Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

In this Discussion

Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

    Support MFO

  • Donate through PayPal

Aviation Story / AMAZING shot

edited June 2021 in Off-Topic
“Boeing, Airbus Gear Up for Post-Tariff Fight for Orders”

STORY (WSJ)

I searched the United aircraft number and confirmed that the plane taking off is an Airbus 319. The plane on the ground is most certainly a later model Boeing 737 - though I can’t confirm that. It’s always tough telling the two similar sized planes apart on the ground when traveling. However, the cockpit windows provide a clue.

The lower plane is not a 737 “Max” - as the Max has odd shaped engines that are flat (not rounded) on the bottom for ground clearance. A bit of an “ugly duckling” when viewed at airports.

Learned years ago that the winglets (fins) are designed to reduce drag and increase fuel economy. Come in various configurations and sizes. They’re an expensive retrofit on older planes.

(Shot from today’s Wall Street Journal)

image
«1

Comments

  • I like this stuff. Fun to look at. Thanks for the news.
  • edited June 2021
    @Crash. Thanks. I love it too. I think that’s a takeoff. Slight chance it’s landing, although the nose looks too high to me for landing. Puzzling - the spoiler on the left wing looks slightly deployed. That reduces lift (primarily when landing). However, I suspect it’s being deployed slightly here to stabilize the plane right after takeoff. @Old_Joe understands this stuff better than anyone here. Perhaps the old * will chime in?
  • Hey there hank- pretty hard to see exactly what's going on here. Because of the unknown position of the camera it's possible that those planes weren't actually as close as they appear. It's also possible that they were very close... if so, perhaps the United had been attempting to land but aborted at the last minute, was photographed as it was gaining altitude for a go-around, and was still partially configured for landing. Hard to know exactly, but I agree that the United appears to be trying to gain altitude rather than landing.
  • edited June 2021
    +1 Appreciate the perspective @Old_Joe.

    I suspect it’s some tricky camera work rather than an abort. But did experience 1 aborted landing in Tampa years ago. Pilot noticed another plane on the runway just before touching down. Pulled up sharply. Turned left. Did go-around.

    Wish I could recall the type of jet we were on. (Maybe 727 or DC 9 just because they were so common back than)
  • My wife and I were on a very lightly loaded 319 going from Florence to Frankfurt some years ago, and by chance we had been placed in the very rear so as to help even out the passenger weights. For whatever reason the pilot did a last-minute missed approach at Frankfurt. Cripes! I thought that we were in an F4, flat on our backs! Man, some of those passenger planes can really climb when they want to. The old 727 was pretty good at that sort of thing too.
  • There is a French town where newly-built aircraft get their shakedown before being put into service. All sorts of airlines. Toulouse? Air Tahiti Nui there. That's not the tropics, doesn't look like Asia or Oceania, either. Air Tahiti Nui flies to LAX, too, on the US Mainland, but that's not Los Angeles. Maybe we're looking at a shot from Toulouse. I've seen a picture of a plane headed for service in The Philippines, with the Cebu Pacific name printed on it, just leaving the ground. The caption said the picture was from Toulouse. And I know that Cebu Pacific does not fly passengers to and from France.
  • edited June 2021
    I can not find a date code in the meta data related to the pic., but found otherwise the first date of service was April of 2000.
    Currently, this particular aircraft is "everywhere".
    The small mountain formation in the background offers no clues for my brain.

    Recent runs are here.

    A fun chase for information.

    ADD: My guess is that the airport is Vancouver.
    Some pics indicate a low mountain range; at least possible from a particular photo angle. ALSO, Air Tahiti Nui flies into Vancouver.
  • edited June 2021
    @Catch22 - I dug up the following.

    “Air Tahiti operates flights to 47 islands in French Polynesia, and to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Most of them are served by ATR aircraft. Few are operated in Twin Otters and Beechcrafts, particularly Ua Pou and Ua Huka in the Marquesas. Discover our archipelagos and the main islands in the drop-down menu below.”

    “Faa'a International Airport serves both domestic and international flights. Air Tahiti has daily flights to most other islands in French Polynesia and one international service to the Cook Islands. There are intercontinental flights to Canada, Chile, Metropolitan France, Japan, New Zealand and the United States. The airport is on Tahiti, which is an island among the Windward Islands, the eastern part of the Society Islands. Because of limited level terrain, rather than leveling large stretches of sloping agricultural land, the airport is built primarily on reclaimed land on the coral reef just offshore.”
    -

    Air Tahiti seems to fly mainly smaller planes, but is showcasing some modern 737-900 (very nice large planes) Likely, the photo I linked was taken at Faa’a International Airport . It boasts a very long 12,000 ft. runway. I doubt a fully loaded A319 would require much over half that distance to get airborne, (They operate routinely off of NYC’s LaGuardia’s 6,000 foot runway.) That probably helps create the seemingly odd juxtaposition in the photo, as the A319 is already well aloft, yet seemingly close to airport infrastructure and a taxiing plane.

