Sitting on the side of a RAAF PC-12 at the air show held at RAAF Edinburgh in November 2019. This was the first and, to date, only air show I’ve attended. I had a great time getting a close up look at several military aircraft, with many RAAF C-17’s and P-8’s on display and was thrilled to see an RAF A400M on display.
In June 2020, Cathay Pacific began operating a weekly Boeing 777 freight flight to Adelaide from Sydney. Every Sunday morning, the plane spotting locations around Adelaide Airport became very popular with the locals as this was practically the only wide body movement we were receiving at the time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The photo shows B-KQB about to fly over the West Beach skate park on a beautiful Sunday morning. This is one my favourites angles of the 777.
In November 2020, Adelaide received 2 Japan Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s operating charter flights on behalf of NASA. On a very warm 2nd November, I saw JA845J leaving for Tokyo after a 24 hour visit in the South Australian capital.
In May 2016, I was in the Adelaide Airport terminal for the inaugural arrival of a commercial A350 flight into Australia. Qatar A350-900 A7-ALH operated the inaugural flight and the photo shows it receiving the traditional water canon salute. This route has become immensely popular, and was scheduled to be upgraded to an A350-1000 prior to COVID-19 shutting down the aviation industry.
In my opinion, in Adelaide we are fortunate to have the best terminal for plane spotting in the whole of Australia. There are several huge windows at every gate in the terminal which provide wonderful views of runway 23 and aircraft taxing past. Here we see a Singapore Airlines A350 shortly after arriving one afternoon in January 2020.
One of my favourite photos to date. My favourite time to shoot is in the golden hour just prior to sunset, the lighting you can get at this time can be absolutely incredible. In January 2020, I caught a Singapore A350 taking off from Adelaide’s runway 23. The A350 is my favourite aircraft, and the Singapore colour scheme is one of my favourites, so to get this in the golden hour I was absolutely thrilled.
In the 2010’s, Qantas Boeing 747’s were very rare visitors to Adelaide, only coming every few years for the charters to Antartica along with a few military charters in 2019. In January 2014, I took this photo of VH-OEG leaving empty for Sydney in the early evening.
My favourite ever photo. South African Airbus A340-300 ZS-SXF leaving Perth for Johannesberg in some truly amazing light in March 2020.
I am a massive fan of the updated Malaysian Airlines colour scheme, especially on A330 9M-MTG which also features the Harimau Malaysia scheme. I took this photo of it arriving into Adelaide on, to date, it’s only visit to South Australia back in November 2020.
The Antonov AN124 is always a very popular visitor to Adelaide Airport, with the roads around the runway always coming to a standstill when it’s on it’s take off roll. In recent years, these massive cargo aircraft have become a fairly regular visitor to Adelaide, 82-009 is seen here on Adelaide’s runway 23 in September 2018.
I am a massive fan of Qantas’ indigenous flying art series. Mendowoorrji, the 4th in the series is seen here shortly after pushback at Adelaide in April 2019. This was actually the first time I’d ever seen the aircraft, almost 5.5 years after it was delivered. Another photo where I was very lucky with the lighting.
Without a doubt, one of my top 3 rarest movements in Adelaide was this Antonov AN-12 which visited in October of 2019. I wasn’t actually expecting to get a photo of this, and when I finished work at 7am, was surprised to learn that it’s departure was delayed by 2 hours until 8.30 am, giving me plenty of time to get home and grab my camera before heading to the airport to witness this very smokey departure.
It seemes as if just about all of the RAAF PC-21’s were at the 2019 RAAF Edinburgh Airshow, with 2 on display, and the rest doing flying performances. I took this photo of several of them all lined up together as they were getting refuelled after a very impressive flying display.
February 2021 saw the first occasion of a Qantas Boeing 787-9 operating an Antartica sight-seeing flight from Adelaide, with another one scheduled for November this year. On a beautiful Sunday morning, I photographed VH-ZNB lining up on runway 23 at the beginning on the 13 hour flight. Having subsequently seen photos and videos taken from onboard, it looked like an amazing flight and the views over the ice were incredible.
