If you’ve been visiting LH Flyer over the past few days, you might be thinking that the only things happening at Paine Field last week were related to Lufthansa aircraft. Granted, Lufthansa did take delivery of their last Cargo 777 (D-ALFE), they did unveil the much anticipated Retro Livery on one of their 747-8i (D-ABYT), and of course there was yet another 747, D-ABYS, that underwent her final flight tests ahead of delivery to LH. For those of you that may have missed some of these moments, you can find those posts here:
However it was a busy week at Paine Field for other carriers as well. Several airlines took deliveries of their newest birds, Boeing unveiled a few newly painted planes and a variety of test flights filled the 3 days that I spent there. I’m glad that I stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Everett since it’s location right next to the airport made it easy to see everything that was going on, even in the middle of the night!
Because of the amount of photos, I’ll break this plane spotting post into 2 or 3 parts. Part 2 and 3 will follow in the next few days.
To see my other Plane Spotting related posts, please visit the Plane Spotting Index or Aero-Shots.com where you can see my growing collection (i.e. work in progress) of Airline photographs.
Enjoy!
Cathay’s B-KQV enters the runway for her test flight
A new United 787 departs on her final test flight prior to delivery.
TK’s TV-JJV 777 approaches Paine Field
Turkish 777 touchdown after ferry flight from California where she was painted.
Singapore’s 9V-SNA prepares for a test flight.
Qatar’s 787 A7-BCS departs for a final test flight
Its not all about modern AIrliners at Paine Field…..This DC3 prepares for takeoff.
A rare sight, an ANA 777 being moved in the Boeing Factory.
KLM’s 777 (new livery) prepares for her first-ever flight.
KLM’s newest 777 approaches Paine Field
Hainan’s newest 787 minutes after being removed from the Paint Hangar.
Cathay’s B-KQV enters the runway for her test flight
A unique angle as this CX 777 executed an intentional missed approach.
PLEASE NOTE: As of the publishing of this post, the video has yet to be processed properly by YouTube – so you may need to come back later to see the video. The video may appear very grainy at the moment. It has been a few hours – my patience has expired.
Lufthansa Cargo today took delivery of their 5th of 5 777F aircraft that had been ordered from Boeing. D-ALFE or ‘Hallo Germany’ was handed over to Lufthansa Cargo and the capable hands of her crew at 3:00p on February 11, 2015 and took off shortly there after to join her sisters in Frankfurt.
It was a bit of a bittersweet moment to watch her fly away since she is the last of the 777Fs that Cargo had ordered. Cargo now operates 5 777F aircraft along with the rest of their MD-11 Freighter fleet.
Next up for Lufthansa is the delivery of 3 more 747-8i aircraft over the next few weeks. After these deliveries it will be quite some time until we see the Lufthansa livery around Paine Field. The next opportunity will come when the 777X aircraft start to show up in Frankfurt in a few years.
Here are few photos and video that captured the moment. The video starts a bit out of focus because the other camera that was being used was not auto-focusing. You may want to reduce the size of the video however it does get sharper once the aircraft enters the runway.
Enjoy!
D-ALFE only seconds after her official delivery to Lufthansa Cargo.
D-ALFE is towed to a point where she could start her engines.
Holding short of Runway 16R
Taxi into position or as I’d like to call it: ‘The Money Shot’
I’ve been in Paine for a couple of days and have been dealt a hand of bad weather weather for plane spotting. Rain, fog, and mist have all gotten into the way so far but I did catch a break tonight. With most of the rain and mist ending, it became easier to frame a few decent shots.
Several 787s are parked around the field as they wait completion and delivery. Below, you’ll find a few from Virgin, Scoot, United, American, and JAL among others.
The Plane Spotting gods no doubt are looking over me this weekend.
Yesterday, I was able to be among the first set of eyes to see Lufthansa’s newest 747-8i, D-ABYR, emerge from Boeing’s Paint Hangar at Paine Field. Then later in the evening, I was tipped off that Lufthansa Cargo’s last 777 Freighter was set to be moved to it’s final assembly position. I say tipped because I received the great intel from a Paine Field expert.
Known on Twitter as Paine Airport (@MattCawby), Matt has the pulse on what is happening with Boeing as far as aircraft movements are concerned. His regular updates helps followers keep tabs on test flights, assembly movements and delivery flight information. You can see more of his work and photography on his website as well.
So after I get the call letting me know that ‘D-ALFE’, the last 777F that LH Cargo has on order, was set to move from one hangar to another I set off to a ‘secret’ spot that lets you see inside the assembly hangars. A Cathay Pacific 777 had just been completed and moved to the fuel dock making room for D-ALFE to move into place.
Here is a video and a few images showing the transfer from last night (January 10, 2015):
D-ALFE as she is prepared to move along Boeing’s assembly line.
D-ALFE pushed back into her final assembly position
D-ALFE will now have her engines attached and stay here until she is ready for the Paint Hangar
After a few months of building and rebuilding a website that I wanted for my Plane Spotting photography, I finally ready to formally unveil Aero-Shots.com.
If you’ve noticed, ‘Aero-Shots‘ has been my watermark for my airline photography for a few years. During that time I’ve amassed approximately 11,000 photos of Airliners from airports around the world. It became time to catalog these images and begin putting them on their own dedicated site.
When you visit Aero-Shots, you’ll see a simple home screen with Airline logos that can be clicked to enter their respective galleries. From there, visitors can choose a specific gallery based on the aircraft model (Boeing 747, Airbus A380, etc) and be taken to a screen showing photos of specific registrations or ‘tail numbers’.
Please note that the site only has 100-200 images thus far and the Lufthansa Gallery has the most content (Surprised?). Now that I’ve completed the ‘skeleton’ of the website, I can focus my efforts on populating the galleries with my images. Future updates will include blog posts, enhanced search ability and a few other improvements. To search the website now, please click the ‘magnifying glass’ icon at the top right hand part of the page. You can search by Airline, Aircraft Model, Registration or Tail Number, Airport Name and Airport code by simply typing the info into the Search Box.
Obviously this will be an ongoing project that actually may never be finished, but at least it is started and the hard part is done. To keep up to date on new additions to the galleries, please follow Aero-Shots on twitter: @_AeroShots.
Should you discover any obvious errors or problems, please let me know either by leaving a comment to this post or sending me a tweet @LufthansaFlyer or @_AeroShots. I’d also appreciate your feedback regarding website speed, fluidity and any recommendations that you may have!
