A week ago, fellow scramble user Olmo Müller (757Flyer) And I went on an awesome spotting trip to Stockholm Arlanda Airport, Helsinki Vantaa Airport and Riga Airport!
The whole trip lasted just around 36 hours. So we did a lot of flying and a lot of photographing in a short time.
We have flown the following:
SK556 – SAS – Boeing 737-600 (SE-DTH) - Schiphol (AMS/EHAM) –> Stockholm Arlanda (ARN/ESSA)
KF426 – Blue1 – Boeing 717 (OH-BLO) – Stockholm Arlanda (ARN/ESSA) -> Helsinki Vantaa (HEL/EFHK)
BT306 – Air Baltic – Fokker 50 (YL-BAO) – Helsinki Vantaa (HEL/EFHK) -> Riga international Airport (RIX/EVRA)
BT619 – Air Baltic – Boeing 737-500 (YL-BBE) – Riga airport (RIX/EVRA) -> Schiphol (AMS/EHAM)
As we have almost similar shots of everything, we have split up the airplanes, so you won’t get bored of the same shots all the time!
I’ll tell you the main story in between the photos! Here we go.
On the morning of the 16th of August, we left our homes with full backpacks and went for Schiphol.
First thing we did after arriving was ofcourse; plane spotting. First we went to the Panorama Terrace for a little while and then we decided to continue in the Terminal lounge.
1. Cityhoppers in line awaiting their next flight as seen from the terminal.
After waiting for a few hours, we started boarding for our flight to Stockholm, we were in first and we departed way ahead of schedule with everyone on board, very pleasant!
We departed with runway 24 Spykerboor 2K routing, which is a kaagbaan departure, with a sharp turn to the north afterwards.
2. After the north turn on departure, visible between the clouds is the Dutch shoreline.
After our very comfortable flight with the very very friendly crew, we were allowed into the cockpit to take a bunch of shots, they even folded down the HUD’s to show them to us, really amazing how modern that 737-600 cockpit was. I expected a cockpit full of classic gauges…
3. Shot before the HUDs were shown to us. It’s just like a NG cockpit!
After leaving the airport we took the shuttle to our Hotel, which isn’t just a hotel! We stayed in the JUMBO HOSTEL! The Boeing 747-200 “parked” at the airport, it was a great experience and a must for everyone of you who visits Stockholm!
4. The forward lounge in the nose section, where you can enjoy breakfast or a hot meal in the evening.
After we checked out the hotel we went spotting… Which was pretty hard because the runway use when we arrived was actually our nightmare runway use, which is landing AND departure runway 19L, wich is the most distant runway for us.
So we tried anyway, took a cab to 19L and found out that spotting there would be hopeless because everything was way too far away!
When we walked back to the airport the only 747 flight from ARN departed! The beautiful Thai 747. Which we caught pretty well!
5. Departing runway 19L.
As we were walking back to the terminal area, we discovered that runway 26 was the landing runway! Which was awesome, because I knew that runway 26 had a great spotting location.
6. As we walked there, I managed to capture this one:
7. When we arrived at “The Beehive” spotting location, we could finally go photographing, after walking miles and miles to get there!
8. Pretty low in the approach, this Norwegian wasn’t even over the threshold when this photo was taken.
9. My favourite spotting shot from the trip! This one worked out rather good!!!
10. Taking his time to touch down….
11. Beautiful 717! I love that livery on it as well.
As you might see the light conditions became unbareable for nice photos in the evening. So we decided to enjoy some well deserved dinner in the terminal, and go night spotting at our ‘’hotel’’!
12. In the twilight.
13. The main landing gear with behind a staircase that leads to a hotel room which is located INSIDE the landing gear bay.
After the nightshots we decided to call it a day, go to sleep and get up very early for our flight to Helsinki!
After security we went spotting right away, found ourselves a neat spot at a corridor which leads from one pier to the other.
14. Keep it steady captain, steady!
After some spotting we moved to the gate and boarded, what a heavenly aircraft, and AMAZING SOUND! As you will see from my picture I had the best seat in the house. It has become one of my favorite planes to fly, right next to the 772 and 747!
15. WOW! Arlanda Airport overview and more!
16. After landing at Helsinki we were allowed to take some shots of the cockpit, which also was so MODERN! I actually hoped to see the old MD gauges, but it was all glass! Nice windows anyway!
For me the spotting at Helsinki didn’t really work out, but I enjoyed it anyway! Olmo made more out of it I think!
The same applies to the flight with the Fokker 50 to Riga, really, my window was SO dirty I couldn’t make any descent shots, the dirt was mainly on the outside…
But well, we had a lovely turbulent flight to Riga, and there we took some shots as well from the SURPRISINGLY Nice looking terminal!
17. Our aircraft for our final flight to Amsterdam!
18. After departing runway 36 we turned left to the west, here is the nice airport of Riga! With on the right (west side) of the photo the military apron with a Il-76
19. On the approach for runway 36R on a beautiful evening at Schiphol.
So that was it already, I’d like to thanks Olmo for the great trip we made together, wouldn’t have been so much fun alone!
And also thanks to David van Woerkom (Bendavid2) for borrowing me his 100-400mm lens!
Comments are always welcome people! I hope you enjoyed my part, and I hope you will enjoy Olmo’s part as well which will be underneath here in a short time………
Kind regards, Jeffrey Schäfer!
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. The sound is amazing! For those who want to know, this is seat 22F. If you'll once fly one, please DO NOT book 23! You'll look right up against the engine and you'll have nothing to see. I was so stupid to do so, but got really lucky with 22F being unoccupied!
!
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also very nice and crispy shots 
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