A quick update from yesterday,

The current tanker lineup in Prescott

Neptune Aviation: 6, 7, 12, 43, 45

Minden: 55

I got word that Tanker 5 was not being used in Mesa and was flown today (yesterday) to Prescott, sometime between 6 and 7 PM.

Tanker 45 declared an emergency landing sometime around 6pm after a run, and landed with the #2 engine off and the propeller feathered, was escorted by the FD to the south ramp, and the ops truck did a FOD run on 3R/21L.

Helicopters

- 1 Sikorsky Skycrane (Tanker 782)

- 1 Chinook 234, Columbia Helicopters C-FHFB (Radio call “Helicopter FHFB”)

- 1 Kaman K-Max, details unknown

All helicopters are flying out of the west ramp and presumably filling there. They seem to be carrying water and not retardant.

Coming soon to a Airport near you. ‘Salmon-Thirty-Salmon II’

When I heard the announcement about the ‘Salmon-Thirty-Salmon II’ being put back in the skies. I jumped out of my chair. This is the one livery that Alaska Airlines had that always alluded me. I am looking forward to seeing this one fly into KPHX. You can bet that I will not let this awesome livery pass me by. This livery will be featured on their new 737-800 w/ winglets.  I might even have too fly to see then unveiling of this fresh catch. Thank you Alaska Airlines for listening to your fans request across the globe. The 129 ft fish themed design will be released this fall.

This high resolution picture was provided by Alaska Airlines with permission to use on PHXSpotters.com website. To read the media release from Alaska Airlines please follow link: http://splash.alaskasworld.com/Newsroom/ASNews/ASstories/AS_20120514_105922.asp

Yesterday morning the Gladiator Fire was reported near Crown King. What started as a structure fire in private property has extended to over 1300 acres and is threatening the town of Crown King, as well as other historical sites in the area. For those that didn’t hear, Crown King was barely saved during the 2008 Lane II Fire. Crown King is currently under a mandatory evacuation.

Two airtankers, T-06 and T-07, both P2V Neptunes operated by Neptune Aviation were already  in Prescott and called to action.

Things did not start well, Tanker 6 had issues on Saturday and didn’t fly during the afternoon (I was at the airport watching them), and the local newspaper later reported the plane had a hydraulic leak in one of the engines.

Today I saw (and heard) the planes flying in all morning, and as soon as I was free I grabbed my equipment and headed out to the airport. Even though the heat haze was rolling in, I was able to get some shots. Tanker 6 was parked on the main ramp, not the USFS ramp, and wasn’t flying. I discovered that reinforcements had arrived: Tankers 45 and 55 (flown by Neptune and Minden, respectively) had already joined the effort. I left as I had other things to take care of.

Later in the afternoon I got word from a friend that Tanker 43 had been flying out of Prescott since mid afternoon. I went to the airport once again, not before seeing Tanker 07 flying low over the parking lot as it received landing clearance.

At the airport, I soon realized the magnitude of the response: Tanker 6, still parked at the ramp, joined by 45 and 12. Tankers 7, 43 and 55 flying around. Also, I spotted a Sikorsky Skycrane parked at the west ramp, and soon after, a helicopter with a weird callsign reported on the radio, and I saw a Chinook on the distance. It turned out to be a civilian Chinook operated by Columbia Helicopters. Also, I saw that ground crews from California were already at the fire center, ready to reinforce the local firefighters. Unfortunately the light wasn’t good for taking photos from the usual spot, but I still got a couple good shots.

So as of two hours ago, the majority of the current airtanker fleet on contract with the US Government is stationed in Prescott, hopefully their efforts will save Crown King, once again.

I have plans to go tomorrow morning to see how things look like at the airport.

As many of you know, last weekend the last Coolidge fly-in of the season was held. No more fly-ins until October. I was fortunate enough to attend 3 of them, October, March and April.

October:

Definitely not the best, not many airplanes showed up.

