Inbound to Kazantzakis International, Iraklion, Crete

Thanks Shine, glad you like them. Most were passing over at around 2,500 feet but the 300mm lens made for some good shots.
 
A link here to almost 60 photos taken from our apartment whilst in Crete about 3-4 weeks ago. Some interesting stuff...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brownieboy27/sets/72157635651943723/

Amazing shots! So close and clear! Did you have to wear hearing protection? ;)

We only get small aircraft flying low around here. Only once in a while do we see a large military plane over-fly our house.
All the big airliners are way up there.. But, this evening, I gave it a try. Saw a B747-430 DLH404 coming over (using adsbScope & RTL1090) and ran out back with my camera.
It was at 35,000 feet, but the third pic shows the logo on the tail.. Which I didn't expect to see.

http://s46.photobucket.com/user/Xringer/media/b747-430_zps19e59bdf.jpg.html

Click on the magnifier button to see the full-sized picture..
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f147/Xringer/b747-430_zps19e59bdf.jpg?t=1396826308
 
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Thanks Richard, surprisingly, there's very little noise, it's where we always stay on Crete and we like peace and quiet so if it were noisy, we certainly wouldn't stay there. The main changeover days are the best - Brit changeover days are Tuesdays and Saturdays but the German changeover day is Wednesday and every other flight is Air Berlin or one of the other German regional carriers.There's also a lot of Eastern European stuff going in on their respective changeover days, especially Russian stuff, most of which comes in with VP- or VQ- regs
 
I am sometimes surprised by the lack of noise. I look up and see a medium sized jet that seems to be silently gliding into the local airport (KBED is 4nm west of me).
Modern engines are so much quieter. However, when a jet fighter comes in low, it shakes the house!
Almost all the larger planes are landing at Logan (KBOS) in Boston, or flying down to NYC.
I see a lot of planes from Europe coming over our area. All of them are way up there. Too far up to get any good pictures.

Crete sounds wonderful. I didn't realize it was such a large island. I was stationed in Bermuda for 2 years, now that's a very small island.
I've never been to Crete. Did visit Malta for a few days.. A long time ago.

Cheers,
Rich
 
Hi again Rich

Crete's about 280 kms long which I guess is about 175 miles, it has two international airports at Iraklion ( Kazantzakis) and Chania ( Daskalogiannis) and a regional one at Siteia which doesn't take anything bigger than an ATR72 or Dash 8. It's very dodgy trying to take photos at either but at Iraklion, the site is shared with the military and a group of 6 or 7 Brit spotters fell foul of the authorities there a few years ago for taking photos and were chucked in jail for a few days before the Brit ambassador got them out. But where we stay at Anissaras is about 22 kms east from the airport, most inbounds come in from the northeast over the top of Santorini and take a tight right turn then follow the coast into final approach. With my binoculars, I can watch them all the way to touch down from our balcony.

At home here we sit bang under trans-Atlantic inbound to Heathrow plus there's a lot of high flyovers from US freight carriers as well as Lufthansa, Air France and many others en route to the continent. Here's an Atlas B747 at FL350 I took a couple of weeks ago with a 300mm lens

https://www.flickr.com/photos/brownieboy27/13194942414/in/set-72157643199997924
 
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Wow, that's a great pic. It looks like the shadow of the vertical stabilizer is falling on the contrails. That 300mm does the job!
It's overcast here again. Looks like some rain is coming it.. Again..

Cheers,
Rich
 
It's been miserable here for most of the day but is clearing up now, but it's 8.20pm and almost dark. Here are another couple of shots with the 300mm lens..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/brownieboy27/12102893596/in/set-72157643199997924

https://www.flickr.com/photos/brownieboy27/13007014713/in/set-72157643199997924

and finally, a Virgin B747 departing Heathrow, take from the light aviation field at Fairoaks two Saturdays ago...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/brownieboy27/13531991644/in/set-72157643199997924
 
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