World's largest airplane, Antonov 225, at Charlotte (CLT)

Emily and I were in Charlotte this past weekend for a wedding. In normal style we went to the airport to watch some plane action. Saturday wasn't very busy so we decided to head back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding a little early. On the road around the southern end of the airport I spotted the double tail of the AN-225, otherwise known as the largest airplane in the world. Originally built to carry the Russian space shuttle on it's back, it is now used to carry very large cargo loads around the world. It has a maximum takeoff weight of about 1.32 million pounds, which is 50% heavier than a fully loaded C-5A (according to this article).

I was able to go out a couple of years ago when it made an appearance at RDU and watched it takeoff at about midnight in the rain. Below are a couple of pictures I took of it while it was sitting on the cargo ramp at CLT. I've also included a video of it taking off from runway 36C at CLT yesterday. Too bad I wasn't there to watch it take off.

Flying Video - Final approach into RDU from La Guardia

This video was taken a few weeks ago on our way back into RDU from La Guardia. We were riding in a CRJ900, just like the one pictured in my previous post. I do love watching the pros.

Airline flying pictures

Had a chance to get some good pictures earlier this week from the plane both going and coming back from NYC. The flight was from RDU to LGA in a CRJ900. The flight to LGA went up to I believe 32,000 feet and took about an hour, the flight coming back cruised at 28,000 feet and took about an hour and fifteen minutes. The weather was great for "big plane" flying.

Shortly after departure from runway 23R at RDU, so over Morrisville, about 6:25am.

Nice picture looking towards the sun with the misty clouds down below.

Same as above.

Our plane for the trip to NYC, CRJ900. We flew on the same thing back to RDU.

Shorty after departure from runway 4 at LGA, we made a left turn towards the northern part of Newark. This is a picture of the Hudson River looking south, Manhattan Island on the left, New Jersey on the right. The USAirways flight that crashed in the Hudson went down about 6-7 miles past the bridge you can see going over the river.

Somewhere over the northern Virginia on a beautiful day. I love how dark the sky gets at higher altitudes.

Falls lake with a small grass strip just north of Durham. The highway you see is I-85.

On the downwind to runway 5L at RDU. Good view looking east of the interchange where NC-147 (Durham Freeway) dumps out onto I-40.

Flying to La Guardia tomorrow

The wife's family is heading to NYC tomorrow for a long weekend. Our flight leaves RDU at 6:15am and is due to arrive at La Guardia (LGA) a little before 8am. Here's a few good pictures of LGA, all from Airliners.net. I'll have pictures/videos of our actual flight next week sometime.

Flying Picture of the day/week/month/whatever

Awesome weather picture taken somewhere between Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) and Fort Lauderdale (FLL). That's one heck of an office view. Original image location at Airliners.net.