San Francisco International Airport

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A380 Over the Golden Gate

In 2025, the largest passenger jet turns 20.

This is the Airbus A380. The A380 is truly an impressive aircraft which I had the pleasure of flying on from SFO to Frankfurt on Lufthansa (the airline currently operates eight A380s but they no longer use them to fly out of SFO).

The A380 is a full double decker with a flight range of 9,200 miles and a capacity of 850 passengers. It is larger than Boeing’s 747 and is designed for long range international flights.

On my afterwork walks I noticed a northbound British Airways A380 at around 5 PM each day. This is flight BA 284. The flight path parallels Ocean Beach and then turns northeast heading toward the Polar route over Greenland to its final destination of Heathrow Airport. I often watch it until it disappears with distance.

After work I wanted to get a sketching perch perspective facing north with the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin Headlands, and Mt. Tamalpais at the base of the panoramic spread and the A380 flying above. Sunset Reservoir fits the bill.

I headed to the northwest corner of the reservoir to Sunset Reservoir Park with a brand new Delta Stillman & Birn sketchbook.

While I was sketching a man and a woman were walking up the path speaking French. I assumed they were from the Lycee Francais de San Francisco school just up Ortega. They had come to take in the amazing views. The woman walked over and asked if I was part of the urban sketchers. I replied that I was not and she told me that she liked to sketch too.

Then she and the man did something that boggled my sketcher’s mind which can be summed up in the following photo:

Yes, unbelievably they commented on my sketching and then turned around to stand between myself and my subject!

My plan was to do a loose sketch of the A380 as it headed northeast. Luckily the French couple moved on to take some more selfies with the distant Golden Gate Bridge in the background, before I had to ask them politely, to get out of my way!

Flight 284 is scheduled to depart SFO at 16:20. It seems it was running a bit late as the A380 passed by at 5:03.

A Heathrow bound British Airways A380 flies past the Sunset Reservoir.

SFO Runway 28R

I had sketched and photographed BA Flight 284 as it passed over western San Francisco and now I wanted to witness an A380 take off, head on!

One of the best ways to look down Runway 28R (SFO’s longest) is to cross Highway 101 on San Bruno Avenue. Here you can look down the runway towards aircraft taxiing into position for take off.

As a side note, runways are named after their magnetic heading to the nearest ten degrees so 28 degrees and the R stands for “right” to differentiate the runway from the parallel runway to the left: 28L.

Flight 284 was late getting out of the gate and I spotted the giant, shark like tail fin, sporting the Union Jack, as it crept towards the runway.

The A380 pulling onto Runway 28R. With the distance, the plane looks like a mirage.
Flight 284 climbs off Runway 28R at 150 knots heading right toward me!
Gear up, the A380 flying overhead.
Next stop (10 hours 35 minutes later) Heathrow Airport.
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Airport Sketching: SFO to DCA

Having made it through TSA in 11 minutes on a Saturday morning, I found myself before Gate D9, an hour and a half before boarding. Being that I was in the back of the plane, in Boarded Group F (I’ll let you use your imagination as to what F stands for), I knew that I would be one of the last to board the Alaska Boeing 737.

So after getting some joe and a scone, I found an empty row and had breakfast.

Now it was time to get low tech in the form of my soft cover Stillman and Birn Beta Series sketchbook (No batteries required).

I found one of those nice swivel chairs and sketched the Alaska Airlines jet at gate D9. The Boeing 737 sat at the gate with a fuel hose attached to the bottom (always a good sign) and the crew loading luggage into it’s underbelly.

Our flight was on time and despite the demands to check bags from Boarding Groups E and F because the overhead bins were full.

I was able to waltz on the plane as a one bag backpacker, shouldering my Osprey Farpoint 40 and I found an empty bin right above my aisle seat in Rom 30 (at least I was close to the bathrooms!).

On the other half of my panoramic sketch I added my view from Row 30, Seat D.

