EPWA 2016.05.21 Atlas Air 747F

An evening departure of an Atlas Air Boeing 747-400F from Warsaw. Accompanied by a usual LOT Dreamliner at that time of the day.

SP-LRF

N418MC

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.

EPWA 2016.02.12 El Al Cargo

Yet another cargo charter. This time a dull, white Jumbo jet operating for El Al. I was prepared for a 33 departure, then the light conditions would have been fantastic. Unfortunately the crew asked for a 29 departure thus my photos ended up being back-lit. Anyway, no risk, no fun.

4X-ICB

EPWA 2015.09.16 B77F Etihad Cargo & Trade Air F100

Last year we had a Etihad cargo triple seven visiting WAW, this year the story repeated. Twice even, with some horses this time. Coincidentally the day of the Etihad departure a Trade Air Fokker 100 operated a charter to Warsaw. Both arr and dep.

9A-BTD Trade Air F100 departure

A6-DDC departing

Lufthansa Cargo Boeing 777F. 2015.03.20-21

Due to a short strike of the Lufthansa crew, we did not see many LH movements in WAW for a couple of days. Presumably they had some cargo laying off in Warsaw that needed to be quickly transported out of Warsaw and the means of the underbelly of the daily rotations with the A320 family planes were not enough to deal with the backlog. Se they decided to send in a one-time cargo only flight to WAW operated by a Lufthansa Cargo Boeing 777. It arrived on Friday the 20th of March 2015 and departed the next day. As I was too lazy to go for some night photos of the beauty while it was resting on PPS12 (today I regret a little bit that laziness) o I did use the photos made by my friends to show you how it looked.
For the departure itself I put my bets on a "into the sun" picture, did it work? I'm not fully satisfied with the effects, I kinda wanted the sun to be tad lower, but hey! that's not up to me.

Night time, photo copyright: Marcin Sikorzak