the South Pacific region.

Whilst not on corporate duties we report the movements of two Jetcity Learjet 45's in recent days. Firstly VH-LJX which arrived at Auckland from Essendon 27 October before flying onto Rarotonga. It returned to Auckland via Tonga the next day and then flew home to Essendon. It made its way back to Auckland 29 October and carried onto Nadi. VH-LJX arrived back at Auckland 30 October before departing to Rarotonga. Meanwhile VH-LJQ arrived at Auckland from Essendon 30 October. 

VH-LJX came back to Auckland 31 October from Aitutaki and Tonga and was soon on its way out again this time to Apia which VH-LJQ departed for Essendon. VH-LJX reached Auckland from Apia and Nadi on the morning of 01 November and later that day returned to Essendon.

Citationjet CJ4 F-ONCP made its first visit to New Zealand arriving at Wellington shortly before midnight 27 October from Magenta and departed soon after sunrise 28 October for Noumea.

Embraer Legacy VH-VLT touched down at Wellington 29 October from Sydney and flew to Auckland 01 November from where it departed 04 November for Sydney.

Lanzi photo

Gulfstream 4 VH-TXS arrived at Auckland from Perth 02 November and returned to Perth the following day.

Falcon 20 VH-PNY arrived at Dunedin in the early hours of 04 November from Sydney and headed back to Sydney a few hours later. Its visit to Dunedin coincided with Nextant 400XTi ZK-NXJ and Beech King Air 350 ZK-SSH both flying in from Auckland.

Southern Katipo 2015 - Australians wade in

Exercise Southern Katipo 2015 had a very damp day 03 November with the Buller and Westland districts soaked by torrential rain accompanied by low cloud and at times fog thereby most likely preventing any aviation related activities to take place at Westport. The planners will be mighty pleased they timed the big push of manpower into the region the previous day.

Two Royal Australian Air Force Boeing C17 Globemaster III's visited Christchurch 03 November delivering Army personnel to participate in SK15. A41-210 as ASY746 and A41-209 as ASY747 arrived from and returned to RAAF Amberley. 

A41-210 arriving at Christchurch, CC photo

United States Air Force Boeing C17 Globemaster III 05-5151/HH was around the Auckland region late morning while it and 99-0171/AK were due to conduct formation navigational exercise and parachute drops west of Ohakea later in the day. 

IL-76TD Antarctic Mission Melitopol's Crew

Have we shared this beauty before? Ah well, enjoy it either way. 

More on the silent visitor

Our Southern Katipo 2015 post yesterday briefly covered the news of a visit to New Zealand skies by a Northrop Grumman RQ-4B Global Hawk 07-2029. The large UAV was deployed from Guam's Andersen AFB and flew a round trip at high altitude to conduct reconnaissance over the military exercise area of interest, Westport. 

There had been plenty of peripheral media coverage of the pending operation of this remotely controlled aircraft and its participation so early in the exercise would lead to the expectation of additional flights to come over the next couple of weeks.

http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2015/10/usaf-global-hawk-to-join-major-nz-exercise/

http://www.china.org.cn/world/Off_the_Wire/2015-10/30/content_36935970.htm

http://www.northropgrumman.com/capabilities/globalhawk/Pages/default.aspx

This particular RQ-4B Global Hawk featured at this year's Australian International Airshow, Avalon in late February/early March.

Thanks to Peter Ricketts for this shot taken at Avalon 2015. 

DVIDS - Video - Southern Katipo 2015 US Cargo Plane at Ohakea Air Force Base

DVIDS - Video - Southern Katipo 2015 US Cargo Plane at Ohakea Air Force Base

http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/war-games-invade-upper-south-island-2015110218#axzz3qJxGDkNa

Citation II N112BR

Arriving at Auckland from Sydney on the afternoon of 01 November was Cessna S550 Citation II N112BR c/n S550-0027. The jet had crossed the Northern Pacific flying from Boeing Field to Bethel and Yelizovo in mid October and arrived at Sydney from Davao and Darwin during the first hour of 01 November.

Aircraftservices photo

Southern Katipo 2015 - All Systems Go

Its all systems go for exercise Southern Katipo 2015 with the aviation element heating up. 

The two Boeing C17 Globemaster III's and three Lockheed C130H Hercules from the USAF undertook tactical navigational exercises 31 October with the aircraft spotted lurking around the Nelson Lakes region - in particular Lake Station airfield. This gliding strip from today will be utilised for rotary wing activity and it is understood C130's will also be operating in and out of the grass runway. 

http://www.aip.net.nz/pdf/NZLE.pdf

And in a New Zealand first (that we know of) a USAF Northrop Gumman RQ4B Global Hawk
07-2029 has made an overflight of the country. The link below is a media release issued 30 October and the first know flight by the Global Hawk from/to Guam-Andersen took place 01 November.
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2015/10/drone-warfare-comes-to-kiwi-skies/
Images below of 07-2029 "MIDAS14" taken on the occasion of its visit to the Australian International Airshow, Avalon earlier this year.

North Grumman photos

As from today the Airways Corporation will be providing ATC services at Westport through until 28 November.

A number of flights have already operated to the Westport area this morning.

Thanks again to Padre007 for these great shots taken at Ohakea 31 October.

GO THE ALL BLACKS!

GO THE ALL BLACKS!!