A little time travel: the featured sketch is from Reagan National Airport (DCA), in Virginia, just across the Potomac from Washington D. C. This panoramic sketch is from my return journey to SFO.

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SFO to SEA, SEA to KEF

In previous SFO airport sketches I have drawn airplanes as they waited at gates. But this time I drew a swivel lounge chair. These are always prime real-estate at the airport and I found one to sit and swivel on and an empty chair to sketch.

I was pleased to know, after a bit of research, that my home international airport is highly rated amongst other airports. I guess it comes down to some simple details like where you park your butt on while you wait for your flight, and being able to swivel around to people watch.

Once on my flight to Seattle (SEA) I had a window seat in aisle 11, right in front of the starboard engine.

We were somewhere above Oregon or Washington, high above the clouds at our cruising altitude and I watched the clouds play across the landscape and the cloud’s shadows, well, shadowing it on the ground.

I did a sketch with my smaller panoramic journal, drawing in the starboard engine as a point of reference (featured sketch). Did I draw every cloud in my window view? We no, I used a bit of sketcher’s shorthand to sketch the most sketchable clouds.

At SEA, where it was raining of course, I transferred to my Icelandair flight to the Land of Fire and Ice.

On this flight I was glad to see some Icelandic beers onboard. Being a bird nerd, I ordered a Gull Lager. It met my expectations and I did a sketch to pass the time.

Skal!

I couldn’t wait to set foot in Iceland and add more ink and paint to my journals.

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SFO Groundtime

I arrived at SFO at 6 AM on a Sunday morning, plenty of time for my 8:42 flight to Phoenix Sky Harbor. Or so I thought.

I leisurely had breakfast having made it through security in about ten minutes, not bad for a Sunday morning. Plenty of time to catch my flight.

After breaking the fast, I passed by the departure board and my flight was rescheduled for 11:30 AM because of a “ Crew Connection”. I later found out that our crew was delayed in Reno, Nevada due to inclement weather.

Now I had three extra hours to spend (for a flight lasting an hour and a half!) at San Francisco International Airport!

I definitely got some steps in wandering in the terminal-mall that is SFO. I parked in a comfy swivel chair and people watched, which is first class at SFO. I attempted to add a story to those passing by, very much under the influence of Barbara Kingsolver. (My travel read was her first novel The Bean Trees, which is set in Tucson, Arizona.)

What to do? Sketch of course! Airplanes parked on the tarmac are very obliging sketch subjects. They sit still.

As I was sketching the tails of a line of United planes, an arriving flight pulled in front of my subjects. Good thing I had inked most of my sketch. Planes do move after all. Just not the ways a sketcher may want them to.

I got in two sketches at SFO until I finally boarded my United flight to PHX.

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Airport Sketching (SFO and ORD)

There is always a lot of downtime at an airport. I am the type of traveller that always arrives early, hence the downtime.

Sometimes I read or listen to music but I always try to do an airport sketch.

On my recent trip to the Windy City, I sketched the airplane that would be taking me there. In this case it was United Airlines largest plane in their fleet: the Boeing 777-222A. This plane has a capacity of 28 first class passengers and 336 economy. It’s cruising speed is 639 mph and we made the journey from SFO to ORD in about three and half hours.

I was told that you don’t mess around with Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. O’Hare is the fourth busiest airport in the world with 54 million passengers passing through in 2021. It had the moniker of the “busiest square mile in the world”.

So I headed out of Chicago for the 45 minute journey to O’Hare with plenty of time to spare. Even though it was a weekday morning, the security checkpoint lines took almost half and hour to navigate. There is a reason you don’t mess with O’Hare. It’s better to be early then to miss your flight.

A bar with a view. This is the view, sans foreground glass, for my O’Hare spread (featured sketch).

I found a window seat at a pizza restaurant (deep dish of course), opened my sketchbook and started to sketch the gate and airplane before me.