March:

Better than I expected, because the Cactus was held the same day, not too far away, we got some cool planes in Coolidge too. This included a formation flight between Racer 74 and the CAF’s Cessna T-50 Bobcat and the visit of a homebuilt Spitfire (a 1:1 Jurca replica) and an Antonov An-2. Several other planes were also seen at both events.

April:

Pretty good too, nothing as special as the previous month, other than a group of T-34 Mentors. The weather wasn’t the greatest, as it was constantly switching between sunny and cloudy, and to make matters even worse, it was Easter weekend, however, I feel it was still better than the October one.

In retrospective, I wish I could have attended at least another fly-in, however, with the amount of work I had this semester that was just impossible. And last weekend’s fly-in clashed with the school’s graduation. I hope the next season is good enough for me I can attend at least two more.

PHXSpotters member Stephen Furst had a unique opportunity to get some great shots of this Pratt & Whitney 747.

One, two, three or four.  These are the number of engines that most people would associate with an airplane.  A good number of people would even be familiar with six engines on the AN-225.  On Wednesday May 2, 2012 a good number of Pratt and Whitney employees, plane spotters and regular people who happened to look to the sky at the right time got to see an unusual sight.  These lucky people got to see a jet aircraft, Pratt & Whitney’s 747SP flying engine test bed, equipped with five jet engines.

The fifth engine, Pratt & Whitney’s new Pure Power® PW1200G series, was mounted on a specially designed stub wing.  Normally, the test engine replaces one of the inner (#2 or #3) engines, but because of the smaller size of the tested engine, it could not be mounted to the under wing pylon.  Also, the thrust produced by this smaller engine is less than half that of each of the four engines that power the test bed aircraft.

The reason for the visit by this aircraft was to perform a fly-over of the East Hartford and Middletown, CT facilities to celebrate the first successful test flight of the PW1217G engine that will power the new Mitsubishi Regional jet.

Story and Photos Provided by PHXSpotters member:  Stephen Furst

All Photos remain the property of the individual Photographers. Photo copyright ©

Space Enterprise Finally Arrives at Her New Temporary Home

The wind was blowing hard out of the WNW on a blustery Friday morning in Jamaica, NY.  With the winds consistently blowing 20-25mph and gusting upwards of 30-35mph, the hundreds, or even thousands of spotters, aviation and space enthusiasts, and just regular people interested in a piece of history looked to the sky wondering if this would be the day.  This would be the day that NYC got their space shuttle.  Previously in the week the shuttle had been slated to arrive on Monday and Wednesday, but had been postponed each time due to weather.  So with strong winds at the airport, the question was still weighing on the minds of the many people that had flocked to every viewing area both around JFK and Manhattan.

Then, a friend and fellow spotter’s, phone rang.  The news was good.  “The shuttle is taxiing for take-off at Dulles!” were the words that came out of my friend Kenny’s mouth.  With that I opened to car door, grabbed my camera and stepped out into the blustery wind once again.  I looked at Kenny and said,” we have about 45 minutes.  Let’s get walking.”  You see, I knew everybody was going to get a shot of the shuttle from all of the prime locations around JFK.  I wanted a unique shot of this historic moment.  So, with that myself and Kenny hiked around a wildlife preserve and Jamaica Bay, climbed under a railroad bridge, and found ourselves with a front row seat staring across the rest of the bay right at Runway 31L at John F. Kennedy International Airport.  The view was everything I thought it would be.  Now, the anticipation started getting more and more with every minute that passed.  I hadn’t been this anxious and excited for something since waiting for my children to be born.

As airliner after airliner departed from the runway in front of us we snapped away photo after photo to kill time.  Then I see Kenny’s arm raise up pointing to the west and him say, “There it is!”  As I turned  around from the photographing the 737 that was taking off above me, I saw it, for the first time ever.  The Space Shuttle Enterprise was riding piggyback atop a 747 soaring above the Manhattan skyline on its way to make a low pass at New York’s LaGuardia Airport after coming from its passes of the Statue of Liberty, Intrepid Museum, and Newark International Airport.  With this beautiful sight in front of us in the distance, the excitement that we had been feeling build all morning was now a reality.  We now knew that this was going to happen.  We were going to see the space shuttle.  At this point however, there was still speculation because of the winds if we would get a flyby or just a final approach at JFK.

