Prague spotting, day 3 An225 departure 2016.05.12

The moment news about the Antonov 225 "Mriya" coming to Prague spread out I started planning and scheduling a visit in the Czech capital. Together with three other friends we made up a team and planned everything. It ended with three nights and two full spotting days, plus one short, just for the departure of the 225. Everything will be divided in three entries, link to other parts are available at the end of the entry. This was my first visit in Prague for spotting, and I must say, that the spotting locations are good! sometimes you need to walk a little, but hey, that's all in it!

This day we woke up early. I had to give up the previous days night spotting in order to get a rather good sleep before returning to Warsaw today. Another gambling day, weather to go to the hill near runway 24 or one near 12. In case of departing from 12 there was no sensible place to catch the rotation. We decided that the second option will be better. It will give us the possibility to both get the rotation from 24 (a little backlight if it goes too late) and taxiing to runway 12. And so it was. I hoped greatly for a 24 departure, that would have been spectacular from that spot. Anyway, the departure got delayed, so the sun was already on the wrong side of the runway axis, not much but anyway. It was chilly, the sun slowly rising gave a little heat on the faces, but a hat and scarf was necessary.
As usual, the giant needed a couple of minutes standing on the runway to heat-up the engines. That sound was spectacular!
Another thing that was unusual is that on of the wheels didn't hide after take-off (it can be slightly seen on my photos). There are photos showing it en-route with the wheels out. Crazy!

UR-82060

N431UP, now just imagine the An225 in that position, or similar.

Prague spotting, day 2. 2016.05.11

The moment news about the Antonov 225 "Mriya" coming to Prague spread out I started planning and scheduling a visit in the Czech capital. Together with three other friends we made up a team and planned everything. It ended with three nights and two full spotting days, plus one short, just for the departure of the 225. Everything will be divided in three entries, link to other parts are available at the end of the entry. This was my first visit in Prague for spotting, and I must say, that the spotting locations are good! sometimes you need to walk a little, but hey, that's all in it!

We spent the second day almost entirely at the hill near the crossing of the runways. Early in the morning we caught the arrival of Hainan (and couple more) on runway 24.
That days spot gives us the opportunity to see both landings, taxiing and departures from runway 12 and 06 (which is not in use). Highlights of that day? Heavies, a couple special liveries and some nice light.

N431UP

B-8117

Prague spotting, Antonov 225 arrival LKPR/PRG 2016.05.10

The moment news about the Antonov 225 "Mriya" coming to Prague spread out I started planning and scheduling a visit in the Czech capital. Together with three other friends we made up a team and planned everything. It ended with three nights and two full spotting days, plus one short, just for the departure of the 225. Everything will be divided in three entries, link to other parts are available at the end of the entry. This was my first visit in Prague for spotting, and I must say, that the spotting locations are good! sometimes you need to walk a little, but hey, that's all in it!

The first day we had to choose a spot from where to catch the landing of the giant. We had to gamble a little. At first we decided to go to the "safest" place, which was beside the crossing of both runways. After deciding that the heat haze was very unsatisfactory for us, we returned to our car (quite a walk) and switched for the approach to runway 12. The entire operation of landing and later taxiing of the 225 was complicated. It could taxi only via the runways and had to park next to the threshold of runway 24. Winds were not favorable either. We risked, but had it worked out, the photos would be phenomenal. (it didn't). The Antonov landed on runway 24, made a u-turn and backtracked, despite the winds. Though luck. We had to get on with what we had.
My highlights for the day (excluding the 225): Delta 767, Emirates A380, CSA A330, Swiss 777, all the shots over the canola fields and the night panning training session was also fun. Especially the Czech A330 was something I wanted to catch. Take a look on day 1 at PRG:

UR-82060 taxiing to its stand seen with a crowd of people that wanted to see him

A6-EES approaching runway 12

Radom Airport and CSA with the ATR42, RDO-OSR-PRG-WAW

The idea of Radom airport functioning was, and still is, a little Kafkaesque. Even with the growth of the airport in the last months thanks to Sprint Air and their Saab 340 planes doesn't change it. After some time from opening and having no traffic, CSA Czech Airlines decided to commence flights to Radom. At first a non-stop flight. Later the flights were performed with a stop, either it was PRG-RDO-WAW-PRG, or via PRG-RDO-WAW-RDO-PRG, or PRG-OSR-RDO-OSR-PRG. That last option returned again after the first withdrawal of the flights and the return after a couple of months. We have a saying in Poland about something being like in a Czech movie, that is a very good metaphor for what was happening. All in all, I decided I had to be part of that farce before they close that thing down. I bought one of the strangest tickets of my life. A RDO-WAW via PRG. The distance between Radom and Warsaw is not that big, now it takes just over an hour to travel between the cities by car. But hey, what don't you do for the strange aviation things! RDO-OSR-PRG-WAW with 50 minutes to change planes in Prague. Sounds fun!

15 February 2016
OK25 (1440-1535/1555-1650) RDO-OSR-PRG
OK-KFO ATR42

Although the flight wasn't until after 2pm, wanting to be on the safe side of time I took a bus at 11am from Warsaw bound for Radom. After a solid breakfast at home and taking a couple of snacks for the road I boarded the bus. Arrived in Radom at 1245, now I only needed to find the bus for the airport. Yay, managed to do so and I arrive at the terminal having more than one hour until planned departure time. More than enough to get a souvenir boarding pass, a couple of pictures of the inside and outside of the terminal, but what next? Nothing, just have to wait. At that time the airport had a total of up to 3 flights per week. The Relay kiosk, two Costa Coffee stands and a Aelia Duty Free, are either open only 2h prior departure or not at all (Aelia has never opened at that time). As it later was easy to count, there was a total of 13 passengers on the first leg (RDO-OSR). During the stop in Ostrava we managed to get up to a total of 35 for the leg to Prague. The weather wasn't exactly pleasant during most of the flight. Not much sun visible. Only after leaving Ostrava did it come out. A summary of both flights available at the bottom.

The main entrance visible on the left