
Saturday, August 28, 2010
EAARL!!!!!!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Icelandic Volcano "Eyjafjallajökull" classified as "dormant" as of 08/24/2010
Strangely enough, while composing this post and going back to Google the topic once more - more and more stories have "erupted" to report on the new officially dormant classification. The Daily Mail and Reuters at least seem to be on the ball.
The volcano had to have gone through a three month period of "paused activity" before being classified as dormant - and it entered a pause in it's activity on May 24th, 2010. This is no doubt great news for anybody planning travel by air - and that includes us!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Planespotting KLIT #4 - 08/01/2010, Success at last.
We arrived at KLIT arond 1:15PM, and while on the way to the airport saw no fewer than two Southwest 737s either arriving or taking off in our airspace. Nice! This turned out to be a sign of things to come - as today turned out to be our most successful spotting trip to date - and we succeeded in actually capturing some of the images we were hoping for. The only issue we experienced today that was less than perfect was the weather - we were under an excessive heat warning, and there was nary a cloud in the sky. The sun beat relentlessly down, and this actually caused heat haze distortion on a lot of our close-to-the-ground shots. As successful as today was, we may have to re-think successive planespotting trips until the weather seriously cools off.

N678AE on short final to rwy. 4L gives me my best jet photograph to date! My new camera settings, coupled with the slower pace of arrivals coming in over our heads on 4L make for prime jet photography! This is one of the few jets I have seen since getting involved in plane photography that does NOT have winglets.





Saturday, July 31, 2010
Beneath the Ridge...
Distantly, above the hot streets and car noise and the wafting smell of expensive, grilled restaurant food, above the 100-degree air and cutting through the atmosphere like a hot knife through butter......that sound of manmade power. Turning my attention from the fountain I was supposed to be concentrating on, I found something imminently more captivating. Who are you, up there? Where are you going? And what do you see when you look down at us?

Monday, July 26, 2010
Planespotting KLIT #3 - 07/25/2010, "The joys of rwy. 22L departures"

N507AE makes our first tail# of the day and a nice little CRJ at that! The holes in the fenceline at the west side of the cargo area make a good spotting opportunity! Siblings! :-D
N550WN and her sister, N797MX, make two beautiful additions to my tail# list and a stunning sight complete with those oh-so-nice blended winglets! Yess!







Saturday, July 17, 2010
Planespotting KLIT # 2 - 07/17/2010
After a very pleasant (as ever) early lunch at Panera, we headed out to our usual location at the airport for some spotting. The afternoon was made that much more interesting by the shard of almond, courtesy of the bear claw pastry I ate, that actually embedded itself in my left tonsil. For the rest of the trip, my husband was regaled by my impressions of a dog eating a caramel toffee.
The trip would have been hugely successful had it not been for my apparent lack of camera knowledge which once again reared its ugly head. My husband is head-and-shoulders above me in photography knowledge, but even when I applied his recommendations for settings to my camera, I still got slightly blurred images. I don't know which particular setting or group of settings were affecting my images, but suffice to say that my hopes for near-crystal-clear shots of the passing jets never were fully realized. I think that shutter speed was a major culprit - probably combined with my less than top-of-the-range equipment, and for sure my amateurish method of following a moving photography subject.
Regardless, enjoy this group of images for what they are - aviation in action!

An extremely fitting fountain that sits outside Panera in Little Rock.

Our first CRJ of the day. This one was taken from a small dirt pull-off on the opposite side of the runway than we generally sit at. I disliked the lighting (facing south on a sunny day), and so we moved to our usual camp.




So.....yeah. A bit blurry, a bit shaky - but she's a beauty!!!!!!!! :-)
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Planespotting KLIT #1 - 07/05/2010
And so - the day after Independence Day - my ever-patient hubby and I (along with our ever-tag-along, Kaylee the Jackabee) travelled to LIT airport (via the dog park) so that I could try my hand at my first batch of jet photographs. There is a very nice strip of gravel located off of E. Roosevelt Rd. (close to where Frazier Pike meets E. Roosevelt Rd.), right where the railroad comes its closest to the road, where you can set up just south of the western-most runway (I am still hunting for the names/numbers of LIT's two runways). This gravel "cul-de-sac" provides great viewing for takeoffs, being only slightly south of the takeoff path for aircraft departing LIT on this runway (when they are departing to the south-west, I might add). This will be our haunt for many moons to come, I am sure.
My equipment isn't exactly state-of-the-art, nor is my method for spotting and photographing airplanes. I am still very green and would be considered the newest kind of newbie by any planespotters who've been doing this for more than a couple of weeks - but I'm having fun and learning. That's what counts.
My first attempt at aviation photography provided the following photographs. Enjoy!

LIT provides the beginnings of what was going to be a CRJ-fest. I'm not fussy. In fact, I'm positively euphoric.

This is where I'm supposed to say "hmmmm, yes. This is tail # xxslkjh-308fd taxiing on rwy #30bbt7, headed to PHX, 20 minutes late today".
Yeah. No. Instead - I give you "random CRJ #2 taxiing".





Another takeoff...

Ahhhhhh. The cherry on top of the cake. I was growing accustomed enough to the lighting, camera behavior and physical situation that I managed to shoot off this shot of this beautiful little CRJ. My first tail #!! Yeah!
N920EV belonging to Atlantic Southeast (operating as Delta Express) departs LIT in the mid-morning sun. This jet is a one-of-a-kind - being the 100th CRJ to be purchased by ASA, hence the paint scheme. "100 CRJs and climbing!". Just awesome!!