urbanSTL

So here's the full measure of my spotting Monday January 7.








The Last WOW











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Into the Sunset

Finally got out and took a few fresh pictures. I think I almost caught Boeing's new drone up and about. A warbird matching that description was circling the west end of the field (and looking might impressive doing it, by the way. VERY tight circles.) But I couldn't get my camera out quick enough, as I was in traffic and needed to pull over. Man, that would have been a catch. But . . . well . . . next time. (Still haven't bagged the TX either. Come close a couple of times.) But anyway, all of this is much more mundane, but still interesting. Some disappearing oldies.



Take careful note of A and C.



X-ed Out

I was thinking that 737 at Signature was probably the Bruins, but . . . not if they were in Boston today. Must be a network setting up in advance of the game day after tomorrow.



Lot of crosswind Tuesday. Flying sideways.


Still TWA

The MD-80 is one more former TWA bird. You, madame, will be missed. I hope you find a good home after your long stint at AA.





Okay, it's a hazy ass picture of a plane three miles away from me, but . . . it's a Mad Dog. And a TWA Mad Dog at that. I can't resist a picture of an MD climbing out. There aren't many airplanes as pretty as that.



Oh wait . . . there's another! MD-90 this time, but hey, same bones.



I'm hopeless . . . 



Did I mention everyone was flying sideways? There's an old adage in photography that you should give your subject room to move. Trouble is, she's looking right but moving left. Well, maybe a counterintuitive crop-job can help to tell the tale of a crosswind landing. Not sure, but think of it as an experiment.


Taxi to the Gate

St. Louis, meet your new masters. Quite the conga line of Southwest arrivals working their way down Delta. And okay, that pushback from concourse C really is blocking Charlie. It's true. But anyway . . .



Sideways, I tell you. It was windy.

STL AvDay . . .

The weather could have been worse, but it was certainly not what I had hoped for. Would also have worked better had I adjusted my camera properly. I was using shutter priority through most of the event, which seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm used to shooting in something more akin to full daylight, and my lenses are slow, so it seemed prudent to pick a relatively fast shutter speed and let the ASA and aperture float. But looking back, it appears to me as though the ASA did not, in fact, float, but stayed stuck at 400, which is much faster and grainier than I'd have wanted. Well . . . learn to cheack your settings better, dummy. What this means is that a great many things came out improperly exposed as the F stop ran into its limits at either end. And everything was a bit grainier than I'd wanted, since 400 is a touch on the fast side. But . . . well . . . I'm learning. Still, I hope this gives an idea. I won't burden this thread too much with the N numbers and flight specifics today. All of that is available if you click through. But I'll put in some explanatory prose.

The view from the end of B. Not too shabby.


Inside the mobile Incident Command Bus. Everyone gets a color coordinated vest, USN carrier deck crew style.


The next few are from the Operations Center in the attached "mini tower" just above the end of B. That said, the view is only very slightly different from B itself, as you're really not up too much higher.




Fairly cool display board showing the locations of vehicles and aircraft. The two purple boxes in the wide spot in the middle of the airfield, the "Echo Pad," are snow removal vehicles waiting there for us to visit them.


They kept a lot of the lighting off in B, making it seem dark and mysterious, but it still looks pretty darn good. The older style black signage was kind of a happy making feature. And the colors are still warmer overall than the more recently remodeled spaces. While I understand everyone likes an update, I'm not altogether sold on all the white and blue. It just makes everything feel cold to me. The cream colored wall panels are really very classy looking, and the black ceiling helps make the exposed utilities disappear, making everything feel cleaner.


Next we hopped aboard a bus and road around B to the checked baggage handling area. Some neat stuff to be seen on the way.






No pictures were allowed inside, as the TSA is persnickety about that sort of thing. I could say more about that, but . . . honestly, there's no real mystery anyway. If you've been through the passenger screening then you can pretty well guess. Bags are treated relatively similarly in both places, though with less air conditioning and more industrial looking stuff in the basement. There's some variation in which place has the newest and sexiest detection equipment. (At Lambert it's in the basement. But what they have downstairs other places have on the main floor as well.) But everything is going on the plane, so you really can't stint on carryons. Which means . . . you already know what's downstairs, save for the fancy belts and barcode readers. You've seen the same stuff in any airport security checkpoint. And the same TSA personnel in the same nitrile gloves hand checking things that they can't decipher. It's all the same, really. But the belts are quite cool. (And available on STL's YouTube.)

