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Wait, was the L-1011 under power and taxiing? I saw people working on the gear the day before after never seeing it move and am curious if it was indeed moving!

I actually think you'll be seeing them at airshows... I have seen a few leaked photos around that shows at least two of them have been repainted into the Black Diamond team colors.

Along with Brian, I waited for about two hours Monday morning to catch the departure of the 7late7, errrr 787.

They were late in departing because of an APU problem and needed to repair it.  Ironically, their destination, Long Beach, was to visit the teams that produce the APUs... that must have been a bit awkward!

Pitts climbing steeply.

I was trying to place where I remembered that tail number from... and that's the Pitts that belongs to Gunther Eichhorn.  He may not be known to many folks these days, but he and his website Landings.com, began wayyyy back in 1994 and was one of the first real aviation websites around the dawn of the WWW.  Unfortunately it never really evolved from the Web 1.0 era and is pretty sad looking these days... but I remember it was my starting homepage on Netscape Navigator running on my Packard Bell Pentium desktop connecting to my local dial-up BBS (with a Winsock WWW connection) via a 28.8 modem... it's amazing how far we've come!!

I'll give the paint job an "interesting" vote, but I'm not sure I'd give a "nice" vote for Mr. Unser's paint scheme though.  Of course, I'm not going to complain... it's his choice and his money... let the warbird anoraks fight out the paint scheme argument. 

It's interesting that the original WWII hangars in the far top left were completely disconnected from the rest of the airport even more so than they are today.  It looks like there isn't even a basic taxiway over in that direction, where today there is at least that seldom-used, gated taxiway that crosses the road.  Makes me wonder why the airport didn't consider developing the existing airfield structures after it was converted into a municipal airport after WWII.

Why does it seem like there's so little traffic on the forum about Coolidge so far this Fall?  It always seemed like there were tons of photo reports from members starting in October each year... have the fly-ins been less interesting this year?

That's got to be the most attractive scheme I have seen on a Global Express thus far.  The curved solid color nose looks a lot like the HondaJet treatment.

That is an AWESOME shot Chris!  The rays of sunlight and cloud cover makes it stunning!  It could almost be used as a metaphor for freeing ones-self from the monotony of suburbia... with the Ahwautukee McMansions below! 

The other reason for the wing pylon mounted engines instead of fuselage mount is to reclaim the aft part of the fuselage for a fully enclosed lavatory and more baggage space.  Light jets of the same size with fuselage pylon engines also have a lot of passthrough vibration and noise that is significantly less on the HondaJet.  Keep in mind that the engines on N420HA are the earlier testbed HF118 engines while the conforming prototype (the silver and white one) has the production GE/Honda HF120 engines that provide the promised performance and efficiency that HJ has always set as a benchmark. 

A brief but good overview on the general design rationale of the HondaJet from J. Mac McClellan can be read at: http://mac.fltplan.com/2011/01/07/hondajet-fights-engine-drag/

Great shots Jay!

[N904TT]

Hello everyone;

Most of you probably know that I am the Manager of Marketing & Communications for Cutter Aviation here at Sky Harbor (PHX) and I am in charge of all marketing and promotional materials for the company, including our air charter division, Cutter Flight Management.  I am in the process of updating our charter promotional materials and thought that it might be easier / better to inquire with the community here on AZAP for "action" shots of our aircraft on approach and departure from various airports in the region we operate from. Most of our aircraft are based at PHX, but we commonly perform pickups and drop-offs at other Phoenix-Scottsdale-Mesa-Glendale airports as well... and also have alternate bases at Albuquerque (ABQ) and Dallas-McKinney at Collin Co. Regional Airport (TKI).

I am asking anyone here at AZAP to look through your archives and see if you have any photos of the following aircraft in your files that might "fit the bill":

• N904TT   Beechcraft King Air C90GTi (White with Burgundy bottom and Black and Gold Trim with Winglets)
• N3184W   Beechcraft King Air C90GTi (White overall with light blue and red wave trim)
• N56RT   Beechcraft King Air 200 (Off White with Grey and Navy Blue Straight Trim)
• N851C   Beechcraft Diamond 1A (White with Tan bottom and Black and Red Trim)
• N91A   Cessna Citation CJ2 (White with Dark Blue and Grey)
• N850C   Beechcraft Beechjet 400A (White with Tan bottom and Black and Red Trim)
• N12NV   Beechcraft Beechjet 400A (White with Black bottom and Gold and Red Trim)
• N471XP   Hawker Beechcraft 400XP (White with Dark Green, Gold and Silver Trim)
• N101AR   Hawker Beechcraft 400XP (White with Black, Burgundy and Silver Trim)
• N562DB   Cessna Citation XLS+ (White with Dark Blue, Black and Silver Trim)
• N2615S   Bombardier Challenger 604 (White with Dark Red Tail and Dark Red & Black Swirl Trim)

We're not looking for freebies and willing to work out fair compensation for usage rights as we respect your talent and time - we'd just prefer to work with our local photographer community and see if anyone may have shots that might be usable for our needs.  Feel free to email me at keough.ryan@gmail.com or call me at my office at 602-267-4045 to discuss.

Thanks!
Ryan Keough

Allegiance I, LLC is the "owner", but Cardinal Health, Inc. is the "Operator" listed.  Allegiance I, LLC operates both N700CH and N900CH.  Many flight departments isolate their assets in LLCs for ownership (which the FAA lists publicly), but the non-public "operator" remains relatively protected.  A local example of this is the Discount Tire flight department, which operates N800BD, N501DB, and N95BD under ownership of Konfara Company, Inc.

