Turkey

A couple of months ago (February 2014 to be exact) I've been in Turkey for a week. During the 7 days I took 5 flights on 3 different types with 3 different airlines to 4 different airports. It was more of a sightseeing trip than a aviation one. I simply wasn't too keen on spending an entire week in one city. This time I shall post about all the flights in this one post, but in the future I'll try and make a post for each flight with a review of the flight, my feelings, photos and so on... Lets begin! For polish speaking readers a trip report is available here.

Itinerary: WAW-IST-ADB-ESB-IST-WAW

Warsaw - Istanbul - Warsaw with LOT Polish Airlines on board a Boeing 737-400

Istanbul - Izmir and Ankara - Istanbul with
Turkish Airlines both flight on a Airbus A321

Izmir - Ankara with Anadolujet on board a Boeing 737-800

Belavia T154

Some still talk about the recent Air Force One visit in Warsaw, when today a next great reason to visit the airport has arise! Not only the weather is great (sun, 25 degrees Celsius, scattered clouds) but also Belavia operated its flight to/from Warsaw on a Tupolev 154M and not as usual on the Boeing 737-500. Why? The answer is simple. Merlintour organized a tour for aviation enthusiast wishing to fly some soviet metal in Belarus. For 1390 euro you could fly the T154, An-12 (for extra money the IL76, An-26, An-2, Mi-2), included in the price is also accommodation, a visit in the aviation museum in Borovaya. Not cheap. We, spotters in Warsaw are very happy that the tour happens as thanks to it the T154 visited Warsaw and it really is a extraordinary plane now. Two friends of mine decided to take the flight WAW-MSQ, just the flight, not the entire tour.
Thank you Belavia!

On arrival runway 33

25 years of freedom

June 4th, 1989. First partially free elections in Poland. The transformation begins. From communism to democracy. Solidarność pushed Poland to freedom, later other countries followed, Germany, USSR.
This year we have been celebrating 25 years of freedom. On the 3rd of June delegations from around the world arrived in Warsaw to fest the jubilee. Lithuania, Germany, Hungary, USA and more. Heads of state from around 50 countries from around the world visited Warsaw and attended the ceremony.
That'd be about the things in the city, the official side. Now to the aviation part. What could we, spotters, see? VC-25, C-32s, C-17s, Dassault Falcons, Private Cessnas and Bombardiers, CC-130 Polaris, A310 and a United 764. Most of it arrived on Tuesday and later departed the next day. Some delagations had their planes return home and later fly back for them. Some arrived in the morning some in the afternoon. Fog came in for most of the morning arrivals, the entire day was also accompanied by low visibility. The next day was way better, at times :) half past eleven the first C-32 departed, two hours later traffic has been held up and the VC-25 made its way to Brussels, followed by the second C-32 and 3 C-17 later during the day (photos underneath will be in a chronological order beginning with the first). Between VIP and military departures civilian planes did operate normally.
All that traffic was a great reason to go for a longer spotting at EPWA than usually (as for a long time now I usually made short and rare visits just to see one particular plane, but that's a story for a different post). I wasn't able to go for spotting on Tuesday and I can't say I'm disappointed or sad about it. As the weather got better the next day I arrived around eleven o'clock at the airport and the process begun. Plane by plane departed, time passed by, in a team like the one there time makes no difference :) Unfortunately I had a meeting during the day and thus wasn't able to catch the departure of the 764 and the Slovakian Yak40. Rain thundered down exactly for those departures, me being in a building in the meantime I can't say I'm mad. The rain though was a great thing for later photos. All things ended around 1900 after the departure of Czech Yak40. In the conditions that arised it was hard not to photograph standard Warsaw traffic :)
Photos in chronological order without grouping. 

99-0003 departing WAW