A380 visits Warsaw

All right, if you live by Heathrow, the sight of an Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet, coming into land is hardly remarkable. But here in Warsaw - it's Big News. The Lotnictwo.net.pl forum has been buzzing for weeks. A few days ago, it was finally confirmed - a Lufthansa A380 will be flying into Warsaw on a promotional trip, before flying onto Istanbul and then Malta.

This morning I woke up in good time to check Flightradar24.com (this site gets better and better), to watch the A380's departure from Frankfurt. The weather, sadly, could hardly be worse - the cloud ceiling was so low that even looking across from my bedroom window towards the airport (a mere 3,500 metres away), I could not see any planes landing, though I could hear them in the cloud. The only option was to brave the cold (overnight snow) and mud and trudge across to Okęcie, as ul. Karnawał is closed due to the building of the Węzeł Lotnisko expressway junction. I roused Eddie, we donned our wellington boots, grabbed cameras and drove to W-wa Dawidy, where I left the car to continue on foot.

We were amazed by the crowds that had turned up. Parked up by Dawidy station were cars from Radom, Bydgoszcz, Mrągowo, Gliwice as well as from all parts of Warsaw. By the time we reached the airport, the crowd must have been over a thousand strong (all this to see a plane that visits Heathrow several times a day). Below: the mound of soil from the expressway construction; the ideal place to take pictures from.


And here it is... emerging from the low cloud so close to us that the 400mm end of my zoom was too long. Very little time to snap it before it crossed over above us. In retrospect, we should have been standing further to the left to catch the plane more from the side; it is its profile that is it's most impressive visual feature - that unique full-length double deck fuselage.

Below: Over the fence, a group of spotters standing on the roof of a radio shack at the end of the runway. (Photo by Eddie). We saw TV film crews, families with small children, women with inappropriate footwear for the deep mud; vast crowds. As the plane flew over our heads, we marvelled at just how quiet it was. The photos, sadly, do not give a good impression of just how massive this aircraft is even compared to a Boeing 747.

Eddie remarked that the whole event was like the Tour de France - hours of waiting, then it's all over in less than a minute. And once the plane had landed, the crowds went home. Below: photo taken from the level crossing at ul. Karnawał of spotters walking down the main Warsaw-Radom railway line. Just as no one took a blind bit of notice at the no entry signs surrounding the motorway construction plant, so the railway was turned briefly into a public footpath.

And so we too turned home, another great dad'n'lad outing, and back in time for breakfast. The A380 stayed on the tarmac at Okęcie for an hour and half or so before taking off for Istanbul before 10 o'clock.

This time last year:
Winter coming to an end
This time two years ago:
A thousand miles of climatic contrast

This time three years ago:
Waiting for winter to end