CX747 wrote:

na wrote:

wingflex744 wrote:

Pax to Cargo conversion for Kalitta

More likely for spares, Kalitta now and then buys pax-744s for spares and stores them at their base.

I just flipped through Kalitta's current 747 fleet list and all of the jets are freighters and active. I don't see any pax 747-400s parked as donor aircraft or any 747s, outside of HL7402, now N786CK parked. It very well could be that N786CK is going to play the part of donor. It could also be getting maintenance before heading to full freighter conversion or being converted to fly freight in the cabin and continue on as a pax cargo jet.

It won't be getting converted. It's a parts donor and should be in the historic section of Planespotters.

BA's 747 G-BYGC with Boac Retro Livery made a short hop from Cardiff to St. Athan today.
This was the last ever British Airways 747 flight thus ending a 50 year history of BA 747's.

Arrival of G-BYGC at St. Athan:

According to Skyliner:

Boeing 747 -419 26910 1180 EC-MDS Wamos Air ferried 11dec20 CQM-MAD after interim storage prior return to lessor ex N342AS

It seems that Wamos Air is quietly retiring their 747 fleet for good. They still didn't post about it in their social media - instead, they keep posting "fun facts" about their Jumbo fleet.

leleko747 wrote:

According to Skyliner:

Boeing 747 -419 26910 1180 EC-MDS Wamos Air ferried 11dec20 CQM-MAD after interim storage prior return to lessor ex N342AS

It seems that Wamos Air is quietly retiring their 747 fleet for good. They still didn't post about it in their social media - instead, they keep posting "fun facts" about their Jumbo fleet.

https://www.bringourbirdshome.co.nz/our-aircraft

There is a group in NZ trying to save this former NZ 744 ZK-NBV, hopefully they can. Was NZ's last 744 in service at least.

Iemand91 wrote:

BA's 747 G-BYGC with Boac Retro Livery made a short hop from Cardiff to St. Athan today.
This was the last ever British Airways 747 flight thus ending a 50 year history of BA 747's.

Arrival of G-BYGC at St. Athan:

Remarkably, the Queen of England has outlived the Queen of the Skies at the flag carrier.

ZK-NBT wrote:

https://www.bringourbirdshome.co.nz/our-aircraft

There is a group in NZ trying to save this former NZ 744 ZK-NBV, hopefully they can. Was NZ's last 744 in service at least.

That's very nice! If only they could keep her operational somehow.

Reported

After China Airlines all B747-400 passenger fleet retirement press was reported in Nov.

B-18215 (last build -400 passenger )was made a training flight on 12.Dec.

yanzistart wrote:

Reported

After China Airlines all B747-400 passenger fleet retirement press was reported in Nov.

B-18215 (last build -400 passenger )was made a training flight on 12.Dec.

It made one 16 and one 24 min flight. First one in 4 months.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/b-18215
Doubt it was "training". They could send the crews on a freighter flight! They've still got 17 operating with one parked for a month (which I think is more likely for heavy check than "stored" unless someone has any info its just been sitting on the apron at TPE). More likely these 2 short flights had something to do with keeping the plane airworthy by running it every now and then so its not really in "long term" storage" and especially if there may be getting it ready for a potential customer or flying off to real long term storage
in the desert as they are supposed to be all up for sale.

Air India B744 VT-EVA 'Agra' (msn 28094) is back in the air. She flew commercial on BOM-DEL today for repositioning to DEL, and will be exclusively flying DEL-CCU domestic -- 1 sector each direction-- for the next 3 weeks to cater to year end rush. She must be among the very few pax jumbos, and specifically of the -400 kind, to be still flying. Never imagined it would be Air India making this sort of weird history, but its 2020 and anything can happen!

Beyond new year rush, AI B744 sub-fleet's days appear very numbered as Indian government has received 2 ex-AI 77Ws for VVIP transport in Sept and Oct 2020, and at least one of them has started ferrying VVIP (first flight was to MAA with Indian President).