Ever get the feeling that you’re being followed? An Adelaide based RFDS PC-12 (VH-JDN) taxing along taxiway Foxtrot with an Airbus A340-300 (CS-TQZ) hot on it’s heels after arriving from Brisbane to collect Australian Border Force personnel. This was the first Airbus A340 to visit Adelaide for around 5 years and would leave around an hour later for Melbourne.
This is another one of my favourite ever photos. Singapore Cargo Boeing 747-400F 9V-SFK making a very late rotation from Adelaide’s runway 23. Normal aircraft are usually at approx. 500 feet by this point, so to have it only just getting airborne at this point was a great surprise.
Normally a rare visitor to Australian shores, Adelaide received no fewer than 3 Boeing 757’s throughout 2019. In November, 9H-AVM arrived from Melbourne with Irish rock band U2 on board prior to their concert at Adelaide Oval later that evening. I always enjoy seeing Boeing 757’s as I have many fond childhood memories of flying on them in Europe as a child, and watching them take off is an absolute joy.
I took this just a few weeks ago. Just prior to sunset, a Malaysian Airlines Airbus A330 (9M-MTE) arrives into Adelaide, wearing both the OneWorld colour scheme and also the Negaraku colour scheme, which will hopefully be added to more aircraft in the near future.
The year of 2020 became infamous for the COVID-19 pandemic which changed the world as we knew it at the beginning of that year. That meant that aircraft became parked up at airports all around the world, waiting for the world to return to normal once more. At the height of the shutdown, Adelaide had around 8 Virgin Australia 737’s and 4 Qantas 737’s parked up beside the air traffic control tower and long term car park. One such aircraft was VH-VXQ, more commonly known as Retro Roo 2, and is seen here on a winter afternoon all taped up with the engines covered.
Qantas celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2020. Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner VH-ZNJ, which they took delivery of in early November 2019, was painted in a special commemorative livery to celebrate their upcoming milestone. I have seen this aircraft on 2 separate occasions, in November 2019 (as shown in the picture) and also in March 2020. This is one of the photo’s I’ve taken that I’m most happy with, the lighting on this day was overcast all day and very poor, with VH-ZNJ accelerating down Sydney’s runway 16R for Hong Kong.
The Adelaide spotters were left waiting a very long time for this one. We had gotten used to seeing the Qatar A350 arriving every day around 4pm, however with a whole year having passed since the delivery of their A350 in the One World scheme and it still not having visited, we were beginning to feel that it would never come to Adelaide. However that was all about to change one Saturday morning in April 2019. When I was awoken by my 6am alarm for work, I looked at my phone to see that the wait was about to be over, as A7-ALZ had left Doha a few hours earlier and would be arriving that evening. After informing some of the local spotters, I took my camera with me to work, and as soon as I finished at 3pm, headed straight to the Marion Road oval where we waited for the star of the show arriving in some truly stunning autumn light.

Through The Lens

Robbie Mathieson

How did you get into aviation photography?

Photography is something that I’ve been interested in ever since getting my first digital camera as a present for my 10th birthday back in 2003. While on layovers in Hong Kong & Singapore in 2009 & 2010 respectively, I took some photos of huge aircraft such as A380’s and 747’s. In 2010, I flew on an A380 for the first time, and this is what really got me into aviation. I just couldn’t believe that something as big as that was able to get off the ground. I would occasionally get the bus to Adelaide Airport and do some plane spotting in the school holidays and also before flights when going on holiday, before I started getting more into it in early 2014 after passing my driving test.

Why aviation photography?

As I mentioned previously, I have been interested in photography since I was a child. In my younger years, I was more interested in photographing ships and ferries, and to an extent that is something l am still interested in, however in the last 10 years or so, I have found myself taking considerably more photos of aircraft. The social aspect of aviation photography is also something that I really enjoy and I’m lucky enough to have made several good friends through it. There’s not much better than spending a few hours sitting at the side of the runway with some good mates, camera in hand talking absolute rubbish.

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