Chengdu en Lijiang, april 2010

[Rene Klok]

During my holiday in the Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan I visited Chengdu Shengliu airport and the local airport of Lijiang.
The day after the earthquake, a PLA IL-76 visited Chengdu airport to pick up aid equipment just when I was waiting to board the KLM A330 back home.




A few days earlier I was on Lijiang airport to board a China Eastern flight to Chengdu. This PLA Mi-17 was hidden in a corner and a better shot than this was just not possible as concrete pillars and plants
obstructed my view.


More (civil aviation) pics to follow.

[Key]

Erik

[Basman]

Cool shots! Since last year, I've been in China a couple of times for work and I should be there right now actually, if it wasn't for the ash cloud....Hope to be in a position some day to make similar shots. Looking forward to your civvie pics as well!

Bas

[Jaap]

During my holiday in the Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan I visited Chengdu Shengliu airport and the local airport of Lijiang.
The day after the earthquake, a PLA IL-76 visited Chengdu airport to pick up aid equipment just when I was waiting to board the KLM A330 back home.More (civil aviation) pics to follow.

Nice catches!

Below a view of a Il-76 relief flight interior. Great way to fix the cargo!
http://slide.mil.news.sina.com.cn/slide ... 5.html#p=6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Jaap

[Rene Klok]

Below a view of a Il-76 relief flight interior. Great way to fix the cargo!
http://slide.mil.news.sina.com.cn/slide ... 5.html#p=6" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Jaap

That looks like the typical Chinese way to secure cargo. I've seen the same load characteristics on Chinese trucks: load till expload......

[TAZZ]

I love that kind of rare birds

[Rene Klok]

Some of the civil aircraft as seen at Chengdu and Lijiang Airport. As Chengdu is not known for an abundant number of sunshine days it is no suprise that the blue skies are lacking from my pics. Added to that I also had to shoot trough a thick glass window that was probably last cleaned during the reign of Mao Ze Dong. Yes, you guessed right: I'm apologizing for a sub standard quality of pics.
Chengdu is a main hub for Air China, China Eastern and China Southern. Also Sichuan Airlines has its home base here and right in front of their office (on the right side of the main terminal building) they preserve one of their first aircraft: an Y-7 (Chinese built An-24). Unfortunately you have to pass a guarded post in order to make a picture and when I asked the uniformed babyface on duty if that was allowed he looked at me as if I had just made him an indecent proposal. Better move on quickly......
From the intenational gates you have a nice view on runway 20; right on the touchdown point and all traffic preparing for take-off has to pass this viewpoint. The domestic terminal has a restaurant at the very end and if you ask the staff they will let you take pictures without making use of their menu card. From this point you have a great view on the main exit for runway 02. Most traffic that taxies to this runway will also pass you and take-off traffic requires no more than 300mm.











United Eagle in Sichuan Airlines c/s


















This is probably a long shot but any suggestions for the Air China prop plane in the back?




Lijiang has a small regional airport. I would be surprised if it would host more than 5 visitors at the same time. The runway is also used for backtracking but not for long as a taxiway is under construction and by the looks of it is nearly 75% finished. Taking pictures from the terminal is possible but you have to shoot through two glass walls with a corridor in between. If you have bad luck this corridor is filled with (dis)embarking passengers right when you want to make a picture of passing traffic. In my case it was a B737 from Lucky Air which made me wonder just who's luck they ment......