by Lufthansa Flyer | May 28, 2013 | Airlines |
Lufthansa Cargo has launched a GREAT contest to kick off a strategy that will see all of their aircraft “carry” their own name. Much like Lufthansa passenger, Cargo will over time christen each aircraft with her own identity. To begin the process, Cargo’s new contest is open to everyone to submit their absolute best ideas for a name for one of their MD-11 as well as for the 5 Boeing 777’s that will begin to join the fleet in October (5 will ultimately enter service).
Lufthansa Cargo has set up a dedicated page on their website that allows you to register and list your entries for each of the aircraft currently in service. You are also asked for some detail behind the motivation for the names that you have recommended. You need to provide names for at least 10 aircraft in order for your entry to be eligible.
With that said, the prize for this contest is fantastic!
The Winner, who will be selected by a Lufthansa Cargo panel, will be flown to Frankfurt and be a VIP guest of Cargo for the welcome ceremony for the first Boeing 777 Freighter. You’ll also be among the very first to sit “behind the yoke” during your private tour of the cockpit. It is at this time that the new 777F will be christened with her new name.
To enter the contest, please visit Lufthansa Cargo’s contest webpage. You’ll need to register. Once registered, you will be able to access the contest and you’ll see a listing of all of Cargo’s aircraft, and a space next to each tail number where you enter your best idea. Remember, you need to provide at least 10 names in order to be eligible.
Think outside the box for this, think about fantastic travel destinations, mythology, legends, etc.
There is no right or wrong answer here, just one that will earn you a trip to Frankfurt and see your creation painted on the side of a brand new aircraft!
The contest ends on July 15.
by Lufthansa Flyer | May 24, 2013 | Airlines |
A couple of weeks ago, I spent a day in Frankfurt while enroute ultimately to Hong Kong. Obviously that created a great opportunity to take in “Plane Spotting” at one of the world’s best airport for the hobby. In case you missed my previous posts on my latest round of plane spotting, click here to see my behind the scenes look at a Lufthansa A380 in her hangar and click this link to see photos taken while walking the tarmac.
This installment covers several photos taken standing near the midway point of Runway 18. It was a good location because smaller aircraft would begin their rotation here and larger aircraft were at full speed and the noise was FANTASTIC! 🙂 There are many more photos taken from this spot that I will add to Aero-Shots.com in the coming weeks. I just have about 5,000 photos to sort through at this point….
Not too many more things to be said on the topic, so go ahead and enjoy the pics!
This themed ADRIA CRJ-200 carries a MINI market promo wherever she goes…..
Condor’s Boeing 767-300 D-ABUD
Lufthansa’s A330 D-AIKD ‘Siegen’
Lufthansa’s CRJ-700 D-ACPL
Lufthansa’s CRJ700 D-ACPO
Lufthansa’s 737 D-ABEA
Lufthansa’s 737 D-ABEH
Lufthansa’s 2nd 747-8i D-ABYC (There is no ‘D-ABYB’ as a memorial to an older 747 that was lost)
Lufthansa’s 3rd 747-8i D-ABYD
Lufthansa’s 6th 747-8i D-ABYG
Lufthansa’s CRJ-700 D-ACPS
Lufthansa’s A340-300 D-AIFA
Lufthansa’s A330 D-AIKG
Lufthansa’s A-321 D-AISV
LOT Polish’s ERJ175 SP-LID
Austrian’s de Havilland Dash-8 OE-LGK
Austrian’s Fokker F100 OE-LVF
Singapore’s A380 9v-SKB
TAP’s Airbus A319 CS-TTB
United’s Boeing 767 N673UA
United’s Boeing 777 N219UA
by Lufthansa Flyer | May 17, 2013 | Airlines |
During my recent trip to Hong Kong, I built in an 18 hour layover in Frankfurt in order to meet up with my friends from Lufthansa as well as to take in some unique Plane Spotting opportunities. In all, I spent about 6 hours walking Frankfurt’s tarmac, visiting 3 Lufthansa Technic Hangars and 2 observation areas.
The visit to Hangar 7 (a.k.a. the A380 Hangar) gave me virtually unlimited access to walk through, around and under Lufthansa’s ‘Tokio’. ‘Tokio’ (D-AIMD) was the 4th Airbus A380 to join Lufthansa’s fleet when it was delivered in October of 2010.
There’s an old saying that states you can say more by saying less so I will take this advice at least for this post and let my pictures do most of the talking. All I can say is that even though I have flown on the A380 a few times, I never appreciated her size and the engineering marvel that she is……until now.
Lufthansa’s Airbus A380 ‘Tokio’ shown in her stall.
To put things in perspective, look at the LH Technic vehicle near the inboard engine on the left wing….That vehicle can be swallowed whole by the engine…..
‘Star Wars’ Character or simply wearing it’s headphones?
Being this close to this behemoth really put things in perspective.
As large as the A380 is, an average height adult can not walk beneath the plane without ducking.
Looking out towards the starboard wing.