FlyingHonu001 wrote:

D-ABVO left ENS out from deep storage on a steep angle for retirement
16/12 ENS - FRA
17/12 FRA - BOS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BP1mJWYBmU

Shame about this one in particular, as it's the only 747 I've ever been on...

FlyingHonu001 wrote:

D-ABVO left ENS out from deep storage on a steep angle for retirement
16/12 ENS - FRA
17/12 FRA - BOS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BP1mJWYBmU

Looks and sounds like they just went for max blast because...why not?

trex8 wrote:

yanzistart wrote:

Reported

After China Airlines all B747-400 passenger fleet retirement press was reported in Nov.

B-18215 (last build -400 passenger )was made a training flight on 12.Dec.

It made one 16 and one 24 min flight. First one in 4 months.
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/b-18215
Doubt it was "training". They could send the crews on a freighter flight! They've still got 17 operating with one parked for a month (which I think is more likely for heavy check than "stored" unless someone has any info its just been sitting on the apron at TPE). More likely these 2 short flights had something to do with keeping the plane airworthy by running it every now and then so its not really in "long term" storage" and especially if there may be getting it ready for a potential customer or flying off to real long term storage
in the desert as they are supposed to be all up for sale.

They are training B744F's pilot by using B744PAX indeed . Actually 4 of CI's B747-400 passenger are looks like airworthiness. They are connected GPU as daily schedule.
However ,the certification of passenger seats are going to expired by the end of the year. so just the matter of time....

Per flight radar24. The last two times each CI 744 pax has flow are:
B18210. Nov 8. June 18
B18211 Dec 4 . Oct 7
B18212 Oct 26. Jul 27
B18215 Dec 12 (two fights). Aug 18
All flights in Dec have been only less than 30 minutes. (16, 21 and 24 minutes)
Al the flights since they were effectively grounded in Feb/Mar have been at most less than 30 minutes once a month.
I doubt they are pilot training flights, even one or two rounds of touch and goes will likely take longer. In the past they will have flown to KHH for those.
They dont even need to put new type rated pilots on one circuit in the air, they usually go from simulator to line flying. If they really want to get totally new pilots on the 747 up to speed, they can send them on a regional cargo flight TPE_HKG_TPE.
Please share if you have details of what the flights are for but I still suspect it has more to do with maintenance issues than pilot training.

OT but CI chairman says the 3 777Fs they will have by end of January will be in addition to the 18 744Fs they operate, good news for the 747 though by mid decade the first will have to go with the new CAA rules saying no plane more than 26 years age on the ROC register.

A little off topic, but does anyone know how many 747-4F's are in full Polar Air Cargo colors?? Thank You

Virgin Atlantic's last 747 G-VROY is going to depart London Heathrow for Las Vegas today.
Live stream at Big Jet TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgXm80dBnAs

Hi there!

I didn't want to start a new post, but I figured I'd ask here since since its under 747 tracking and I saw some ELP name drops in here.

There was a 747-200, Flightaware showed it as TUS>TUS and circle over ELP. 42G was the identifier. Anyone know what this could have been? It appeared to have an all white belly, and what appeared to be a blue-ish/dark purple tail. It was around FL300.

Not the first time it's flown this particular pattern.

Thanks for any insight!

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/42G

RAZ29 wrote:

Hi there!

I didn't want to start a new post, but I figured I'd ask here since since its under 747 tracking and I saw some ELP name drops in here.

There was a 747-200, Flightaware showed it as TUS>TUS and circle over ELP. 42G was the identifier. Anyone know what this could have been? It appeared to have an all white belly, and what appeared to be a blue-ish/dark purple tail. It was around FL300.

Not the first time it's flown this particular pattern.

Thanks for any insight!

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/42G

Rolls Royce 747-200 N787RR. Used as a flying engine testbed, most recently for their 787 engine. Based out of TUS, did a few flights out of VCV about a year ago.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N787RR

https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/ ... ays/34259e

Another one bites the dust.

G-CIVF at NQY

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Boeing 747-400 Passenger Fleet Tracking/Retirements Thread - 2021

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