Alastair, Nice trip report... I love going through AMS although it was my first time in August of 02. Hope to go back to AMS in October... Later. "Alastair T. Gardiner" <atg3v@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Hello everyone, What follows is a trip report I wrote for the benefit of Scottish airliner photographic community! We have a lot of nice, enthusiastic guys here but I hope some of you on Airline list will be interested as well. Cheers Alastair GLA Glasgow International AMS Amsterdam CDG Paris-Charles de Gaulle BVA Paris Beauvais, a tiny airport about 60 miles north of Paris PIK Glasgow Prestwick Hi guys! Made a trip last weekend to Paris. Supposed to be a working two week trip, but this had to be cancelled, so as the flight was either use it or lose it, I took the outward segment and came back on low-fare. This report is mainly photography oriented. 3rd May GLA-AMS KL1470 F100 G-UKFJ Flying time 1hr 11min Dealyed boarding due to high winds in Amsterdam - they were down to single runway operation so severly restricted movements. Multi directional-runway airports are great in good weather but chaos when things turn bad. Whilst waiting I shot a rotating Spanair 321 that hopefully should come out well. Through glass I know, but the light even for 6am was great. Pushed back an hour late and took off on rw23. This is now marketed as a KLM Cityhopper flight but everything was still KLMuk. The route was across to Newcastle, down to Norfolk and then across the North Sea to Amsterdam. Breakfast consisted of either an egg and tomato or cheese and ham roll. due to the winds we flew past the city Dbefore doubling back to land on rw27. On the approach I got a great aerial view of the Amsterdam Arena, the Ajax football stadium. By this time, landings were on 27 and take-offs were on 24. Due to the delay, the connection time was very short so had to go quicker than I would have liked to my B1 gate. At Amsterdam there was tons of interesting stuff but didn't shoot any of it. All through glass and the sun from the B gates standpoint was directly in front. Saw the yellow European 747, my first Jet2 and the new scheme KLM 744F. Also gald to see the KLM cargo 'Taking things further' was still about as never shot that one either yet. Obviously most KLm a/c were old colours but a fair proportion have now been repainted. AMS-CDG KL1233 F70 PH-BZO Flying time 47min. We were bussed out to the commuter ramp and had to wait on the bus for twenty minutes. The a/c was late in from Berlin and not ready for boarding - a message that obviously didn't reach the gate staff. Checking my flight log, happy to say this was my first ever F70 flight. They served another roll and the flight itself was pretty uneventful. We landed on 27L and taxied to gate. Terminal 1 at CDG was undoubtedly revolutionary in its hey-day. Now it is cramped and confusing, fortunately I knew where to go, collected my step-ladder from baggage reclaim and was out shooting nice and quick.... but only quick enough to see the green European 747 climb out. A few minutes earlier and I would have caught it, oh well! I didn't need to be in Paris itself until later so got a few hours shooting at one of the worlds grteatest airports for variety. Interesting stuff (for me) shot were; Thai Royal Barge 744, Air Plus Comet 310 (doing the Argtentinian shuttle from/to Madrid), non-standard c/s Aigle Azur 734, Cyprus 330 and some nice shots of a Concorde being towed to T2. Mjor disappointment was my rotating shot of the Max COA which dissolved in my viewfinder as I panned through. An Olympic 340 pushing back had projected its APU jetwash through my line of vision and ruined the shot, oh well again! Spent the next two days at CDG - fantastic! Shot all the usual suspects plus highlights in this time were; the Sun D'Or 757 (new grey scheme), Czech travel 738 (standard and an all white scheme), Mondair 733 (finally!), Pakistan 310, Afrique 310, Nas-Air 310, Germanwings 320, Armenian 320, non-standard JAT 733, Bonair Excell ATR42, Cabo verde 757 and another two Concordes. On the Sunday evening a lagre crowd had gathered to welcome the evening Concorde flight with banners 'Au Revoir Concorde et Merci' and flags. I believ the last commercial AF concorde flight is 31st May. Had the pleasure to spend a couple of hours in the company of Luis Calvo, getting the run down of the current shooting status of Spanish airports. 6th May BVA-PIK FR078 737-200 EI-CJE 'Jaguar' c/s Flying time 1hr13min. Everything worked well getting to Beauvais, a bus journey of over an hour from Paris - and buttoned up on the ramp in prime shooting position was the highlight of the trip. UN-42323 a Yak42 of Khors Avia, in the same scheme as the single shot of this a/c on airliners.net. Superb! Our flight to Prestwick and the Stockholm flight were the only two planes departing. This modest amount of passengers swamped the small terminal. Our arriving 737 did a tail-wind landing in what I thought was a fairly strong wind. He seemed to be going at hell of a speed on touch down, the turnaround was incredibly fast and within twenty minutes of the aircraft landing it was off again. The route was straight across to London and then up to Scotland. Got a great view of Stanstead from 32,000 ft. The flight was uneventful apart from a bout of turbulence. The Ayrshire countryside looked stunning and arrival into PIK had all the French people gawking out of the windows. Nothing out of the ordinary at PIK - only the Globespan 733 on the ramp. All the best, Alastair *************************************** Dr. Alastair T. Gardiner Microbial Photosynthesis Lab 217 Davidson Building IBLS-Division of Biochemistry & Mol. Biol. University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QQ Scotland Tel. (+44) 141 330 6449 Fax. (+44) 141 330 4620 E-mail. atg3v@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.gla.ac.uk/ibls/BMB/rjc/agardiner.html ************************************** Personal web pages at http://www.geocities.com/atg3v Have a look at my airliner photography at http://airliners.net/search/photo.search?emailsearch=atg3v@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Leo/ORD Fly on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Vertrekken aan KLM Koninklijk Nederlands --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.