I hold no brief for anyone here, but I'm prepared to take airliners.net photos at face value when they come from regular contributors to the site.

Here are more photos by the same photographer on the same spotting trip. Just about all the aircraft registrations are both noted in the captions and visible on the aircraft, so anyone faking this many pictures would have had to go to a lot of trouble to get the correct aircraft.

And in any case, it would beg the question: Why would anyone bother to fake so many? You might fake one, perhaps, but the best part of a dozen? Scattered amongst other shots taken on the same trip that are plainly not faked?

Or are only some of the shots taken from this angle faked? And if so, which ones? Why? On what basis would the photographer have chosen to fake some photos while also submitting some equally good photos that were not faked?

The "faking" hypothesis just doesn't seem to make any sense to me.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1003359/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1004009/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1003281/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1003280/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1003279/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1003278/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1003277/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0999492/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0999193/M/
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0998828/M/

;) You have missed the best one: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0998826/M/
If the date is good, this plane was under AF flight safety chief command ! :E

Being a bit of a photog buff, I decided to invest some time into the question:
Are these AF photos fakes or are they real ?

This relates to 0998826 and 1003279 as compared to other photos listed:

2. The aircraft is lower and closer, thus larger.

3. New digital SLR's are capable of amazing things shutter/light-wise allowing for some quite large F-stop settings (small aperture) - giving a greater depth of field than your average camera.

4. I see people waving , looking up and covering their heads. :eek:

5. Look at both of them again - there is a faint shadow just below and forward. Notice that the sun is not fully out on these two photos.

Now let's go back to number 1.

A retired analyst I know - don't ask :} - gave me a few more pointers:

I was shown shadow details, correct interference patterns where dark meets light, the accuracy of the reflections and matching color temps (K).

A bonus lesson given involved judging height differences by comparing foreground objects with others further back. Check the sock relative to the stripe on the utility building or balconies of buildings against their respective backgrounds.

Most of the photos appear to be taken from nearly the same vertical viewpoint - ruling out a higher POV being used exaggerate the aircraft's height (or in this case lack thereof).

In the end it was decided that they are most likely indeed genuine un-retouched photos. Without seeing a high resolution original - 95% sure.

I must say that despite the fact they are further along on the approach, the US 757 (1003278) gives the AF guys a good go at how low you can err go.

But the gold goes to AF :ok:

Interesting stuff really !

AF photo
 

I think that all the other photos are genuine, except the AF340 one. True there is less sun, but there are shadows of the people but none from the aircraft. Also the people look in a different direction where the aircraft is. I think the aircraft was made slightly bigger and put lower in the photoshop. Maybe some photopro can prove here ifit is fake or real.

Not an expert myself, FlyingCroc , but I do know that objects closer to the shadow produce darker shadows than ones that are farther away. Also, really have a good look under that 4-engined beauty - there is definately a shadow.

30+ years work for an agency known for its' .. erm . . photo work should count for something, shouldnt' it ? (ie photopro) I did mention that since hi-res originals were not available to my gentleman analyst that there is a 5% chance you are right.

Also, surely we can agree that the AF flights pictured here were not the first (nor likely the last) big-iron flights to be caught in such a great (albeit interesting) photo at this lovely locale.

regards,
vap

:) You are talking of fake ?
What about this video: http://www.flightlevel350.com/viewer.php?id=2929

Maybe you are right
 

I looked at it again and again. Maybe you are right about the lens, hard to see a shadow. I also think that the spotter was there in vacation and probably would not have a motive to fake it. If this picture is genuine, man that is one scary approach:eek: And if really an AF management pilot was in it that would of course explain a lot :}
But what about the vortex, wouldnt there be sand flying around?

:} A colleague has just met yesterday the AF flight safety chief who has answered his questions about this flight: he has confirmed the low short final approach made by his copilot and said that he had asked for the datas which are "inside the enveloppe" !!!!!
It means that this enveloppe is a good one for the :mad: AF flight safety chief !

African ATC is unreliable.

Weather info is unreliable.

It’s only when you are very close to the ground that you can make a real runway condition assessment yourself.

Get real, the problems in this continent are known.......it will happen again!

:eek: As someone who has visited the island (SXM) and had one of his photos questioned http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0983091/M/ I can say for sure that they are NOT faked.

Jid

Sorry, it was my post that I now see could have been read as questioning your photo. That wasn't my intention. A query having been raised as to whether http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0998826/M/ was a fake, I was pointing to its similarity to a number of other photos (including yours) that couldn't all be fakes, therefore suggesting that none of them were.

