I recently had a client contact me from Germany about photographing his client’s VVIP British Aerospace 146-100 aircraft.  This was a fun assignment and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to photograph this beautiful jet.

This aircraft was made by the British Aerospace Corporation in the early 1980’s, and when I was in college at Texas Tech University, I worked briefly for Aspen Airways and they flew these aircraft in and out of Lubbock, to Amarillo, TX and then on into Denver, Colorado; as a United Express commuter.  Back in the day, this plane in airline configuration would hold about 85 people in an all-coach class seating arrangement.

We were one of the first, if not the first airline to actually put a jetway bridge up to this aircraft and you had to be VERY careful when doing so or you could hit one of the two engines on the wing as the jetway was moving toward or away from the jet.  I just love this jet, it is a good looking aircraft and to me, even sitting still, it just looks fast.

I also had an extremely enjoyable time talking to the Chief Pilot of this aircraft, he was very nice and so interesting to talk to.  He had previously flown jet fighters for the United States Navy.  After he got out of the Navy, he did some flying for Rockwell International, if I remember his story correctly, flying a BAC-111 test bed for them.  Rockwell International was manufacturing new flight radars for the B-1 Bomber at the time and their two or three BAC-111 aircraft flew test missions to see how well the software and avionics worked.  The pilot said they did a lot of very low level flying in the BAC-111 and people would call in to their local police department or sheriff’s department, this was before 911, and wanted to report an airliner had just crashed, as the jets were flying so low.  I bet those low level flights did alarm quite a few local residents!

Hope you enjoy the photos.