On the flight line..... big Russian birds.

I love surprises. A day at the airport is fun enough, but when you round the corner and see not one but TWO Antonov AN-124 Ruslans sitting on the cargo ramp in 20th Anniversary colors, well... that's a surprise. To say the rest of the day was productive would be an understatement.

UPS 767 getting a little de-icing action before departure.

On the lake... Alaskan style!

Lake Hood is one of the busiest float plane bases in the country and when it gets cold many of the planes trade their floats for skis and carry on! K2 Aviation's De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver coming in for a landing, what a fantastic place Anchorage is for heavies at the international airport and a short drive away to Lake Hood for the bush planes.

And when the light starts to fade, there's always the Chugatch Mountains looming over the Anchorage skyline to keep you occupied. More when I thaw out, it was a crisp 2 degrees in the parking lot this morning!

You win some, you lose some.

Frustration can often be the unwelcome companion when spotting aircraft, especially those of the pointy-nosed zoom-zoom variety flown by the military. Given the post 9/11 society we're all part of, catching the latest and greatest military hardware can often be an exercise in futility or, at best, a collection of  so-so images.

Such was the case last week when I was up in Anchorage, Alaska where Elmendorf AFB has some of those sleek sexy F-22 Raptors. The main 06/24 runway is quite a distance from any good viewpoint and unfortunately they didn't utilize 16/34 at all during my time there. Red Flag 10-1 was going on but weather, family commitments and the plain lack of decent viewpoints made this the anti-climax of my week. Supper with some old friends confirmed what I had heard: the arrival of the Raptors had also brought lots of locked gates. But the time wasn't a total bust for the military birds. On two seperate days I caught movements into Elmendorf while photographing over at the Anchorage Airport: One a JSDF E-767 AWACS and the other a very marginal F-22.

 

Now the happy moment for the mil planes was when this lovely Coast Guard HC-130H pulled off the runway at Anchorage Int'l popping the tail strobe, throwing propwash around and leaving the tell-tale trail from the 4 turboprop engines. Big smiles all around when 1708 came past.

So while the military end of things was not exactly a screaming success I did get one nice Coastie image and have my work cut out for my next trip up yonder.

Just one

A couple of days ago I spent half a day photographing at the Ted Stevens International Airport here in Anchorage and there's just one word, overused as it is, that applies: AWESOME. Here's one of the hundreds I was able to capture that day of a Cathay Pacific Cargo 747 beginning to taxi for departure. Cathay Pacific has a series of beautifully maintained silver jumbos that look just stunning in Alaska's low-level sun. Time permitting I'll post a couple more before we begin the loooong trip back to England.

There's planes in Alaska, too!

Alaska offers one of the largest variety of aircraf to be seen if you're into that kind of thing) than most anywhere else in the world. Today on a very short outing around the international airport of Anchorage and neighboring floatplane base Lake Hood I saw everything from Super Cubs on skis and floats to MD-11s and 747s dedicated to ferrying cargo around the world and nearly everything in between. The air is crisp and cold here, snow is just starting to cover the ground and I am in my element. Here's one small sample of what can be seen here, a FedEx MD-11 rotating and sowing off all kinds of heat artifacts and "ribbons" owing to the weather conditions. I expect more to come, stay tuned!