As the Enterprise/SCA combo made it right base turn we heard it come over the scanner.  IT had been cleared for a low pass flyby on the Runway 31L center line.  Now we were extremely excited.  We knew now that we were going to get two chances to get photos of this.  At this time, any conversation was limited to short sentences between us like “look at it”, “wow, this is amazing” as we waited for it to slowly approach us.  Then with all its beauty, she glided past us at an altitude of 1000’ and made the much anticipated and desired Canarsie climb to head back for its final approach to JFK’s 31L.

Even though we had heard over the scanner that the shuttle carrier had been cleared for final approach, there was still hope that the tower would grant this magnificent bird one more flyby.  As she came closer the gear had still not been lowered, and hope was high that we would see another flyby.  Then as Kenny raised his camera to get a closer look, I hear him say, “The gear is down”, and my hope of another flyby were gone.  None the less, the landing was every bit as exciting as the flyby as she landed with a huge puff of tire smoke and rolled out to the end of the runway past where we were.  During the landing, I had briefly turned away from the main attraction to catch the T-38 as it climbed out overhead.  The T-38 which was the escort/photo plane was definitely an added bonus to the days events.  Unfortunately, due to my location, I was not able to catch the NASA DC-9 that arrived about 15 minutes prior to the arrival of the SCA.

The Space Shuttle Enterprise will stay mounted atop the SCA for at least the next week before it is removed and stored at JFK where it will be loaded onto a barge and moved to the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan.

Story and Photos Provided by PHXSpotters member:  Steven Furst

All Photos remain the property of the individual Photographers. Photo copyright ©

I was 8 years old when I first fell in love with Jet Fuel. I remember my first experience sitting in the Captains seat of a TWA 747-100. That is the moment when I fell in love with Commercial Aviation. Please don’t misconstrued my passion for commercial aviation.  There is just something about those two Rolls-Royce RB211 engines that produce 32,700 lb pounds of thrust hurdling the Boeing 757-200 down the runway. I have a weakness for the Boeing 757. If there was one word that comes to mind when describing the 757-200 would be “Sleek”. Although I believe she looks better with winglets but any B757 will do. Although not all airlines have the B757 in their fleet. That does not mean that I only take photos of B757-200′s or -300′s. I will basically take any photo that I can get. If I had to list my Favorite airlines in order they would most likely go in this order..

1. Southwest Airlines (Themed)
2. US Airways
3. Alaska (Themed)
4. Omni Air International (MD-11)
5. FedEx (MD-11)

Monthan AFB Thunder & Lightning Over Arizona Airshow 2012

Photos and Story provided by:

By Colin Prenger

                Well by now my hearing has finally come back to me. I thought I lost it thanks to six Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 power plants idling. That was about the only negative aspect of the airshow (aside from the major sunburn), but it was completely worth the six hour wait for the United States Air Force Thunderbird demonstration squadron to perform. But first let’s get into detail about the other goodies that the show had to offer.

                It was quite the experience just arriving at the security gate, where several armed men with intimidating automatic weapons stared you down like a tractor beam.  Then as you walk through the main gate, the first aircraft in sight were some big jumbos. First in the row was a super modified B747   YAL-1A Airborne Laser Testbed carries a megawatt class Chemical, Oxygen Iodine Laser for destroying Tactical Ballistic Missiles in the boost phase of their flight. The laser is emitted from the large steerable turet on the nose of the YAL-1A.

