The short-lived hill spot

/ By / Planespotting

A spot not made to last

Back in 2008, pictures from an unusual viewpoint at PRG emerged on the czech aviation website planes.cz. I needed to check it out myself! I grabbed the occasion of an unusual Saudi visitor flying in on july 27th to check the spot out.

After a short bus ride to Jenec and a walk towards runway 06, it quickly became apprent what the spot was. Almost alligned with the runway, about 500m away, was a huge dirt and gravel hill, a by-product of the nearby highway construction.

So what made this spot special? It was at the time the only place you could get such a unique perspective on a runway at Prague airport.

Flying through a huge sparse flock of birds

One would think that airports are built on flat ground. Here, you can clearly see the slight waves on runway 06/24.

2008 traffic highlights

SkyEurope was an airline flying out of Prague and Bratislava. They ended operation in september 2009 after 8 years of flying. I flew with them just once, to Amsterdam in 2007, and I remember specifically their very comfortable blue leather seats.

Sterling 737-500 reg.. OY-MAA or “Oy Maaate!”
Travel Service O2 livery, almost blending with the sky
Aircraft stretch marks

 

Malev has since stopped operations, in early 2012

 

MAP Executive Flight Service MD-83 OE-IKB, stored at TUS since 06/2010 as N990PG

The unusual visitor

Finally around 7:30, the heavy of the day, a Saudi 777-200, appeared on the ILS.

Saudi Arabian Boeing 777-268ER HZ-AKF

Once the Saudi 777-200 landed, it was time to head back home. It seems that the 777 was a Royal flight, because the aircraft departed again four days later.

The spot didn’t remain there for very long. There is one other great hill spot which i cover in this article. Til next time!