Real Aviation Photos

Here's a few pics from a positioning flight we took a few days ago from KOJC to KMKC. Me on the right in the first pic. We now have 6 brand new CL350s in the fleet. The P300s are resting for the night at KMKC.

Here's a few quick phone snaps from yesterday at Manchester... This is the rear hold of a Corendon Boeing 737-800 which was on Terminal 1's Stand 26 at Manchester. This aeroplane went out extremely light (just 24 bags on it). In this pic you can see a couple of my colleagues up at the bulkhead securing a folding powered wheelchair. Things like that have to be checked with specific paperwork to ensure their electrics are not going to activate in the hold (sometimes we disconnect the batteries and tape over the terminals, sometimes they have a flight mode switch), they have to be placed on spreader boars (basically two wooden planks) to spread the load. They are …

Here's me at work pushing an Icelandair Boeing 737-8 MAX (TF-ICU) out from Stand 23 at Manchester airport a couple of days ago. This was part of my certification I was doing over the past few days for pushback certification with Menzies Aviation. So I'm trying to do it as nicely and smoothly as possible. On the video, you can see my work colleagues Jeff Pollitt and Jordan Rowland, doing the ramp stuff while I drive the tug. Jeff is a trainer who was overseeing my certification and Jordan is assisting and does the roadman duties. Since some of you will find it interesting to hear the radio stuff, I uploaded the video from just after I got in the tug to start it up so …

Here's some shots I've taken at KLAS.

Hi, Some shots from a cracking day at RAF Leeming on Tuesday, some great light for the Swiss F-18s operating during "Exercise Yorknite 2021" FA-18C J-5001 + FA-18D J-5234 RAF Leeming 23.11.21 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr FA-18D J-5234 RAF Leeming 23.11.21-2 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr FA-18C J-5018 RAF Leeming 23.11.21-1 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr FA-18C J-5024 RAF Leeming 23.11.21-4 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr FA-18C J-5024 RAF Leeming 23.11.21 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr FA-18D J-5234 RAF Leeming 23.11.21-4 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr FA-18C J-5016 RAF Leeming 23.11.21-3 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr FA-18D J…

Hi, Morning trip to Mildenhall yesterday to get the KC-10s departing, plenty of activity from the locals too 🙂 KC-135R 62-3540 RAF Mildenhall 25.10.21-2 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr CV-22B 08-0047 RAF Mildenhall 25.10.21-1 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr CV-22B 10-0052 + MC-130J 08-6205 RAF Mildenhall 25.10.21 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr KC-10A 86-0038 RAF Mildenhall 25.10.21-2 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr KC-135R 63-8028 RAF Mildenhall 25.10.21 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr KC-10A 86-0035 RAF Mildenhall 25.10.21-2 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr KC-135R 62-3540 RAF Mildenhall 25.10.21-3 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr KC-135…

Hi, A few pics from Wednesday morning at Coningsby. Couldnt see the Tornado flight due to work commitments unfortunately. Nice to see the Danish F-16 though, and even nicer that the sun turned up around the same time!! F-16AM E-598 RAF Coningsby 13.10.21-5 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr F-16AM E-598 RAF Coningsby 13.10.21-2 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr About as good as it got for the Tonkas!! Tornado IDS MM7036 RAF Coningsby 13.10.21 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr And a few of the home team Typhoon FGR4 ZK309 RAF Coningsby 13.10.21 by Jonathan Francis, on Flickr Typhoon FGR4 ZK363 + ZK360 + T3 ZK381 RAF Coningsby 13.10.21 by Jonathan Francis, on…

From this excellent site: http://cpair.blogspot.com/2007/03/fleet-douglas-dc-8s.html Canadian Pacific Airlines (CPAL), the predecessor to CP Air, took delivery of its first DC8-43 on February 22 1961 followed by three more examples in April, May and November of the same year. Interesting to note, CF-CPG the forth DC8-43 delivered to CPAL, was the first commercial aircraft to exceed the speed of sound when it was being tested by Douglas prior to its delivery to CPAL on August 21 1961. During the test flight to confirm performance data on the new 4 percent leading edge, the DC-8-43 flew faster than the speed of sound. It occurred during a shallow dive ove…

Some video from yesterday mornings action at RAF Coningsby 😃 Cheers Jon

Hey folks, sorry there is some text in German, hopefully you'll like the pictures, enjoy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- nachdem die komplette Reiseplanung für dieses Jahr der Pandemie zum Opfer gefallen ist, wurde auch mein letzter geplanter Flug welcher für den 31.10. vorgesehen war, gestrichen. Dieser wäre von Stuttgart nach Berlin Tegel gegangen und einen Tag später zurück vom „Neuen“ BER. Durch die neuen Corona-Regelungen des Bundes, wäre eine Übernachtung jedoch eh nicht mehr möglich gewesen. Da mich jedoch der BER und allgemei…

Had my first flight with my My new panel! From left to right - Garmin G3X, Garmin Aera 660, iPad mini with ForeFlight

Couple of pics I took whilst we were towing a British Airways A320 yesterday. One is a bit blurred, but I was more bothered about monitoring the tow than winning a photography award lol. This aeroplane had a technical issue whilst on Stand 43 at EGCC, which is a stand that gets used a lot by mainly BA and Flybe, so we were towing the aeroplane to Stand 84L to get it out of the way so it could be worked on. That's quite a long tow and it requires four people to do it; there's one guy in the cockpit to work the brakes and operate the APU so the anti-collision beacons can be switched on for the duration of the tow, there's one guy driving the tug, one guy also in the tu…

