I was in DC this weekend to see a friend's band play and had some time to kill...and following my rule of 'never leave home without a telephoto' I decided to check out the Udvar-Hazy center's parking lot at Dulles. I ended up not even making it inside the museum, I'll have to check it out a different time.
I picked a hell of a day to go there.The wind down there was insane. INSANE. Pilots were asking for wind checks all the way down. I tuned to ATIS and heard the computer voice say "Wind 290 at 25 gusting to 38. Wind shear advisory in effect. Approach in use ILS Runway 1 Right circle to Thirty" and was like 'what the hell does that mean'. Well I found out when I came up on the Udvar-Hazy exit ramp. Apparently what they do is shoot the ILS for 1R, then just as they get to the threshold the pull this crazy left turn to line up with 30 at the last second. The turns are just beautiful, reminiscent of Kai Tak's glory days. It's kind of eerie looking actually. Too bad there wasn't a clear view of them.
this one was the craziest
The AF A380 comes in there, and they weren't having any of that. Tower offered to swing him a little more to the right so he could make the turn without making things too dramatic. Which precluded me from getting an even crazier shot. By the time he came into view he was settled on a nice straight-in approach
Others that chose to keep it mellow in the turn:
Qatar was one of a few that actually attempted to crab it all the way down to 1R. Here they are going around after their first attempt, initiated after I watched what looked like them going over a speedbump in the sky:
It was very difficult to keep the camera steady, which introduced a little blur here and there, but overall they have a real nice mix of traffic down there.
"St. Keeva"
"Japan"
"Minden"
The 1st-delivered Boeing 777, N777UA
there were several red-tailed hawks in the area
The battleship gray is alive and well worn on the regionals
Is that a satellite antenna on your fuselage or are you just happy to see me
my first KLM A330
A sudden gust hit this bus
I thought the 70's were over
I leave you with a shot I wish was of better quality, but at least I have it- like strutting runway models, here is "Toste Viking" approaching while "Potsdam" flies the downwind leg(this is using all 500mm):
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