Alaska Aeroplanes

Earlier this summer, Luke and I discovered a public road that parallels one of the three runways at the Anchorage International Airport. Likely a former service road for the airport (we drove through old open gates and past an abandoned guard house to get to it), the road has little traffic, since it winds around the airport in to a dead end. It is a great place to watch planes land and take off - something that that we have found to be fun and interesting.

The Anchorage airport, known as Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is named after Alaska's longest standing United States Senator (defeated in the 2008 election)--it is one of only two airports in the United States named after a person that is currently living. (The other is George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, TX.) Anchorage International Airport is the fifth busiest cargo airport in the world - after Memphis, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Seoul. Luke and I spent about two hours watching planes take off and land today at nearly a continuous rate. Most were cargo planes.

Most of the people that were parked along the road had very nice cameras to document their visit. The trip to the "secret" road beside the airport was a last minute decision, after a trip to Pet Co. and Wendy's, so I did not have my camera - just my cell phone. (It isn't fancy.) I am sorry for the poor quality of the pictures in this post... but I figured I would add them, since we enjoyed our day.

Alaska Airlines 737, seconds from touching the ground.

Condor Airlines jet, bound for Frankfurt, Germany. (The Frankfurt flight is seasonal and flies over the North Pole, arriving in "Deutschland" in about 9 hours. Flying to Germany on American carriers requires stops in Seattle, New York or Chicago, and perhaps Amsterdam... a trip that takes a minimum of 30 hours!)

Condor jet on the runway, waiting for clearance... 747 cargo jet is next in line.

EVA Air Cargo - based in Taipei, Taiwan

The quality of this video is BAD! I shot it with my aging Nokia flip phone... but I think you'll get the idea! This is a UPS jet (either a 737 or an Airbus of similar size.)