My language was opaque, so my apologies for the impression that I gave.

The photos are legit. St. Maarten's ruway sits just meters from the beach. The runway is short too. Very few aircraft especially the heavies cross the threshold at 50'... thus that's why the aircraft are lower than they should be.

:hmm: Sorry but I have landed there as B747 FO and A340 Captain many times and am not afraid of a dry 2358 meters runway's length for a safe landing without flying 50 feet under standard path at runway's threshold.

So have I... as a captain... in a B727 on a wet runway cross wind 30 to 35 knot X-wind rescuing tourist from a hurricane as a captain on a B727. I was responding to a someone questioning the validity of some of the pictures.

:) Thank you, so there is no question on the validity of the pictures and we should go back to Douala "off runway" incident and see what can explain it in this flight safety chief context....after Toronto :yuk:

Beat the issue enough and it may reverse itself.

Mermoz92, I reckon you are the A340 Air France Captain currently suspended from duty for allegedly using free style operating procedures. Is it a good guess ?

:rolleyes: Isn'it a moronic question ?

As far as i know this chap never destroyed any piece of equipment he was entrusted with, while one must agree that AF procedures for 340 operation are giving some pretty strange results, these days. Instead of suspending him, they should have made him write a new manual ...
The way he got suspended tastes as bad as it smells, and his understanding of the Toronto farce certainly has a lot to do with it.

:ok: Yaka, that's smart. One should think of stopping these "long-haul Air Inter" operations and fire quite a lot of responsible management pilots blacking out so many farces. But I have just learned another promotion of one of them who recently rolled out aside Libreville runway, morover a TRI one of this copilot who made the worst calomnious allegations against this brilliant Captain !

This I leave to your appreciation. But it is undoubtedly one you are embarrassed to answer...:D

Your appreciation too Mr finessemax. We know who you are....:mad:

Don't get me wrong : I'm not saying he doesn't have a point.
But as you would put it, the way he expresses his feeling tastes as bad as it smells. Sounding bitter as he does is not going to give much credit to otherwise real issues he might raise. And for his sake, I hope he bears no responsability in the infamous "jonathan.blog"...

Is that relevant ?

From: Flight International

Air France A340 held after Cameroon go-around incident
Cameroon authorities held an Air France Airbus A340 for several days last week after a landing incident at Douala during a rainstorm prompted an inspection of the aircraft. The airline suggests the delay in clearance was influenced by a French ban on Cameroon Airlines during the European political debate about blacklisting last year.
The incident happened on 19 February in heavy rain with thunderstorms in the vicinity of the airport. Air France says the A340-300 (F-GLZO) was “just about to land” at Douala in “very bad weather conditions” when the captain decided to go around, but the main wheels touched down before the aircraft climbed away, prompting the captain to seek a technical inspection. The aircraft landed safely on its second attempt.
Although Air France’s technical crew cleared the aircraft for service, the airline awaited a similar approval from the Cameroon civil aviation authority, but this was delayed despite the fact that the aircraft had sustained no serious damage and should have returned to service “immediately”, says the airline. No reason for the hold-up has been given and the Cameroon CAA could not be reached for comment. Tensions have been high between Cameroon and France since French authorities, during moves last year to draw up a European air transport “blacklist”, banned flag-carrier Cameroon Airlines from French airspace for nearly two months.
The incident comes as the Transportation Safety Board of Canada continues to investigate last August’s Air France A340 overun in rainstorms at Toronto.
DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles...+incident.html

tracks in grass
 

Tracks in the grass on the right side of RW30 still visible...
:}

:confused: How long are these tracks ?

VLaF is right- skids on the RW30 and next to it are still visible.
I talked to a guy who was on board that night- the event scared him a bit.
LX/KC had a look at the aircraft while it was parked on the cargo ramp pending the now-infamous CCAA inspection/holdup :}

:ok: Max.

:rolleyes: Big true lie ! The new A340 Captain lost sufficient visual references at 100 feet because of heavy rain, but continued his approach till landing partly besides the runway due to his confusion between center line and runway right border lights, while his copilot was announcing "runway to the left". The plane has been rolling for 500 to 800 meters before he could get again in the air after he decided to go around because of the seven seconds needed to get G/A Thrust from Idle Thrust he had when touching down main landing gears. And the plane lost one gear door in this serious incident.....