COVID-19 has created some fairly unique opportunities for GA pilots. The shots below are from a flight I made this morning. I was cleared through the Charlotte class bravo at 4500 MSL. Normally ATC will route GA traffic over the top of Charlotte-Douglas International (KCLT). Today they cleared me on my direct route to destination, which put me cutting diagonally through the arrival corridor...in a C172, so it took me about 15 minutes to clear the arrival box. I asked the controller if he was sure he didn't want me to fly over KCLT, and he confirmed that they didn't have ANY arrivals for the next 30 minutes. Although it is cool to fly over areas of Charlotte that I never t…

Here's the Flybe Dash 8 which was left on Stand 47 at EGCC in high winds without being storm chocked, causing the tail to catch in the wind and spin it around on the stand. Fortunately it did not hit anything (it was close), so now it has a tug and bar attached to stop it moving. That's the stand centreline, behind its main gear, in yellow, so you can see it turned about 90 degrees.

Blue Angels did a "Ultra Low" Flyby....The Hornet was later CGI'ed to appear as a "Aurora" Aircraft And here's the scene as it appears in the Movie Trailer food near carolina beach

One of my favourite paint schemes is the replica vintage BEA paint scheme on an British Airways A320. The other day I was offloading/loading this aeroplane and took some snaps of it. One interesting thing about the loading and unloading procedure, is that obviously it is important to load it properly, based on the calculated load plan so that it can be balanced properly, which enables it to be trimmed safely. Because of that, you have to sign a loadsheet (this is done digitally on an iPad on BA aeroplanes and on paper on some other airlines) to confirm you have loaded it safely. An important aspect of that, is that you ensure all of the stop locks on the cargo floor …

It's easy to miss this kind of thing (which someone at Paris CDG obviously did earlier today, allowing the aircraft to depart in this state), but I spotted it on my pre-departure headset check and latched it properly. Good job some of us actually really do bother to look at all the panels when we do a walkaround check eh? In case you are wondering what is amiss, the left popper is out and if the other one comes undone, the panel would probably come open, potentially breaking free in the airflow and hitting the port elevator if it did so. It is located on the rear port side of an A320, just forward of, and below the level of the rear passenger door. To close it (in ad…

Was dropping off and racking some empty ULDs up near the perimeter where the grounded TUI Boeing 737 Max's are parked up and snapped this pic below. Later that day I noticed one of them had an emergency door open and was having some work done on it. It's a shame to see these aeroplanes parked up like that. They're starting to get quite weather-beaten and dirty now.

This one was on stand 53 whilst waiting for the bridge to come off so we could push it out for departure. As you can see, it's a KLM Boeing 737: This one was whilst I was on the way out from work walking across stand 5 toward the service yard exit. The control tower is the old one which is no longer used for that purpose but is kept operational as a back up should the newer control tower have some sort of a problem. To the right of the vehicles you can see stands 16, 17 and 18, which were uncharacteristically empty (this bit of the airport is normally really hectic with pushbacks and arrivals). Most of the time there are Flybe Dash 8 Q400s or Loganair ERJ-145s…

Whenever an aeroplane arrives on stand, or is about to depart, we do walkaround checks. The primary reason for that is of course safety, to ensure there is nothing very obviously amiss on the aeroplane. But the other reason is to make sure we don't get blamed for damaging stuff which we did not damage: If there is any damage on an arriving aircraft, we want it noted that it was already damaged before we drive equipment up to the aeroplane, lest someone then claim that we caused that damage by hitting the plane when the damage was already there. Any damage, such as a dent or scrape which has been previously noted, and is not presenting a danger, usually has two things: a m…

Since none of this stuff is modeled on the Carenado ATR-72 in any detail, I figured I'd take a couple of pics for anyone who was curious about it and explain what goes on... One of the smaller aeroplane types we service are the ATR-72's of Aer Lingus which come into Manchester. These are actually operated by Stobart Air Services on behalf of Aer Lingus. The ATR-72 is pretty small and narrow and it only has two cargo holds; one at the front just behind the cockpit which has an alcove on the starboard which is closed off with a cargo net, and one on the left side also closed off by a net. There is a passageway (the main aisle) between the two where you access the cockp…

A tale of dead airlines and potential problems with the undead.... Despite Thomas Cook Airlines having folded way back in September of last year, there are still several airliners sat at Manchester Airport wearing the Thomas Cook livery. Most of Thomas Cook's A320s, A321s and A330s were towed onto the remote stands at the time of the firm's collapse and were then impounded, pending airport fees being paid. However, in the weeks following the airline's collapse, most of these aircraft gradually disappeared from the ramp, of necessity, since they were taking up a great deal of room. But four A330s remained, one was in the enormous Thomas Cook (now acquired by Jet2) han…

The most beautiful airliner to ever take to the skies.... Noel

As you probably know, when you are the person who is on the headset to the crew for the pushback, part of your responsibility is to perform the final walkaround check of the aircraft and then report the readiness of the aircraft to the crew having done that. Typically you'll say something along the lines of: 'Ground to flight, walkaround check completed, all GSE clear of the aircraft, all doors and hatches secure, bypass pin and towbar connected, standing by to push when you have your clearance.' After that, you of course make sure the aircraft pushes out safely and starts its engines safely. So, that walkaround check is reasonably thorough because you'll be the one …