Wednesday, March 16, 2016

United Arab Emirates Dreamliner at Wellington!

There have been a lot of unusual and interesting movements at Wellington recently. Several of them have been large aircraft, which, if you follow this blog, includes an Airbus A340-313!

I haven't managed to capture photos of all of them - often it is a case of being in the right place at the right time, although it helps that some of the flights are also published on the likes of Flightradar24.com and FlightAware.

This evening was one of those cases with multiple reports of a United Arab Emirates-operated Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, A6-PFC, inbound to Wellington, with confirmation on the above websites. As it happens, this is the same aircraft that visited Wellington back on 18 February 2015.

Just fortunate then that I was also due at the Aero Club for a meeting, so the timing worked out really well for getting some photos :-)

Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, A6-PFC, operated by the United Arab Emirates

Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, A6-PFC, operated by the United Arab Emirates

Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, A6-PFC, operated by the United Arab Emirates

14 comments:

Andrew M said...

Wow, the aviation scene at WN just keeps getting more interesting. Has a Dreamliner visited before?

Rodney said...

Hi Andrew. Yep, Feb last year, and this same aircraft as it turns out :-) I'm not aware of any other Dreamliner flights into Wellington though...

Anonymous said...

Awesome photos Rodney!
Love seeing the composite wing flexing off like that!
Keep up the good work :) :)

Anonymous said...

Fantastic stuff!

Anonymous said...

APU running, ready for push soon?

Rodney said...

Hello Anons! Thanks for the compliments. I hear that the aircraft has now left Wellington.

Anonymous said...

Rodney,

When you say 'multiple reports' where do you tend to get these from? I've missed a few interesting visitors for want of lack of information on the subject. I have flightradar24 but I'm not sure if it has any alerting capability that would have given me a heads up on this?
Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Rodney the pineapple

Rodney said...

In this case, I heard from several other plane spotters who saw the aircraft being powered up. Also, I use flightradar24.com and flightaware.com. Flightaware.com doesn't always have flightplans on it, but it's helpful when it does and sometimes those flightplans are lodged well in advance of the flight (not in this case it appears). Mind you, aircraft don't always show up on flightradar24 either :-)

In other words, I don't always get a lot of warning. Often it is a case of being in the right place at the right time, combined with tools like Flightradar and flightaware.

Rodney said...

Other Anon. I do like pineapple... not sure why I am one though! Perhaps I am more watermelon? LOL!!

Anonymous said...

Sorry I was mistaken Rodney u watermelon

Anonymous said...

Well it looks like you have the scoop on this one Rodney.
Absolute zip, nada, nothing in mainstream press on this visit, unlike last Feb when it was very widely publicised.
Not hanging out for this to become a regular commercial service anytime soon, but.
It seemed a very long way down the R/W when it rotated with all of its ~30 SOB.
But then again, the 24 carat tapware might impact it's accelleration somewhat.
Also interesting to see how little room there was left for other traffic to maneuver during engine start.
OAB was stuck on the taxiway before a DASH stopped and backtracked around it, then the All Black Bus was sent back out into the runway to get to the gate.
Just imagine how much fun that’s going to be when the SIA Heavy starts operations in September.

Rodney said...

Well I don't know about having the scoop :-) There are plenty of other photographers who have great photos of the arrival and departure.

I am starting to wonder if the restrictions in place with large aircraft taxying around might be an even bigger problem than the runway length... anyone want to shift the taxyway and terminal 100 meters to the east?? :-P Just kidding, but yeah...

Rodney said...

Also, other Anon... I might actually be a blackberry... :-P