I took a couple of days off because my weekend was going to be shot. I took the opportunity on Friday morning to spend a couple of hours out at the airport. I didn’t see anything exciting, though I heard NZ1884 and ZK-KGB on the radio.

Some nice clear blue Wellington sky and sun gave some beautiful pics of some of the regulars like Sounds Air Cessna 208 Caravan ZK-PDM…

…Air New Zealand (formerly Freedom Air) Boeing 737-300 ZK-SJE…

…and Mount Cook Airline ATR-72 500 ZK-MCB.

Ever so slightly more exciting was Skyline Aviation Cessna 421 ZK-MFT.

This final photo illustrates (as best as I could) a new feature of the Air Nelson (Air New Zealand Link) DHC-8 Q300 aircraft such as ZK-NEB seen here. The landing lights pulse in an alternating pattern during approach. I thought I was seeing things at first but confirmed it through my camera lens. In the photo you can see that the port light is brighter than the starboard one. The lights never extinguish in this process. They go from a “park light” brightness, still visible to the unaided eye, to a “full beam” brightness.

Click on the photo to go to the Flickr page and then click “All sizes” to see it larger.

There are some more photos on the stream or in the Wellington Airport set.

OK, bad pun.

Despite a long run of good weather in these parts, I’ve not spent more than a few minutes at the airport until yesterday. Nothing unusual to be seen, but I did capture a few good Jetstar shots. Something I have been lacking in my collection to date.

There are more photos on the stream or in the WIAL set.