It gets REALLY hilarious when the media picks up the N-Number of a NetJets bird and the registered owner is someone like, oh, Tiger Woods (or a company connected to him) and people think he's on the plane... when in reality, he's a majority owner on that aircraft as an asset, but it operates as part of a "pool" of -QS birds in use by the Frax operation... so it could be ANYONE on the plane.

[The Memorial Celebration of Eddie Packard will be held on Saturday, January 29th from 5:00pm to 7:00pm at the CAF Arizona Wing Hangar at Falcon Field - 2017 N. Greenfield Road Mesa, Arizona 85215. For directions, please click on this link for a Google Maps link: http://bit.ly/e8P4bR]

Hello all,

For those of you who have been involved or know the warbird activity around the Phoenix, AZ area, specifically Mesa's Falcon Field (FFZ), you most likely know of the Packard family and their warbird maintenance & restoration business, Air Response, on the Northeast side of the field. Gene Packard, operated and maintained many of the working warbirds from the field and around the region after WWII into the 80s when many were sprayers and firebombers including many of the B-17's that were sold at the Globe Air auction in 1985. He passed the business and his talent on to his son Eddie, who continued the business and was well-known for radial-engine rebuilds, parts & components, and maintenance and restoration of many warbirds including the B-25H Mitchell "Barbie III" when she operated from Falcon Field up until a few years ago. Eddie's son, Billy, also learned a lot from his father and worked along side him on many of the projects at Air Response in the past decade.

I am sad to report that we lost Eddie Packard on January 16th after his long battle with cancer. I have been asked by his family and many friends in the warbird community to invite anyone who is able to attend, to join his family and friends on Saturday, January 29th for a celebration of Eddies life at the Arizona Wing Hangar of the Commemorative Air Force at Falcon Field starting around 5:00pm. There will be a memorial flyover between 5:15 and 5:30 of P-51's, AT-6's and an F8F Bearcat and Billy Packard will be doing a eulogy for his dad around 5:30pm after the flyover. Many of Eddie's friends in the warbird community from near and far will be attending and we invite everyone to come and join them to celebrate Eddies life.

The Memorial Celebration of Eddie Packard will be held on Saturday, January 29th from 5:00pm to 7:00pm at the CAF Arizona Wing Hangar at Falcon Field - 2017 N. Greenfield Road Mesa, Arizona 85215. For directions, please click on this link for a Google Maps link: http://bit.ly/e8P4bR

His obituary may be found at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/azcentral/obituary.aspx?n=edward-j-packard&pid=148091945&fhid=11255 - If you are unable to attend, but wish to send your thoughts to the Packard family, please visit his online tribute page at Mariposa Gardens at: http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Edward-Packard&lc=4584&pid=147919378&mid=4520025&locale=en-US

Thank you,
Ryan Keough

Hi everyone,

I have been a long-time map (cartography) and aviation history enthusiast and since I found the internet back in 1996, I have become pretty engrossed in the hobby of finding and exploring former sites of airfields and learning the history of them (at least as much as I reasonably can).  Sites like Paul Freemans "Abandoned & Little Known Airfields" site at http://www.airfields-freeman.com (with a LOT of content featured there from our own Chris Kennedy!) and David Brooks' "Open and Closed/Inactive Listing of Airports/Airfields" site at http://www.airfieldsdatabase.com have helped inspire me immensely -- and both have been amazing resources while I was in New England.

Since moving to Arizona three years ago, those sites have been even MORE of a resource with the sheer number of airfields out here... both public, private, and former.  Another great resource for Phoenix area airports has been John Arthurs page on his Sierra Estrellas site: http://www.sierraestrella.com/ports.html

Now, with Google Maps and their street views (http://maps.google.com) and Bing Maps' Birds-Eye view (http://maps.bing.com) for general maps and aerial views, and http://www.skyvector.com for current aeronautical charts, and the NOAA online archives of select Aeronautical charts at http://historicalcharts.noaa.gov/historicals/historical_zoom.asp ... I do a lot of "searching" online before I even venture out to look around.  And I have been fortunate enough to "inherit" a little more than a dozen 1944-vintage aeronautical charts of the Southern U.S. of my own (and always on the lookout for more if anyone is selling... any aeronautical charts from 1920s to the 1980s), so those have been an amazing resource to pick out landing fields I have never heard of and trying to find any trace of them in modern charts or aerial views.

Does anyone have any other resources other than those I have mentioned above?  If so, please share them here!

Now, since finding the Google Maps capability to create my own maps last night, I have started to compile some unidentified airfields that don't necessarily appear on charts websites as I have mentioned...or... well... anywhere.  My ongoing map can be found at: http://bit.ly/rkeough-airfields

One airfield I have NO idea what it is... or what it may have been used for can be found at: http://bit.ly/unidentified-mexico (it is an "at one time" paved field, is not listed on any chart I can find, has no traceable roads near it, and looks like it has been decommissioned).  I initially thought it could be an aux airfield for Marfa AAF as it is only about 4 miles from the border, but its a bit too far away for that.  Does anyone know anything about this field?

Thanks!
Ryan

Is it me, or is that Dash-8 wearing old Shuttle America (Northeast Commuter Line from 1998-2001) livery?  Curious as I flew on them a lot and probably was on that ship a time or two.

Thanks,
Ryan