Next in line was the C-5 Galaxy, and boy is that a hefty looking craft! I’ve never seen one in person before and it is frankly astonishing. However, the thing that was even more astonishing was the CH-53 Pave Low. I was drooling to say the least. Continuing down the line were numerous attack and miscellaneous military copters such as the AH-64 Apache and a Blackhawk outfitted with a Gatling machine gun. To be honest it was kind of disturbing to see some five year olds moving it around. Anyways moving along there were some more aircraft such as the B-52, V-22 Osprey, a Super Guppy (picture below),

and various Police and Patrol vehicles. The majority of these planes and vehicles were open and available for the public to climb aboard and check out the machines that the military uses.

                Just past all these really cool planes came the bit cheesy stuff (in my opinion), but I guess D-M had to please the entire crowd. There were a lot of overpriced vendors selling ‘stuff’ related to the airshow and virtual 3D rides – and the list of children’s rides continues. Once you get past all the fluff that is where the show really begins. There weren’t really any stands to sit on (with the exception of one which held about 50 people), so we were left to rent chairs for $5 each. It sounds like a lot, but it was a good investment being that we were going to be in the same spot for the next 5 hours or so in the hot sun.

                The actual show itself was a great display of various aircraft doing various things. Some of the demonstrations included the U.S. Border Patrol showing how they apprehend a suspect with a drug-laden vehicle using a specially fitted Blackhawk helicopter as the tactical craft, while the Eurocopter was used as the high speed maneuverable vehicle to help the officers on the ground nab the guy (or girl). One of the cooler parts of the show was the heritage flight, where a P-51 Mustang (my favorite war bird) and an A-10 Warthog flew side-by-side over the crowd for a while as a tribute to the evolution of modern warfare in aviation.

                The next major highlight was the Red Bull Team – holy cow are they some serious adrenaline junkies! First off were the “swoopers” which are the guys who skydive adorning their wing suits that make them look like flying squirrels. Those guys alone were pretty impressive, but what was mind blowing was the Red Bull stunt plane and pilot, Kirby Chambliss. Chambliss has won multiple Red Bull Air Race Championship titles and is noted to be one of the best aerobatic pilots in existence. This is why he is the best…Chambliss was doing his run-up just behind the Thunderbirds on the taxiway just short of the main 12,000 foot runway at the base. I thought he would taxi out onto the runway to do a short-field takeoff, and boy was I wrong! He did something I have never seen – he took off on the taxiway in about 150 feet. Here is a picture of him going completely vertical just tens of feet off the ground.

As you can see, this guy is clearly confident in his aircraft and his own personal ability. The next amazing stunt he performed was while the “swoopers” were hurdling toward the ground at an angle, Chambliss was spiraling on the outside of them all the way down until they deployed their parachute. The image below is that exact event. You can see the swoopers in the left of the image, and Chambliss is circling them in the lower center of the photo.

                Last but certainly not least were the Thunderbirds. This was my first time seeing them, as I have seen the Blue Angels years ago at Williams-Gateway. The whole day, all six Thunderbirds were sitting right in front of us no more than 90 yards away. When the show was at a “low point” and it was getting hot, those gorgeous F-16s sitting right in front of me made the wait worth my while (and my parents and roommate too). The synchronization of the before-start was simply amazing! The ground crews that look after these jets are in perfect unison with one another, just like the pilots and their flying skills. The coolest part of the before-takeoff was the synchronized startup. The radio from the jets were hooked up to the loud speakers and could hear “The Boss” (Thunderbird 1) coordinating the startup. When he said “…now” all six engines fired at the exact same time and I got the chills and goose bumps because it was such a cool thing to hear. Just minutes later the engines spooled up to idling power and my word was it deafening. I have to say that six of those P&Ws idling that close was by far the loudest noise I have ever experienced. Of course I was filming it so I had to bear the almost painful noise. Then each of the Thunderbirds filed out one-by-one and taxied for takeoff. I think those of you reading this know (or should know) the remarkable capabilities and performance of the F-16. In the booklet I got afterwards, there were a few mind-blowing statistics about the plane. Normally when I am flying a Cirrus SR20, I can pull maybe+ 0.5Gs in a 45 degree bank and can climb around 500-600 feet per minute. Compare that to the stats of the Fighting Falcon:

-          G Limitations: Negative 3 to Plus 9

-          Top Speed: Mach 2+ (1500+ MPH)

-          Rate of Climb: 30,000 feet per minute!

