DAL | July 2009 | Bachman Lake

Back in July I finally had a nice block of free time to go spotting at Dallas Love Field. The traffic there doesn't have the volume that DFW has, obviously, but can be more interesting as there are a lot of business aviation operations out of Love compared to DFW and knowing that nearly all the commercial flights would be Southwest, I was going to try the time to see what I could do to make shooting nothing but Southwest *interesting*.

My tactic was simple. There are only two runways at Love Field and that day 13L and 13R were in use. Southwest flights pretty much use 13R for arrivals and most of the general aviation action uses 13L with an occasional bizjet to 13R if they're bound for one of the few FBOs on that side of the airport.

I set up on Shorecrest Drive (the south shore of Bachman Lake) and with a flight tracking app on my iPhone, I would move up and down Shorecrest depending on whether it was a Southwest flight or a general aviation flight. At least that way I could anticipate where to be for each shot. Almost. Did miss a few....but it was easier than chasing flights all across DFW hoping you'd be in the right place.

^Here's Southwest's N348SW, a 737-300 that has been flying its entire life for Southwest since its delivery from Boeing in April 1989. If I remember right, this flight was coming in from Lubbock.

^This is N662SW- built and delivered initially in June 1985 to leasing giant ILFC, it flew with charter airline Sunworld before it was returned to ILFC, sold to Piedmont who flew it past the merger with USAir, who in turn sold it Southwest Airlines. The paint job on this aircraft was quite noticeably faded compared to most of the Southwest aircraft I'd photographed that day.

^Wider-angle shot of N638SW on short final, a relatively young 737-300 that was built and delivered to Southwest in January 1996, just a year before the first new-generation 737-700 was delivered to the airline.

^My best catch of that day and a surprise as it wasn't on the flight tracking data- 2127 is a Dassault HU-25A Guardian that ironically got sent to the desert boneyard at AMARC/Davis-Monthan AFB in 1994 and was then brought back into service just last year. She's based at CGAS Mobile, Alabama, which if I remember right is where HU-25 pilots and crews are trained.

I've always liked this bird- the Coast Guard colors look sharp on the sleek lines of the Dassault Falcon 20 and you just can't help but love those crazy reverse flow Garrett turbofan engines.

^N713HC is a Bombardier Challenger 600 built in October 1996. I've always thought the 600s were stubby and lacked the sleek lines of the CRJ and the Global Express that sprang from this design.

^N547CS is a Cessna Citation 560XLS operated by Citationshares, Cessna's fractional jet ownership program.

^N617AC is a 2003 model Bell 407 that operates as a photo bird here in the DFW area.