Flying high and on our way to L.A. Varying shades of blue really made this an interesting wing+engine shot. This was taken no more than 20mins out of Sydney.
Sunset city! You gotta love the sunset scenery when flying across the Pacific. The peaks of each of those clouds is lit with an orange glow as we head onwards into the impending darkness.
Yup! This time I was bothered enough to actually get out of my seat, put the ISO down low and shutter-speed low as well. The smooth-flying A380 made the seats a good make-shift tripod. Took this just before the cabin lights were dimmed because I sooooo wouldn't be bothered to take this same photo 8hrs later after breakfast.
The best part of of sitting at the rear of an aircraft which is more than half-empty? Being able to lift your window-shade after they've told you to pull them down. There's was no way I was going to miss those few minutes before it really went dark outside. Amazing scenery guaranteeeeeed!! So amazing I made a little song:
Orange and yellow and blue and black,
How can you not be taken a-back,
Make sure you sit on the starboard side,
And get your camera ready for an amazing sight!
Crusing over Los Angeles (hey, I actually really like this shot!). Cloud-cover was a little bit of a suprise, but good news was NO RAIN unlike my previous trip into LAX about a month ago (refer to my signature).
Now THAT'S the L.A. that we don't really see (there is more to L.A than just Hollywood ya know!). In this shot we're flying alongside a tiny SkyWest EMB120... talk about opposite ends of the spectrum. Let's compare: 30 seats verse nearly 500. Max range of 800nm verse 8,000nm. Length of 20m verse 72.5m. Wingspan of 20m verse 80m....and my personal favourite: Max. Take-Off Weight of 26,430 lbs. compared to 1,234,000 lbs.
After touching-down in LAX, we hadn't even yet turned off the runway (thankfully) when this AA 767 zoomed right alongside and took-off on the parallel runway. I'm happy I had the camera held level to the horizon and had the clouds to add a dramatic backdrop!
Docking at our gate in LAX..viewed from the tail-cam. Qantas allows you to watch the tail-cam (which they refer to as 'Skycam') all flight long. It really is a neat feature and definitely something more interesting to look at than just the flight map when I don't feel like watching movies on the AVOD. At nighttime of course all you see is the red beacon blinking intermittently amongst the pitch-black darkness, so you might want to put the flight map on then...or watch Top Gear like I did!!
Crap quality.. I know! I wasn't even going to bother with this shot due to the unfavourable lighting (taken from inside the Tom Bradley Int'l Terminal, eatery area)...but the amazing diversity of airlines in this photo gave me enough of a reason to snap a shot or two. El Al B772, Air Tahiti Nui A343, Emirates B772LR, Lufthansa B744, and China Airlines B744. Strange though.. two waving-flag tails, two floral tails..and an old and boring bird tail (referring to Lufthansa).
Supri-iiiiiiii-se!! This is one end of the check-in area of Terminal 3 at LAX. Virgin America just moved into T3, and to my happy suprise I discovered V Australia's check-in desks lookin' all spiffy and clean. In less than a month those check-in counters will be switched on and VA will finally be alive in LA!
Trip report continued below...