Picture Trip-Report: SYD-FAT (via AKL & FAT) & SFO-LAX-SYD

[Shameel Kumar]

Hi Guys,

This will be a quick trip-report of my latest flight over to the States that I did mid-December. I haven't got much time lately as I'm preparing to move over to USA in a couple of weeks. Anyways, I could have included a whole bunch of photos of my trip since I did a good number of flights from Sydney to Fresno and back...but I decided to only include a some interesting shots. Hope you all enjoy!

The Flights I took:
1. SYD-AKL-LAX, Air New Zealand, December 17, 2008 - B763ER and B744
2. LAX-FAT, American Eagle, December 17, 2008 - ERJ145
3. SFO-LAX, Southwest Airlines, December 21, 2008 - B738
4. LAX-SYD, Qantas Airways, December 21, 2008 - B744ER


The newly-installed AVOD system on NZ's 767s (and A320s). It's a touch-screen version of the system found on their 744s and 772s, but it is slightly upgraded in its appearance. Watched Top Gear on the way over to AKL!!



Just few minutes prior to touching down in AKL. No suprise there was cloud cover (I can't remember a time I arrived in AKL with clear weather).



I think everybody knows how much I'm a fan of Boeing's 777-300ER... here's one of the main reasons why, the GE90-115B engines!! Didn't Little Red Riding Hood say something like "my my what BIG engines you have!" ?



Ah yes! There she is...awesome looking 77W! This is of course's one of EK's 77Ws that make flying in and out of AKL so great! I snapped a LOT of photos of this aircraft, but I didn't want to make this a 77W picture thread.



I was a tad sad, but also glad in some ways to see VH-EBW 'City of Tamworth' in its final few weeks of service with Qantas. Definitely going to miss those shiney bare-metal engines and non-winglet wingtips. Fortunately I ended up catching-up with -EBW at LAX about 16hrs later as I had about a 4hr layover.



Taking off from AKL and oh what an amazing sight this was! I guess cloud cover can work in your favour at times. I purposely chose to sit 4-rows from the back of NZ's 744s so that I could take scenery shots with the wing taking-up just a small portion of the photo.



FIrst glimpse of light as we close-in on our arrival into LAX. Still a few hours to go, but this 'blue-glow' look was definitely something different to the usual yellowy-red sunrise colours.



View of the beach that greets visitors to LAX. Crappy weather this time around, but aye..watcha gonna do?!



Touch-down at LAX on a rainy day. The beautiful Airbus A340-600 in China Eastern colours was nice enough to spot, but what took the cake was the aircraft behind it. The next photo will make things clearer!



Just about a week after it was re-painted in Delta colours, this ex-Northwest 744 was quickly put into action. I couldn't believe my luck that I saw this aircraft!!



..Continues below