/jetblue.gif)
as I was spending my vacation in the neighbourhood of Tarbes-Lourdes (well, 2.5 hours drive away), I decided to give it a go and see what we could photograph there. The airport is one of the main operating fields for Tarmac Aerosave, which is a company specialized in storing, maintaining and scrapping aircraft. They also have sites at Toulouse-Francazal, Paris-Vatry and Teruel. Interesting to note that the company is owned for 33,6% by Airbus.
Photographing all the planes on site is tricky, mostly because they are parked very close to the fence and close together. Almost 70 planes are parked at Tarbes, including some very new ones. As room is running out they even parked some of the Hainan A350s at the gates at the terminal.
Spotting is easy, it's quite open. I first started on the departure level of the terminal, from where you can view some of the planes stored at Tarmac at the opposite side. Heathaze is an enemy here...
1. The first Airbus A340-300 prototype, F-WWAI, is stored here. It was last used to test laminar flow:
A343-AIB-FWWAI-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr2. Two former Singapore Airlines A380s are in the process of getting scrapped. This one is 9H-DPD:
A388-UNK-9HDPD-CHX28jul20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr3. This A330-200 OE-IDV was previously flown by defunct Avianca Brazil:
A332-AVI-OEIDV-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr4. Also nice is this former Brunei Royal Flight A340-200 V8-001:
A342-BRN-V8001-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr5. There are five (former) South African Airways planes present at the airport, like this A330-300 ZS-SXJ:
A333-SAA-ZSSXJ-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on FlickrThen it was off to the fence along the runway where an impressive row of planes are parked on the taxiway close to the fence.
6. One of the three former Jet Airways A330s parked is this A330-200 2-ACUA, which is the former VT-JWP:
A332-JET-2ACUA-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr7. Not brandnew, but still quite as this A350-900 B-308J was delivered to Hainan in August 2019:
A359-HAI-B308J-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr8. ZS-SXC is one of the 3 SAA A340-300s:
A343-SAA-ZSSXC-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr9. Impressive part of the line-up:
LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr10. Bamboo Airways from Vietnam was first planning to fly with the A330-200 and even had the planes painted in a full livery. One of them is this 2-RLAX:
A332-BMB-2RLAX-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr11. This former Arik Air A330-200, now registered as EI-EWG, was supposed to go to National Airlines, but the deal seems to have fallen through:
A332-ARK-EIEWG-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on FlickrI followed the road around the runway and found a gravel road along the fence again, close to the large Tarmac Aerosave-hangar. Here the following could be photographed:
12. This former Air Contractors/DHL A300F N835JM has been present at Tarbes for quite some years now:
A300F-DHL-N835JM-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr13. Very nice to capture my first and probably only Avianca Brazil A318:
A318-AVI-PRAVL-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr14. A320 EI-GCC is still wearing the nice livery of defunct Italian airline Ernest Airlines:
A320-ERN-EIGCC-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr15. HiFly's A330-200 CS-TQW has been phased-out last year and is since then present at Tarbes-Lourdes:
A332-HIF-CSTQW-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr16. This former South African Airways A319 is still wearing the full livery, but has been registered as LZ-GNI:
A319-SAA-LZGNI-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr17. One of the 4 A380s of Air France present is this F-HPJH:
A388-AFR-FHPJH-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr18. Sad sight is this former A350-900 prototype F-WZNW:
A359-AIB-FWZNW-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on Flickr19. Also present were four brand new A350s, two white ones, one for Turkish Airlines and this F-WZFN for Aeroflot:
A359-AFL-FWZFN-LDE8aug20 by Anton Homma, on FlickrC'est ca! Hope you liked them!
Cheers!
/baw.gif)
