Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: airliner

I'm fairly sure this was a 777-300ER, given what Air France usually flies, and given the apparent length of this aircraft. However, because I wasn't sure when I posted this, I didn't put it in the title. When I tried reviewing photos of 777-300's, versus 777-200's, I couldn't find an objective spotting feature to make it certain. If someone knows for sure, please let me know. I don't take too many photos of airliners that I've been on anymore, but for some reason I decided to take this shot before departing JFK for Paris Charles De Gaulle. Typically, flights from the U.S. to Europe take off from the U.S. East Coast in the evening, arriving the next morning to avoid losing a day.

This is my repaint of Mike Stone's Airbus A330-300 into CSA, or Czech Airlines, livery. Because I haven't got his permission to distribute it, I haven't, but at the very least I wanted one for my AI traffic files for Ruzyne (Vaclav Havel) airport. I've tried to take a screenshot that resembles my previous photo of the actual plane, but it was hard getting a good angle in the simulator. It's in roughly the same spot at Ruzyne, but I've had to angle the camera back diagonally. One other inaccuracy is that the A330-323X that CSA have acquired has Pratt & Whitney engines, not Rolls Royce engines. Oh well....I don't really have the time to build a new model.

Changing transport modes for one shot, I spotted this A380 (or what looks like one) from my train into Frankfurt. If my spotting is right (please correct me if I'm wrong) this marked only the second time that I managed to get a photo of an A380, after I photographed the very first one built in Paris Charles De Gaulle some years ago. Although I can't prove it, I'm assuming this one is operated by Lufthansa, as they are the primary operator of the A380 at Frankfurt am Main airport.

This was another shot that I took of the A380 with the next roll of film. Unfortunately, I had to change rolls as it was taxiing towards us, but luckily, it was going very slow. This might be my best of the bunch.

This isn't the best photo that I got on the day I was in CDG, but it's the only one I have developed right now. This is the one and only Airbus A380 that Air France currently operates, which makes it the largest airliner in service in the world (unless some other airlines have received deliver of their A380's). This plane was significant enough so that the flight crew made an announcement on our A330 that it was coming, so I finished the roll of film with this shot. Once I develop the next roll, I'll have better shots.

I took a photo of the Aeroplane Bar the last time I was in Olomouc as well, but I couldn't resist trying it again. Unfortunately, unless you only want part of the plane, or some kind of abstraction, this is one of the only angles which works because of the trees blocking the view.

This is the Berlin Technical Museum....or whatever that is in German. I've forgotten. :-) The airplane, unless I'm wrong (please someone correct me if I'm wrong) is a Douglas DC-3, which was closely related to the C-47 Skytrains used during the Berlin airlift.

This technically bad, blurred, photo was shot from a train, as this was about the only chance I got to see Tempelhof, and I didn't want to pass it up. As Wikipedia says, "Designated by the ministry of transportation on October 8, 1923, Tempelhof is the world's oldest commercial airport, and the world's first airport being connected to a subway-network in 1927." That's something very impressive to me, especially when you consider that it was also the first with restaurants and shops like modern airports, all 25 years before the first jet airliners. It has long enough runways to take 747 jumbo jets, but aircraft visiting Tempelhof are often expected to taxi under certain overhead bridges in the airport that were constructed long before aircraft got so large, so today most planes using Tempelhof are very small by the standards of modern airliners, and there has been talk of closing the airport. I hope myself that it will survive as a museum, and I would support any such effort to preserve it.

This is the famed "Aeroplane Bar" in Olomouc. It is in fact a genuine Tupolev Tu-104 airliner, the first successful design of jet airliner in history, as the very first jet airliner, the De Havilland D.H.106 Comet, had an unpleasant habit of blowing up in flight. It was also the first jet airliner built in the Communist bloc, and not to be outdone, Boeing introduced the 707 a few years later, finally giving the west an airliner to be proud of. In any case, this Tu-104 will unlikely ever fly again, as it's well....a bar, and in any case one of the wings is smashed at the tip.