The Alpha!

Vittu, perkele and saatana! Another one of those planes that has haunted me in my dreams and even more in my nightmares.

A is commonly known as the first letter in our alphabet. The Alpha, this is where it all begins. In planespotters terms, A is the first one of most fleets. Any registration number that ends on A is the oldest one in the group, the great-grandmother of all … of all those planes, eh!

Not matter how crazy they might be up north in Finland, even they stick to that principle. In a fleet of Airbus A321s that counts eleven units, I managed to catch the B, C, D etc. with no problem whatsoever. Even the more recent batch, that was not really meant to be flying the easy continental European routes, found its way into my collection as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

One of those bastards misbehaved. A!

When I first started to list my sightings about ten years ago, things seemed to be falling into place quite nicely. One gap after another was filled quickly and quite frankly, if five out of six get done within a year or two, why should the sixth as it were not pop up in front of me? Some vodka-drinking dispatcher must have stalked me from his office sauna and kept sending A anywhere, but not where I had my pixel gun ready to shoot the thing.

An unplanned run-in in Barcelona must have lead to that guy having been sacked now. Just as I was about to leave Barça this summer, I managed to catch a glimpse of what I just thought that it could be A. Upon verification through my very own stalking software (which only works for aircraft, just to make that clear to you girls out there!), it turned out to be A. Things turned around sharply. Within ten days, A decided to come and see me again, this time in London. And this time there was no escape from my camera any more …

OH-LZA, Finnair, Airbus A321

On that note, happy Independence day to all my friends from Finland!