-          Thrust 29,100 Pounds

Pardon me while I wipe up the drool on my keyboard…

Nonetheless the performance was way more than what I had hoped for. It absolutely blows me away at the entire precision and timing of the whole performance. What a job they have! Here are some pictures from the demonstration:

All Photos remain the property of the individual Photographers. Photo copyright ©

I would like to announce that Jared Romanowicz is this months Spotlight Photographer. Jared has been a active member since he started just a couple months ago. Here is a little information about Jared.

I am a pilot for Ameriflight and have recently transferred to the PHX base.  I just began getting into aviation photography about 8 months ago, mainly because I sit around at airports all day and I figured what better hobby to have!  I also enjoy being able to show the beauty and history of aviation to others through the camera.

I used a point and shoot for a while, but kept getting frustrated at the quality of the pictures so I got a DSLR about 3 months ago and am loving it so far.  I purchased a refurbished Canon XS with the kit 18-55 and added the good ole’ 55-250 IS to it.  I’m glad I found this site as it’s probably the best aviation/spotting site out there.  The information on here is great!  I was able to spend a couple of hours on the Terminal 4 garage, and down on 40th street recently and can’t get over how great these locations are!  I hope to see you guys out there at some point!

On April 10th 2012, PHXSpotters members got a chance to visit the Barry M. Goldwater (BMGR). Back in February we had received our conformation on our tour date. Now it was time to get our members all set up and the member count sent into Ms. Teresa Walker. We all had time to get our cameras and lens all set. We would like to thank  www.LensProtoGo.comfor there outstanding customer service. We were all holding our breath and had our fingers crossed hoping that our tour would not get cancelled. Since tours are based solely on flight schedule. Monday afternoon, I received the news that our tour had been scheduled. We were to report at Range 1 at 1230pm. On the schedule for Tuesday we were going to see the 152nd FS and the 195th FS. Both Arizona Air National Guards squadron are based out at Davis Monthon AFB. The members of PHXSpotters all met  at Gila Bend before heading out to BMGR. When we arrived at Range 1, we were greeted with open arms from the range staff. After turning in our sign paperwork, we were then escorted out to the tower . This is when we get the news from Ms. Walker. We will be getting a unexpected visitor. A couple A-10C Thunderbolts flown by the 355th Fighter Wing / 358th Fighter Squadron based out of Davis Monthon AFB will be making a appearance. When arriving to the tower we had our mandatory saftey briefing. After the briefing, we were allowed to climb the tower and get situated for the upcoming F-16C/D Block 25 Fighting Falcons. We were able to watch while the BDU-33 practice bomb impacts the ground. After the 3 rounds of dropping the BDU-33, we were able to see the F-16  popping chaff and flares on pullout after a gun run on the strafe targets at the range. After both of the Fight Squadrons were complete with their training mission. We all waited for the word when the the A-10 “Warthogs” were coming. That is when Ms. Teresa started dancing around.  A-10C Thunderbolts Driver “Range Maniac” will be here. “You guys are in for a treat”. These are much easier to photograph.  After several BDU-33 drops and low-angle strafe passes at the Barry M. Goldwater Range. I can see why they call him the ”Range Maniac“.

We want to give a special thanks out to Teresa Walker- Public Affairs Specialist, 56th Range Management Office for helping us out and organizing this for PHXSpotters.com. Also want to thank the Pilots for putting on a great show for us.

Members that took part in Tour are:

Pete Kolb,Ken Chung, Peter Van Dyke, Jason Bong, Jared Romanowicz,Jeff Huffman, Billy Ellison,Tim LaBranche, Kyle Boyd, Kory Crohn

All Photos remain the property of the individual Photographers. Photo copyright ©