Weekend in NUE with a mysterious visitor

I went to NUE on Saturday. Not because I was expecting anything in particular, but because I wanted to spend some time photographing airplanes. My catch was rather modest: an Airbus A320 belonging to Freebird, a stripey Condor Airbus A321, and other small fry.

Since RWY 10 was used for departures, I had to use the parking garage rooftop. It's becoming my least favorite location due to its popularity with plane spotters and regular gawkers alike. When I got there early in the day, I was the only one — not counting a group of teenagers hanging out on the other end of the rooftop for God knows what reason. Slowly, more and more people wielding cameras found their way to the rooftop. By the time a Pegasus Airbus A321neo wearing Atatürk livery arrived, there was a substantial crowd waiting for it. So, it was time to pack my bag and head home.

While roasting on the parking garage rooftop, I noticed a tail sticking out on the far side of the apron. It was difficult to make out what airline it belonged to, but I could tell that it was something I'd never encountered before. The problem was that I couldn't find any trace of the airplane arriving at NUE, and there was equally zero information on its potential departure. So, I figured it would either depart later that evening or sometime early Sunday morning.

Not only was my guess right on the money, but I also was lucky. I returned to NUE on Sunday morning, and I gambled on RWY 28 being active. With almost no wind, there was a distinct possibility of RWY 10 being used instead. In which case, I would have been pretty much screwed.

Fortunately, I made the right choice by setting up camp at my favorite spot. This time, I brought my trusty Kobo ebook reader with me. So basically, I had everything I needed to have a rather comfortable and enjoyable outing: a good book, food, and a decent stool to sit on — what else do you need? Airplanes, of course.

The first catch of the day was a Turkish Airline Airbus A321-231(WL) featuring the Star Alliance livery followed by my old friend, the Fairchild Dornier Do-328JET-310 (reg. D-BADA) belonging to ADAC. I really like this bright yellow machine and its sibling, the Fairchild Dornier 328JET-300 (reg. D-BADC). There are not that many of them remaining in active service, and soon there will be fewer still. ADAC has announced that they will be decommissioning their Dornier Do-328JET aircraft in the near future and replacing them with Learjets.

Full-resolution JPEG and RAW

I was thinking about wrapping up my outing when I noticed that the tail of the mysterious airplane I spotted on Saturday started moving. A quick glance at the Flightradar24 app confirmed that the machine was indeed lining up for departure on RWY 28. But here’s the interesting part: Flightradar24 had no information on where the aircraft was heading. Nor was there any flight history data available.

I did some digging around, but there was precious little information about the Omni Air International Boeing 767-36NER (reg. N486AX). Interestingly, almost all window shades on the airplane were closed during the take-off, which struck me as rather unusual. What's more, immediately after the airplane departed, two Luftwaffe attack helicopters passed by (they were too small and too far away for me to capture). Coincidence? I can't say. Anyway, I was pretty pleased that I managed to capture a rather exotic and mysterious visitor. If you, by any chance, have info about this particular aircraft, do let me know!