For our second trip to the United States
of America we had once again chosen Las Vegas as our
main destination (see 2011 for the visit in January
2011). In fact we arrived at LAS on the 28th of December
2011, but as the majority of the photos were taken in
2012 I put everything on the 2012 page. As we had a little more time this year,
we visited L.A. International aisport as well. But first
Las Vegas: Some new airlines had opened routes to LAS,
most notably Volaris of Mexico and Spirit Airlines.
Continental was now United, add to
this the never
ending supply of special colours in the US, and
You get an idea what we were hoping to get...and besides
all this, every day had some nice surprises for us. Not
to mention the great blue skies, a more than welcome
change from European winter greys.Our two day visit to Los Angeles was one of the greatest moments. On the way to the Southwest we passed Victorville airport as well as some small villages in the middle of nowhere. In Hi Vista, California we found the church from Kill Bill (: We arrvied at LAX at some time in the evening. Our first view of the Theme Building was a dream coming true for me.
We had heard a lot about the quite interesting weather at LA and only a few minutes after taking this photo
of
the Theme Builiding heavy fog came in from the Pacific
Ocean. When we were at the famous In 'n' Out later,
arriving planes could hardly be seen any more. This
changed within
minutes the next morning and later we could take some
photos along Sepulveda Blvd. After getting some nice
photos of planes from all over the world we left this
great airport and spent the evening at the Pacific Ocean
and in Santa Monica. The remaining days were spent at Las Vegas again with some time at the airport and a lot on the strip as well as in surrounding areas such as the Valley of Fire State Park.
With Heathrow as main attraction and four other airports around London always is a rewarding destination...and it is itself still one of the most interesting of all the cities I have been to. This year I finally found the perfect spots for taking photos of the Canary Wharf skyline and
visited
Kew Gardens. As I wanted to get some new airlines at LHR, I had to look for a new place to take photos of. There are so many interesting planes that come in early in the morning and leave during the day, so I chose the place next to the Esso station on the southern perimeter. It's a great place for taking photos of widebodies during take off, smaller planes are usually too high already when they pass this place. But that's not a big problem, as the big ones are the interesting ones here...with A380s of Qantas, Emirates, Malaysian and Singapore as well as quite exotic airlines like Thai or Saudia.
Being totally different from Myrtle Avenue, it really did feel like a whole new airport, and the great weather made it possible to get photos of most planes I had hoped for during my two visits in February and October.
Surprise visitors are rare at Heathrow,
but sometimes a delayed plane can be seen at an unusual
time. That's why I got an Air Mauritius A340 on
departure to the Indian Ocean.For the third trip in September we chose Myrtle Avenue again, hoping for the black ANZ 777, but she came down on 27R (as it happens quite regularly...). However, a trip to LHR in nice weather is always rewarding.
The first short trip of the summer holidays took me to Stockholm. I had hoped for some
photos
from Arlanda airport, but things came out totally
different. Arlanda was covered in fog and mist all the
time, while the city of Stockholm enjoyed blue skies and
nice temperatures. So I skipped photographing at
Stockholm's main airport and explored Bromma instead.
There's not much traffic at this small airport, but the
positions for taking photos are perfect and really
beautiful with trees, grass and some rocks in between.
So I spent some really enjoyable hours at this airport
as well as in this great town.A few weeks later I arrived on the Iberian Peninsula to spend my main holidays there. First
stop was Madrid, after a week I
went on to Lisbon to spend another week in the capital
of Portugal. I spent three mornings along Runway 32R at
Barajas and got some nice planes arriving, mainly
european traffic. Highlight of the first week was a
Boeing 747 Cargo of MyCargo from Turkey. The remaining
days I spent in the town, mainly in the many beautiful
parks as the Parge del Buen Retiro or the Casa del
Campo. Last stop was Lisbon, still my favourite city of all (: I had a week of great weather with clear blue skies almost every day. I took the metro to Alvalade in the m
orning and spent two or three hours
alongside 2a circular taking photos of planes arriving
on RWY03. There are still new things to discover, such
as the Águas Livres aqueduct, so I also had lots of
interesting things to do during the day. In the evening
I sometimes returned to the airport for an hour or two,
resulting in the highlight of the year: Angola Airlines
came with a Boeing 777. They arrive from Luanda every
morning, but always too early for me. So I was very
happy to get her on the only evening flight of the week.
During the second half of 2012 I visited some airports in Germany as well als Amsterdam Schiphol airport. After quite some years I finally visited Frankfurt airport again, the first time in nice weather. In the afternoon we went to the observation deck above Terminal 2 which was open until 9pm on some days that summer. From there some nice pictures could be taken of Korean Airlines' A380 and other interesting planes.
Other airports I visited included my local airports of Hannover and Münster-Osnabrück and Amsterdam, where we spent a nice November morning in the approach of RWY06.
The last days of the year I took a last trip to Madrid to get some sunlight during the winter, resulting in at least one aviation photo: A LAN A340. From Madrid I took the AVE train to Valencia once again to take photos of the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, one of the most photogenic places I know (if You like modern architecture, that is ^_~)
