by Lufthansa Flyer | Jun 18, 2014 | Featured, Plane Spotting |
On a recent trip to Europe, I had built in an 18 hour visit to Istanbul in order to pick up a Birthday present for my wife and to visit one of my most favorite eateries in the world, Durumzade. Of course I had to build in some plane spotting time as well…..
I had arrived in Istanbul from Hamburg (via Munich) at approximately 1am and my flight to Zurich would take place at 6p the same day. The plan was to be at the airport by 1 or 2p so that I can explore the nooks and crannies of the airport and find the perfect spot for photos.
I had been to Istanbul previously but plane spotting was ‘not allowed’ to be on the itinerary. This time, traveling solo, it WAS the itinerary! 🙂
For you spotters and ‘avgeeks’ Istanbul offers a wide array of traffic that most of us in the USA or Europe do not see on a regular basis. I love these kinds of airports because you just don’t know what you’ll find (like a Turkmenistan airliner for example).
The one critique that I have of ‘IST’ is the fact that they used green-tinted windows throughout the terminal which skews the colors in a photo. The reason for the tinted window makes sense as it is designed to help Air Conditioning be more efficient. Unfortunately the designers and builders failed to take into account what that would mean to plane spotters and their photos! 🙂
Anyway, after spending some quality time in Turkish’s fantastic lounge, I wound up having about 3 hours to walk through the gate areas to find a few good spots. Among a few that I found, my favorite and the one I would recommend is the area around Gate 26. The spot gives you a great look over the cargo ramp as well as having the ocean serve as a fantastic backdrop as you catch aircraft landing. There are a few other spots that give you a good look, but none nearly as good as Gate 26.
Here are a few of my favorite shots during my time in IST. As you can imagine IST is dominated by Turkish Airlines so I did not list every single photo that I took since many of them are TK aircraft. After all, how many Turkish 777s and A330s do you need to see, right? 🙂
If you’d like to see my other Plan Spotting posts, you can find them on my Plane Spotting Index page.
Gate 26 at Istanbul offers a great vantage point.
Istanbul’s Cargo ramp as seen from Gate 26
by Lufthansa Flyer | Jun 11, 2014 | Featured, Plane Spotting |
Back in May, I spent several days in Europe that included visits to Frankfurt, Hamburg (for the FlyerTalk Hamburg-Do, Istanbul and Zurich. My visit to Zurich was specifically geared for spending 2 full days of plane-spotting from different airport vantage points including ZRH’s fantastic Observation Deck and 2 parking structures that over look the airport.
Over 2 days I took well over 1000 photos and have whittled them down to only a few hundred. Out of this group of finalists, I pulled out some of my favorites and share them here. There will be a follow-up post to this one that will include several more photos as I did not want to have a post with over 20-30 photos and slow down everyone’s download!
For more of my Plane Spotting photos, please visit my Plane Spotting Archive!
Enjoy!
by Lufthansa Flyer | Jun 3, 2014 | Cargo, Featured, Lufthansa, Plane Spotting |
Over the last 3 weeks I flew to and through Frankfurt twice which created quite an opportunity to add to my Lufthansa plane spotting gallery. At some point in the near future I’ll need to sit down and truly categorize all the LH aircraft that I’ve caught on film over the last 3 years and see who is missing. I know that I’ve ‘spotted’ each active 747-400 and 747-8i. I have most of the A380 and A340/A330 fleet as well. The challenge will be to track down all the narrow-body birds. There may be too many A319/20/21s and regional jets for me to catch up with unless they start flying in and out of GRR, but its the challenge and chase that keeps me buying more film.
This grouping was taken from the Terminal 2 Observation Deck on a day where rain and sun took turns as far as the weather was concerned. Unfortunately this created a bit of a heat haze issue since every shower was followed by bright sunlight which created a bit of vapor in the air. Not bad as LAX in the summer, but not great either as you’ll see in some of the shots.
In case you missed it a few days ago, I posted a series of photos of non-Lufthansa aircraft taken on the same day. You can find those images by clicking here.
This ‘JetFriends’ A319 was a victim of some heat haze. D-AILU was delivered to Lufthansa in November 1997.
D-AIZT, an A320 featuring ‘Sharklets’, joined the fleet in May 2013.
D-AIGS, an Airbus A340-300, joined the fleet in October 1999.
D-AIHB, aka ‘Bremerhaven’ joined the fleet in November 2003.
A340-600 D-AIHK or ‘Mainz’ joined the fleet in May 2004.
D-ABEK, a Boeing 737, joined the fleet in November 1991.
D-ABVZ joined the fleet in February 2001 and is the 3rd youngest 747-400 in fleet.
D-ABYD was the 3rd 747-8i to join the fleet when she arrived in Frankfurt on August 25, 2012.
D-ABYI, one of Lufthansa’s newer 47-8i, sports a World Cup ‘Fanhansa’ livery. She was delivered to Lufthansa on May 29, 2013.
D-ABYA, Lufthansa’s First 747-8i prepares to take off as 747-400 D-ABVM is set to follow.
Lufthansa Cargo’s MD-11 D-ALCK joined the fleet in May 2000.
