adamdowley
June 18, 2006 at 4:12 pm

Incredible Day at NEMA! 17/06/06

Well, i thought so. 🙂

bit of a story before the photos:

To celebrate the end of my first year at University (what a year its been 😀 ) me and a few friends decided to visit Nottingham East Midlands to watch the weekly Kalitta Air 747-200 come in from New York, and then watch it leave a couple of hours later.

It was an incredible experience to have the aircraft come right over us at about 100-150 ft. wow.

Whilst we were on the airport trail at the end of rwy 27, we met a nice old couple who directed us to a good vantage point around the side of the rwy. We decided to take a look, and weren’t dissappointed!

There, most of the large aircraft taxied past us. The best bit was the Kalitta that taxied past as it left. The pilots waved at us! :D. That made the day for us.

From then on, whenever the large aircraft taxied past, we waved. Most of the pilots returned the wave (which made the day even more special for us all), as did a few passengers on board.

Ryanair pilots didnt wave once (what, is the wave extra on the price or something?? 😀 ), and one passenger on board an easyjet A319 produced a lovely looking hand gesture (and it wasnt a wave 😉 ) b*****d.

bmibaby 737s never taxied to the end of the rwy, but instead used a taxiway further along the runway to take off. Why is that? Company policy or ATC requests?

Also, we saw two Ryanair aircraft taxi onto the rwy at the same time for their departures (one at the end of the rwy, and the other taxied on using the next taxiway down):

them on the rwy at the same time.

why does it happen, and does it happen often?

Not only did we get the nice hand gestures, the 747, but we also got a surprise low, loud and fast fly past from a Hawker Hunter. Didnt manage any photos becuase it was so unexpected. 🙁

Then, we got a Spitfire and a Chipmunk landing (from the Hunknall air day). Photos of the Spit and the Hunter can be seen here: http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=59021

In all, an incredible 7 hours at NEMA to end my first year. Exhausted was not the word for how we felt at the end. A really great day.

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By: adamdowley - 26th June 2006 at 17:34

Sorry to bring up a fairly old topic, but the shot of the Kalitta Air 747 nose shows a patch of disturbed, overturned grass by an orange traffic cone.

For anyone interested (and this is only my speculation so dont take it to be fact), I believe that that shows where the TNT 737 impacted the ground on its attempted landing, before going around and making the emergency landing at BHX a couple of weeks ago that we all are familiar with.

EDIT – would help quite a bit if the photo that i was talking about was actually in this thread. 😮 😮 😮 lol

heres the photo that i was refering to:

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By: adamdowley - 19th June 2006 at 14:30

One of the guys that i went with got a great photo of one of the ezy A319s whilst we were there, and on later inspection of the image, he found the offending passenger – heres a link to a thread on macrumors that he posted showing the photo – i hope he doesnt mind me linking to it 😀

warning: content includes a middle finger :p 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=209835

hilarious 😀

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By: bmi-star - 19th June 2006 at 11:56

Im doing BSc degree in ‘Air Transport Management’ and i’m loving it. 😀

thanks for the comments guys! 😀

Fantastic shots!
Must had to NEMA soon, although, can it be on the quiet side? 😀

Lets just say that there was a lot of ‘hanging around to do’ yesterday. yeah, can be on quiet side, but sometimes it does get busy for short periods – not sure exactly at what time in the day that it gets interesting. i know that weekday evenings are busy with DHL flights, but the light by then isnt good for photography.

Nice photos Adam.

What are you doing at L`boro?

Im doing BSc degree in ‘Air Transport Management’ and i’m loving it. 😀

thanks

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By: murph - 18th June 2006 at 18:41

Nice photos Adam.

What are you doing at L`boro?

Sometimes 2 aircraft will be on the same runway at the same time, probably due to their weights – i.e. if one is “light”, then it can use less runway and so can use a shortened length. I see it fairly often at Gatwick, when most of Flybe’s aircraft don’t use the full length

A little more commonly found at smaller airfields with lighter traffic. Certainly interesting to see who aircraft of the same type doing it. Good traffic management to sneak off say, a FlyBe Dash 8 infront of a heavy.

When I was on one of my flying lessons with Atlantic Flight Training, I was on the runway with 2 other aircraft. Me first in the Reims 152, then a Pa28, then a Pa-44. Nice way of doing it but of course it takes a great deal of co-ordination!