    I don’t have time, but you might check on which airports United serves in that area. Likely it’s very few airports that both carriers serve.

    Some possible illumination:

    Our Destinations

    Our Fleet https://www.airtahitinui.com/us-en/our-fleet-boeing-787-9

  • Papeete airport top photo. I don't think your photo from WSJ having a backdrop of the small mountains would be found in Papeete from any angle. And a zoom of the pic seems to show pine trees on the slope.
    I'll have to remain in favor of your pic being at Vancouver.

    Air Tahiti flies 6 times/week to Vancouver or vice versa.

    Pillow time.....................
  • edited June 2021
    @Carch22 - Could be. Do you have any idea how that Air Tahiti jet in the foreground found its way to Vancouver? Doesn’t appear to serve it from this list. https://www.ifly.com/vancouver-international-airport/airlines-served
  • edited June 2021
    Hi Hank,

    I've used FlightAware over the years to track flights (scroll down the page for other interesting stuff). A decent site to save for future use; as you may check past flights for a given route to discover average travel times, delays and other. The flight map is active when a flight is in progress, as well as left gate, taxi time, etc. A login or registration at the site is not needed for a lot of common information. You'll have to poke around the site to find what is most useful; but the link is probably what you'll need/use as a starting point, but there are various ways to enter known data (destination, flight numbers, etc.) to discover what you need or want. We've used the site in particular when our daughter traveled to Europe two different times. It gave us peace of mind knowing the flights to/from Paris and Frankfurt were on time and wouldn't cause connection problems for to and from NYC/Detroit metro.

    The below link indicates the active schedule, as well as the "past" flights (scroll down) for this route.

    Vancouver to Papeete schedule, via Air Tahiti Nui.

    At least this is more fun for the investigative mind, versus trying to discover the uses of options and futures in a Tactical Allocation fund.

  • edited June 2021
    This pic at Flickr is just a "for the hell of it". Tahiti Air Nui Dreamliner landing at Vancouver.
    With the cursor on the pic, you'll have 2 zoom levels and you may move top/bottom and left/right. One helluva view of the plane. Other info below the pic furnished by the photographer. DATE noted is June, 2020. I wouldn't expected they were flying then.
    ADD: Hank...........the name of/on the plane near the pilot windows in the Flickr pic, is the same name as found in the WSJ pic. The scalloped metal at the engine discharge area indicates a Dreamliner.
  • edited June 2021
    Good find @Catch22. I stand corrected. If they open the border into CA again without restrictions, I’d like to take that flight.

    Looks like longest runway at YVR is 11,500 feet - about half of what that plane likely needed.

    And thanks for participating in the aviation corner here!

    PS - Yes, you’ve done your homework. Here’s a link to AT’s Dreamliner https://www.airtahitinui.com/us-en/dreamliner-experience-working
  • Here's a link to official Boeing info on the 787 Dreamliner. Individual pages from the document can't be linked, so I can't reproduce the graph here.

    On page 3.3.1 is a graph showing the runway takeoff length of the 787 under various altitude, temperature, and loading conditions. At sea-level (Vancouver) the required runway length is only 5,000 to 10,000 feet, depending on aircraft loading from minimum (360,000 lb) to maximum (500,000 lb) weight, and assuming a temperature of 15° C (59° F). That temperature seems a bit on the low side, so the required length will increase a little as that temperature rises, to say, 70 or 80 degrees F.

    In any case, the 787 should have no problems at all at YVR.





  • Great stuff in this fun thread.

    Anybody want to explain why the single aisle A319 in the distance appears larger than the twin aisle 787 in the foreground?
  • edited June 2021
    I've looked at that photo many times now, and it was my first impression that the 319 was in fact "in the distance". But the more I looked, the less certain I was. It seems to me that the 319 might be taking off in front of the 787, who presumably is waiting to take off next. Really hard to tell, at least for me.

