Well…sort of.
I didn’t do a whole lot of it this year, mainly just bringing my camera to work and taking the occasional photo during my free time, with one session at LAX that was almost entirely cloudy so it won’t be included. But I am shamelessly desperate because I didn’t make the list of potential top photographers on the IFC in the community vote this year, so I’m going to cheat my way to 10 good photos and include from past years that just didn’t make the cut in those topics.
Starting off with this Spirit A320neo headed out of SMF to LAS. I found a nice little set of stairs on the ramp that I could climb for a bit of a raised vantage point of some pretty close takeoffs, so I have exactly one spot for all my SMF photos.
The most exciting movement of the year at SMF was definitely this United 777. Headed to Rome from SFO, it encountered issues with its No. 2 engine and diverted to SMF. Here it is getting followed by a fire truck on its way to a remote pad.
Wrapping up 2024 SMF content with this Alaska MAX 9. Nothing super special with this, I just liked the angle and the plane. Justice for the MAX 9 in Infinite Flight
Next up is this beautiful livery that has since been repainted. I spotted this in 2023, but didn’t include it in my review of last year because I was a much better photographer back then and significantly one-upped my shots from that session later that same evening.
Speaking of that evening, here is one of the more experimental shots. With a few specials coming in just after this Turkish 777, I decided to see how the head-on angle would work. I was happy with it, but not happy enough to not move a little to the side for the next ones.
Back to SMF for a second, here’s this 2022 shot of Freedom One arriving from my old home airport of SBA. This was my first time seeing this livery, and my only time so far in good weather, so I was glad it arrived at a wonderful time of day and that the somewhat patchy weather of that week had held for that day.
Back to LAX and still in 2022 if I remember correctly (because I didn’t do a review that year) here is a China Airlines Cargo 777 Freighter departing from 25L. I could’ve sworn these were given such a weirdly empty paint scheme to accommodate a special livery, but I still have yet to see what that might be.
Continuing the theme of great light, I think this one speaks for itself. A super old shot, but a good one nonetheless. Got lucky with this one as well, as American is generally not a fan of domestic widebodies, but scheduled this one for a prime departure slot to DFW.
Back to 2023 for this one, with this ITA A350 departing over us on the beach. I thought the vibrant blue of the aircraft stood out enough from the sky, and luckily my camera played ball and kept this sharp enough to crop in after the fact. It’s also just a good way to show off the belly logo and the curves of this beautiful aircraft.
Wrapping this hodgepodge of a topic up with one of my favorite phenomena: engine vapor. This American 787-9 gave us a nice little show of it in 2019, from the first of two great spotting sessions that I somehow never posted on here about. Better 5+ years late than never, right?
Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful 2024 and that 2025 is an even better year for you. I’m hoping to have more free time to get back into some real spotting and editing for next year, so hopefully my 2025 version of this is honest to its name and has some new stuff. For now, I hope this was a worthwhile selection and that you guys could at least stomach the content.