Beneath the Ridge...

Sweltering, panting and gasping for air as we wound our way around the crowded streets of downtown Conway, AR on a small photography test, I was crouched by a small fountain across the street from one of the most popular restaurants in town when I heard that familiar sound......

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?

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

The Arkansas summer was dragging on, and today we were due to be in Little Rock briefly to deliver a birthday gift to a friend. Never one to miss an opportunity, I managed to - once again - persuade the hubby and puppy to accompany me to the airport for an hour or so of spotting.

By early afternoon the atmosphere around KLIT was percolating with cumulus, and by the time we arrived at the airport exit there was a convective shower to our south. As it turns out, this little shower (along with its successive offspring) forced an airport arrivals/departures pattern change - making for a much more interesting and dynamic spotting experience as opposed to our last two lazy excursions. Arrivals were mostly coming in on rwy. 4L from the southwest, and as we sat at our regular gravel parking lot at the end of this runway we were jolted alert by a symphony of jet engines rattling our westward-facing windows. This was certainly a new experience for me, as opposed to having the departures from 4L powering overhead like we are used to! Two other spotters came to roost next to us also, however ten minutes later - after seeing a CRJ climbing out from 22L (the other runway) - our vehicle and theirs were engaged in a scramble towards that runway.

We took ourselves on a detour north past the terminal on Airport Rd., under the taxiway bridges and out to the cargo warehouses to scope the area for any lurking Southwest 737s - and we weren't disappointed! Two big, beautiful 737s sat docked at the terminal while filling up with PAX and luggage. After quenching our Boeing thirst, we followed the first one that pushed off for a 22L departure, although we were too late to see its takeoff roll from that runway's vantage point. The second 737 departed about an hour later but from 4L (go figure), but nonetheless a great spotting afternoon, some new angles for photography and many more tail #s! Enjoy!

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!

After pushing off, N797MX turns on an aircraft-dime and heads out briskly for a 22L departure to Dallas-Love-Field.



N797MX taxiing very quickly by us, and I relish in the hubby's exclamation of how big these things are. Yup.....I'm in love (OK OK - with him first, the plane second!). Metal fences - oh how I hate thee.



We race N797MX down Airport Rd. (obeying the speed limit and all traffic signals present, I might add), but it becomes apparent that the pilot and co-pilot are listening to Rick Ross, and are doing the proverbial turn-out-from-apron-into-immediate-takeoff-roll-hussle! In this shot, they are entering the runway. Bye bye, you beautiful machine!!



An unidentifiable American Eagle whooshes past us in my first at-speed, at-rotation, in front of me shot!



A short time later (with the sky unfortunately becoming very gray and nondescript), we get treated to a lovely arrival at KLIT on 22L. American Eagle tail# N691AE makes our second special-livery jet at this airport in three spotting trips - and I am happy! This jet is painted after the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure movement to find a cure for breast cancer.

United's pretty N785SK is the next to depart our runway. I am really impressed at their nice paint scheme, and really embarrassed at my inexperience at shooting these things at speed! This CRJ didn't rotate until well after the previous AE departure, and so I was somewhat early tripping the shutter.

We have the luck to see a Continental Expressjet Embraer RJ145 depart before we call it a day! N14945 departs 22L, and gives us a lovely view of the type of plane with Continental that we will be flying in less than six weeks time! Additionally - this image is zoomed out further because I was experimenting with a wider angle on the fast-moving jets. I won't do it again - full-zoom is the only way to go!

Planespotting KLIT # 2 - 07/17/2010

Our second planespotting (which I guess should really be called planephotographing) trip to Little Rock occurred on one of the steamiest, haziest, scorchingly-hot days we've seen so far here in Central AR. Sparse mushy towering cumulus clouds to the west of the metroplex did little but add a rather more interesting backdrop to our excursion - we saw no rain, and felt no outflow. Still - we had a handful of notes with us on which I had scribbled the departure times of all of the Southwest 737s for the day - and we were confident of being able to nail one of these larger jets this time round.

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.

We were lucky enough to see some private general aviation craft up-close and personal thanks to the fact that they taxied to their hangars right down to our end after landing!



Another American CRJ confirms my beliefs that we were in a much better spot lighting-wise. The sky and clouds today were just beautiful - brings to mind that great techno-style song from a while back......".....little fluffy clouds.....". Nice!



This is not a picture of another CRJ taking off - this actually is a picture of me failing to stop my shutter finger upon takeoff and wait until it's actually parallel with me before shooting. Repeat after the voice in my head: "OMG OMG OMG it's off the ground!!! Take photo take photo take photo!!!'. Sheesh.



Okay now there are several things that transpired for this shot and I want them prefaced by my saying that I am still overjoyed at this image. Okay - firstly, this is the plane we had been waiting on for an hour and a half and the main reason for the trip. Secondly - it was 10 minutes late appearing and we had not seen a single Southwest jet on the premesis during our earlier reconnaisance drive along Airport Rd. Thirdly - the last time we came here for spotting, a Southwest jet took off 10 minutes before we arrived at the airport, and 10 minutes after we left. Fourthly - seemingly out of nowhere, directly behind the CRJ in the photo above, when we thad almost given up seeing this plane - it APPEARS! Sliding into view on the apron at the very opposite end of the runway from us, shiny and purple and burnt orange. Fifthly - due to the occurrence of #4, my hands start shaking like crazy and won't quit.
So.....yeah. A bit blurry, a bit shaky - but she's a beauty!!!!!!!! :-)

Planespotting KLIT #1 - 07/05/2010

July 5th this year saw me finally realize my new-found passion - aviation and photography. I have become acutely interested in jetplanes and commercial aviation - and with a bit of background in photography, I was itching to try my hand at catching some images of planes arriving and departing our state's largest airport at Little Rock (LIT). Now - admittedly the traffic levels and quality at LIT don't even come near to rivalling that of some of the more major hubs I have had the pleasure of frequenting (EWR and LGW specifically), I find that I am now looking at aviation in a different light. Through enthusiast's eyes, if you will.

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".

My first ever shot of an airborne jet. Gravy.



Kind of interesting to see the bird in this one - although perspective is probably very flattened.



What I believe to be an American Eagle leaving.



Yup - American. I'm loving today at this point - hanging out of the passenger side window of our minivan with an inverted neck trying to follow jets on TOGA power. Awesome!

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!!

My husband snapped off this shot now that my appetite had been satiated by N920EV.

Would you like some air with that water?

Currently, it is 83/77oF, with fog. Welcome to Arkansas in July. It's amazing what a few days of torrential rain showers, followed by sunny, clear weather can do. Opening the blinds in the house this morning was interesting - every single window in our (rather aged) house was steamed up on the outside.

As a side note - these past few days' storms have been some of the most electrically charged that it has been my privilege to experience. It never ceases to amaze me how you can never tell what characteristics convective storms are going to have until they happen. Benign-looking on radar, these storms were monsters. Slow-moving, flooding, hurricane-esque monsters with teeth of blue-white bolts. Monday's storms that moved into the Conway area around 5:30PM shattered the mind and strafed the eye with repeated CGs - and they were close. Something got struck in our back yard - and I'm not exaggerating that. It was in our back yard. We were in the kitchen fixing dinner when it occurred - and we had no time to react before the concussion hit us as fast (or slightly faster) than the comparatively-puny flash. It was as though someone had fired cannon in our dining room.

Guess I should just be thankful that our dog really doesn't care about such phenomenon. I think she was the calmest of the lot of us.

24 years....

Twenty-four years, give or take a few. That's how long it has taken me to realize that long hair is maybe, possibly not worth the effort. Time to change.