DFW | September 2009 | Arrivals on the 17s | Love that mornin' Texas sun...

Decided for a break to head to my east side spot instead of Founders' Plaza. The traffic isn't as varied but the lighting is nice and you can get closer to the planes. Or is that the planes get closer to you? In Soviet Russia, planes spot you!

But I digress.

Here's N973AN on short final for 17C just about to cross over Carpenter Freeway. This particular Boeing 737-800 was built and delivered to American Airlines in October 2001 and retrofitted with blended winglets in 2007.

This is N523AE, a Bombardier CRJ-700 that was built and delivered to American Eagle in June 2004.

Finally caught a FedEx arrival on the east side in decent weather, this is N741FD. It has quite a service history, having been built and delivered as an Airbus A300-600R back in May 1991 to leasing company AWAS. AWAS then leased her to Garuda Indonesia, then to Korean Airlines, then to Turkish charter airline Alfa Airlines, then to Saudi Arabian Airlines and finally passed like a party bong to Qatar Airways. Sold to FedEx around 2003, stored for a while and then converted to A300-600F freighter configuration by Airbus at their Dresden, Germany, facility before entering service with FedEx last year.

Narrow shot view of N741FD on short final. That's a lot of flap track/actuator fairings!

Gotta love that early morning light when you're on the east side spotting. This is N946AN, a Boeing 737-800 built and delivered to American back in September 2000.

Here's something you don't see very often at DFW- a 737 without any winglets! This Continental Airlines Boeing 737-300 was built and delivered back in July 1985 to Continental/Texas Air Corporation (back when Frank Lorenzo was the holy terror of organized labor in the airline industry) who leased to New York Air, Texas Air's nonunion operation. It wound up back with Continental where it wore the Red Meatball scheme before getting its current colors.

Nose tight shot of N63305 on short final. She sure doesn't look like she's just shy of 25 years of age, this -300 was darn near pristine.