A Day of Surprises

For as long as I can remember I've liked airplanes.  Probably one of the first things I learned was the airport beacon because that meant there were planes nearby.  At one time, I even had dreams of being a fighter pilot but glasses got in the way of that.  If I'm outside and I hear a plane fly overhead, I always have to look up.  As you can imagine, I was pretty happy to start finding spots around Metro Airport where I could watch planes relatively unmolested.

As I said in the last post, the heavies tend to land at Detroit from about 12:30 to 2:30 or thereabouts.  With that, I decided to head over to Metro to catch the normal array of heavies. 

 While not really classified as a heavy, the 757 can exhibit the wake characteristics of one and sometimes will report as a heavy on the radio.  That still doesn't matter because the 757 is by far my favorite commercial aircraft.  And I think I figured out why.  The engines are large enough that they almost remind me of the large feet of a puppy.  Anyway, this particular one was arriving from Las Vegas.

 An Airbus A319 but I'm not sure where it was coming from.

 A 737 having a Big Mac attack.

 I think this particular 737 was arriving from Seattle.

 I think this 757 was coming in from Fort Lauderdale.  I feel bad for the tragic loss at that airport but I'm starting to get to the impression that it was yet another incident that could have been prevented.  It sounds like yet again there were all the warning flags but noone could really put them together.   I'm not an advocate of completely banning guns but then again I'm not an advocate of just anyone being able to own one either.  But like so many things in life, the politicians want to make it black and white when there are a million shades of gray.

 A CRJ-200 coming in for a landing.

 I think this is a Gulfstream IV but I'm not 100% sure.

 I'm pretty sure this one is an MD-88.

 This is a Boeing 737-800 but I'm not sure where it was arriving from because FlightAware doesn't have the Detroit flight listed.

 A Frontier Airlines A321 arrives from Chicago (I think).

 Another CRJ-200.

 This Airbus A320 owned by Delta Airlines is arriving from Amsterdam.

 When I thought that I was going to be catching the heavies, I was pretty sure that the Lufthansa flight was just going to be another A330 but I was surprised to find out it was a 747 instead.  It's always cool to have a 747 fly right overhead.

 The Virgin Atlantic flight is another plane that I love to catch.  I think they have some pretty neat livery.  It's even cooler when I can hear the English accents over the radio.

 Sometimes I get into a pattern with plane watching.  It seems like it is pretty much the same planes flying the same routes into Detroit.  I'm fine with that because I like planes.  However, every so often I get thrown for a loop.  Seeing a C-17 come in for a landing threw me for a loop.  I feel like it was the reward for deciding to get out and get motivated for some photography.

 As the C-17 was landing on one runway, the 777 from Shanghai was landing on the other one.  This is another plane that I like to catch. 

 The C-17 Globemaster III belong to Dover Air Force Base.  I'm not sure why this was coming here but I was happy to catch it.

And we end our planewatching with the Delta 767 arriving from Frankfurt.  I think this is the same plane I caught last time I went planewatching.