    Speaking of photos, those photos that Catch found are really something else. Damned good photography.
  • I'm quite sure the Airbus is the closer plane from the photographers position. A difference of 5 milliseconds, plus or minus would have shown the nose gear of the Airbus partially blocking the upper tail piece of the Dreamliner. A few more seconds would have shown the landing gear blocking a portion of the tail section. The Dreamliner and signage appears to indicate this plane is on taxiway H; and likely in line for a takeoff, too.
    The previous mentioned Flickr.com is a wonderful place to discover uploaded photos by anyone and from just about every place on the globe. To the best of my knowledge, one doesn't need to sign up for viewing pics. The site has been in place since 2004.
    I discovered numerous, high quality photos taken by tourists of an area I traveled for 2 weeks in southern Morocco during my vagabond days of 1973. I didn't have a decent camera that I could drag along on the trip for photos.
  • Completely off topic, but how close were you to Spanish Sahara in 1973 ?
  • @Catch22- yes, that's what I now think also re the plane positions.
  • edited June 2021
    I see what you mean Catch. The more I look at it the more it appears the 319 is closer. If the 787 is in-line for takeoff, it’s hard to believe it’s for same runway based on the altitude of the 319. But certainly possible. Almost looks like the 787 has landed and is taxiing back downwind. Maybe it’s waiting for the A 319 to clear before crossing the active runway?

    Never been on the Dreamliner. First on a 777 couple years ago. The twin aisle jobs all look about the same inside to me. There’s so much interior it’s really hard to grasp.
  • Vancouver runway configuration:

    image

    @hank- Yes, I also wonder if that 787 is in line for take off or maybe just waiting to cross the runway behind the 319, because if the United is in fact taking off it must have started much further down the runway. Given the runway configuration as pictured, I'm uncertain exactly where those two planes actually were on the airfield. Air Tahiti most likely would be using the longer 11,500' runway for either takeoff or landing, so where the devil was he when that picture was taken?
  • Hi @carew388

    Where I stayed in Tafraoute for two weeks (scroll down the page to the 3rd photo). The top center house nearest the rock ledge, 4 stories high. There's a single window in the right side tower. The house was the residence of an uncle of an acquaintance, who lived in Casa Blanca. He hadn't seen his uncle since about age 7; and this prompted the journey and the visit. A fully amazing experience. Very few outsiders visited in 1973. Today, one may schedule a tour of the area and stay at a hotel.
    I can't find a map that clearly defines Tafraoute relative to the desert to the east and south and the technical boundaries. But, a lot of the area looked like a desert, regardless.
    I traveled the country for 4 months; and this is the most embedded in my memory cells of all areas I have traveled and/or lived outside of the U.S.
  • @Old_Joe and hank. I looked at runway configurations, too; and thought I could find taxiway H defined on a graphic......but, no luck.
    A bit like working on a jig-saw puzzle.
    This is the type of thing that keep we "older" folks in top mental condition.......well, most of the time (speaking for myself). My spousal unit may not concur at times.
  • edited June 2021
    (Apologies to Catch. Just noticed he linked some areal views)

    But, here’s the best one I could dig up. Intersecting runways visible on left side. Might be able to match up some of the infrastructure visible in original photo.

    Wondering about those yellow markers? Are those directions to boarding gates? If so, a view of the terminal (s) would lead one to the area.

    image
  • Which airport, there, @hank?
  • I'm reading with interest. :)
  • edited June 2021
    Airport is Vancouver (the same on OJ posted the diagram for). We figured that’s where the photo I originally posted was taken.

    @Old_Joe - Depends on temp, loading, etc. (as you’ve explained), but I’m reading that
    9,000 -10,000 is enough for the 787 in many cases - especially cooler temps. So let’s not rule out the 26R / 08L (far right in photo). Given a choice of that or the intersecting one on a busy day, it might be a close call. Than there’s proximity to departing gate as well.
  • +1 thanks catch22 Tafraoute looks to be about 450 miles north of Laayoun, the largest city in Western Sahara.(Spanish Sahara before 1975) As a geography nerd, just an area I keep tabs on !
  • edited June 2021
    @Old_Joe and hank.
    I use Google Maps a variety of things. This is an aerial view of the airport. I'm still perplexed about the pine trees and ridge in the background of Hank's original photo. At the top of the photo, across the Fraser River; is there a pine tree line on a ridge there? Also, to the south (bottom) across the Fraser River and to Swishwash Island; might there be elevation there and with pine trees?
    This aerial, at least with a Windows PC; I can use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in or out. Also, holding the left mouse button lets drag in all directions. I'm not familiar with this process for Apple products; although a touch screen product would allow for finger gestures.

    You may zoom "in" this aerial to the point of traveling along the runways to see the painted numbers of the runway.....(08L-26R)
  • @carew388
    I've not followed the disputes closely over the years, but am aware of the political problems with ownership/ancestral rights of the Sahara area and the naming changes. It is reported that there remains "clashes" in some areas.
Sign In or Register to comment.