Finance pulled from Sofia 747

[Trevatanus]

A real shame, would love to have seen this, wonder what will happen to her?

[gotoPzero]

Aircraft is 45 years old. So I suspect its a case of too expensive to keep it flying.

The SP, in my eyes, is the best looking commercial airliner ever made. So I hope at the very least it ends up on display somewhere rather than being cut up.

[hidetheelephants]

A lot of surplus A380 hulls with low hours coming available soon.

[Eric Mc]

SOFIA is also part funded by the German government. There have been questions about future funding for the aircraft over the past few years but, as has been said, the airframe is 45 years old and is probably coming to the end of its life now.

It's debatable whether an airborne infra-red telescope is really necessary now as we have more infra-red astronomical satellites in orbit these days - including the James Webb Space Telescope.

[robm3]

About 5 years ago I'm pretty sure I saw this plane down at Hobart airport, Tasmania.

There's a lot of interesting planes and boats in and out of there, due to the proximity to Antartica.

[couzens]

robm3 said:

About 5 years ago I'm pretty sure I saw this plane down at Hobart airport, Tasmania.

There's a lot of interesting planes and boats in and out of there, due to the proximity to Antartica.

More then likely! I caught Nasas G5 there back in 2019. Doing research over Antartica.

[gotoPzero]

robm3 said:

About 5 years ago I'm pretty sure I saw this plane down at Hobart airport, Tasmania.

There's a lot of interesting planes and boats in and out of there, due to the proximity to Antartica.

Its based there about 2-3 months of the year, so you probably did.