Another look at the starboard wing
Sorry Gary, but this is a much better “View From The Wing”! 🙂
An interesting fact about the A380 is that it’s wing span is larger than the length of the fuselage. The A380 is the only airliner that can say that. The wingspan is nearly as wide as a Football Field (261 feet!)
Hidden in this hatch beneath the wing is a turbine fan that drops down in case of electrical system failure. The turbine is efficient enough to generate enough power to run the A380’s critical systems during an emergency.
Its big. Including the vertical stabilizer, the A380 is over 7 stories tall.
A fully digital cockpit, including tablet and laptop ports. Virtually a paperless cockpit. Laptops are used to install flight plans, retrieve aircraft telemetry and “wear and tear” data that help engineers pinpoint problems and maintenance needs…..all without putting pen to paper. Truly helps reduce the human error element.
A closer look at the display panels. Notice the center screen on the lower displays, thats the view from the vertical stabilizer. The A380 has several cameras installed in the fuselage to help the pilot steer the aircraft on the ground as well as to provide views for passengers via the Inflight Entertainment System.
A view from the pilot’s side window. The A380 you see is ‘Peking’, which was delivered to Lufthansa in August 2010, right before ‘Tokio’. Who knew you can see Peking from Tokio…..
To see specific dimensions and capacities of the A380, visit this informative page on Airbus.com.
by Lufthansa Flyer | May 11, 2013 | Airlines |
As part of my trip to Hong Kong, I built in a day in Frankfurt in order to meet with a few of my contacts and friends at Lufthansa as well as to take advantage of plane spotting at the airport. I had arrived from Washington DC at 5:30a and had a full day in FRA before flying to Munich and onward to Hong Kong later that evening.
A good portion of my day was spent with my friend Uli who had arranged “behind the fence” access for us in order to get up close and personal to part of Lufthansa’s fleet. During the course of several hours, I managed to take over 400 photos from a variety locations.
To keep things organized, I will break up my day of plane spotting into 3 parts. Part I captures primarily long-haul aircraft parked around Lufthansa’s Technic hangars. Part II will take you into the A380 hangar for an up-close look at D-AIMD aka ‘Tokio’. Part III will focus on departing Lufthansa Aircraft and Part IV will look at non-Lufthansa traffic at the airport.
On to the pictures (All taken with a Nikon D7100 / Nikon 16-85 3.5:5.6 ED lens):
A330-300 D-AIKI was delivered in September 2005 and is the 4000th aircraft produced by Airbus
Airbus A330-300 D-AIKE joined the fleet in December 2004 and is nicknamed ‘Landshut’
Boeing 747-400 D-ABVN was built in May 1992 and is known as “Dortmund”
This Boeing 737-500 serves as a training aircraft for Lufthansa Technic’s Mechanics.
Airbus A340-300 ‘D-AIGP’ was completed in December 1998 and is nicknamed ‘Paderborn’
Airbus A340-300 ‘D-AIGX’ joined the fleet in September 2009 and is named ‘Duren’
Boeing 747-400 ‘D-ABVU’ joined the fleet in December 1998 and is nicknamed ‘Bayern’
Boeing 747-400 ‘D-ABVP’ joined the fleet in February 1997 and is named ‘Bremen’.
Airbus A340-600 ‘D-AIHE’ joined the fleet in January 2004 and is named ‘Leverkusen’. Here it’s pictured while having one of it’s Rolls Royce engines “Run Up”.
Then as if by divine intervention, I turn the corner around one the Technik hangars, and there sits my favorite Lufthansa aircraft, the Boeing 747-8i. This one happens to be the first one, D-ABYA or ‘Brandenburg’. I had the opportunity to attend the festivities celebrating her inaugural flight in June 2012 and had the pleasure of flying aboard ‘D-ABYA’ from Frankfurt to Washington DC on her 3rd ever departure from Frankfurt a few days later. For those of you wondering why I didn’t fly on the inaugural, I decided to visit family in Slovakia as part of my trip which also gave me the opportunity to photograph the inaugural ‘taxi’ and ‘takeoff’.
The 747-8i……
Boeing 747-8i ‘D-ABYA’ joined the fleet in May 2012 and is named “Brandenburg”. She is seen here being ventilated before flying to Hong Kong later that evening. I would see her the next morning over the Himalayas from my A330 from Munich.
The beauty and art of engineering……
She looks great for being 1 year old!!
by Lufthansa Flyer | May 5, 2013 | Airlines |
A Lufthansa A321 returned safely shortly after departing Helsinki for Frankfurt after suffering an engine fire on Saturday night. 168 passengers were on board when the aircraft experienced what passengers called an “explosion” in it’s starboard engine.
The crew executed normal emergency procedures for an engine failure and returned safely to Helsinki Airport soon after the emergency started.
Please be mindful if you read other accounts of this incident. This one, from the Daily Mail, is perhaps the most absurd of all of them, citing that a blaze spread through the aircraft. That was certainly not the case, but is another example of sensationalist media that sometimes infects the interweb.