After that we got back on the bus and drove off to the north fire station. I didn't get any pictures there worth the trouble, and mostly it looks like a firehouse, so . . . more planes.




Once that was done we met up with the other two tour groups and all took a bus together to the middle of the airport. (On that echo pad you saw earlier with the two purple boxes for snow removal trucks. Which are quite cool, by the way. And I'm kicking myself for failing to photograph them.) But there were planes nearby, you see. So I got a touch distracted. Maybe the folks flying out felt a little like the Rolling Stones at the Trans World Dome.


























After that we posed for a few pictrures and then it was back on the bus and back to the terminal for a presentation from the good director and a bit of Q&A that jshank has already described quite well on the Lambert thread.




Anyway, it was positively a blast.

This was . . . oh geeze . . . almost a week ago. Been a crazy week. But hey, spotting from the cell lot is kinda fun when things work out. The N numbers and all that jazz are there if you want to click through, otherwise, enjoy the afternoon rush.





























Sometimes they take off, too.

Was out briefly on Tuesday but the spotting wasn't fantastic. Just . . . meh . . . so so. Still, there was a nice rainbow.



And you can't say no to a good aluminum paint job.


(Especially when that paint job is on yet another ex TWA bird. I swear, all the pretty doggies are ex TWA.)

While I do have a few photographs in the can waiting to be processed, I'm more than a little behind on my spotting . . . as I took a rather epic trip. To the UK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Castle country. Not where I really wanted to go. Needs must as the devil drives, they say. And there were some neat planes to be seen both on the way and while there. But I'm not posting all of that here. Just the St. Louis stuff . . . and a trip video.











The video is . . . a bit long. But it shows elements of four flights. And I got a nice night view of St. Louis on the way back in. There's this ferris wheel out by Union Station now, see? Skip to 34:40 for that bit. And yeah, there's a lot of rolling shutter nonsense I can't quite get rid of yet. No videographer, I. At least, not until I buy myself a proper video camera with global shutter. (Which is on the agenda before the next epic flight video. Which will be soonish, by the way. Just as a bit of advance warning.) So please be gentle. But . . . enjoy.

framer wrote: ↑

Oct 26, 2019

Hope you don't mind me squeezing this into your thread, but I just has to share this pic. Mid-Century Modern house for sale in Godfrey, Illinois, complete with an awesome vintage pic of Lambert Terminal:

 

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandho ... 11?view=qv

That's quite the house there! Complete package. And the print of the airport looks quite early as it does't even have the fourth vault yet. Gorgeous! You can tuck things like that in anywhere you want.

Okay, so I forgot to post the epic journey to Saigon and back. (Which doesn't feel so epic when you do it every year or two, but hey.) To start things rolling, here's the trip video:



Due to timing and conditions, I wasn't able to get any particularly good shots in St. Louis. There are some nice ones in China, Japan, and Vietnam. But the last bit of the video is a nice night approach to St. Louis from the NE.

But back to home . . . JShank pointed out 6/1 was the last day for the Delta Dogs in St. Louis. Seems the airport did a nice, proper water cannon salute. I didn't really see that from my perches, but I at least tried to document the occasion. N976DL got the honor, flying as DL338 from ATL.


Final Approach


The Mad Touch





As JShank said, AA is parking 737s here. Seems the things are everywhere, in fact. I counted fourteen, I believe, at least a dozen of which were just hanging out. Two were at legit in-service gates, so maybe they were doing something. But most were clearly staying long term.


Taxi Not


Serviced and Stored


Parking Pad


Bravo Parking

(Note the fire truck. You can just make out DL's Dog behind AA's stuffed animals.)

Things were quiet, but there were still some arrivals and departures.


Frontier 1211 from Orlando


PSA 5554 to CLT


There were a couple of cute little pri-flyers. (I have a love hate relationship with private jets.)


One Bucket

Of course, as always, the lion's share of the action was Southwest's.


Still Flying





But of course, eventually, it all had to come to an end. The Dog flew home leaving only memories. The vagaries of perspective, cloud cover, and flight routes meant I didn't get an especially great parting shot. Ah well. It is what it is.


Last Flight of the Mad Dog


Smoke Trail