Antonov 124 Into Fairford today

[Nuclearsquash]

Evening,

Doubt anyone is interested but the chap below flew into Fairford today at approx 10:00am.

Got to say it's a big aircraft very distinct noise, subtly different from the usual Boeing or Airbus stuff you hear flying around.

Wonder what he was doing in Fairford?



fairly sure it was the same livery (do they come in anything else?) however he was banking away from me at the time i saw it, but got a pretty good view of the immense undercarriage.

[FourWheelDrift]

Volga-Dnepr are a big cargo carrier, they have a UK base at Stanstead. Could have just been a routine drop off or pick up at Fairford.

[Simpo Two]

You could stick some windows in that and make it an airliner...

[topsparks]

You would have to fly below 12,000 feet as the only part of them pressurized is the cockpit!,spend quite of lot of time loading them when I was in the RAF.

[tuffer]

Pre-positioning some heavy weaponry prior to an assault on Iran........

[eccles]

We get them in work quite regularly (we had 3 over two days a fortnight ago). The Army use them to move their helicopters around if they're going long distances.

[thatone1967]

is it too early to be bringing stuff in for the IAT?

[Oxygen Thief]

They are in and out of Brize Norton three or four times a week. Taking things out to Afgan.

[aeropilot]

Oxygen Thief said:

They are in and out of Brize Norton three or four times a week. Taking things out to Afgan.

Which maybe why it has had to go into Fairford, as Brize's runway has been 'black' after someone landed a Herk wheels up on Brize's runway a few days ago.
Although, I would have thought it might have been cleared by now....?

[thatone1967]

aeropilot said:

someone landed a Herk wheels up on Brize's runway a few days ago.

That was a bit silly wasn't it!

Edited by thatone1967 on Thursday 13th May 14:45

[5potTurbo]

We used to have these coming into Luxembourg, and I used to live not far from the airport.

The house windows were rattled in their frames at home when these took off.

[RizzoTheRat]

topsparks said:

You would have to fly below 12,000 feet as the only part of them pressurized is the cockpit!,spend quite of lot of time loading them when I was in the RAF.

It's got about 80 seats in the preasurised bit between the cockpit and the wing, so your luggage allowance would be huge

[Oxygen Thief]

aeropilot said:

Oxygen Thief said:

They are in and out of Brize Norton three or four times a week. Taking things out to Afgan.

Which maybe why it has had to go into Fairford, as Brize's runway has been 'black' after someone landed a Herk wheels up on Brize's runway a few days ago.
Although, I would have thought it might have been cleared by now....?

The runway here was up and running last weekend after the C-130 incident. C-17's were doing short take off's with the Herc still on the runway.

[Oxygen Thief]

Forgot to add, I have a few pictures of the stricken Herc if anyone is interested.

[FourWheelDrift]

Photo's here too - http://www.fightercontrol.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.ph...

[Oxygen Thief]

The photo's I took were with the under carrage still retracted and the aircraft still on a tilt. I'll put one up later, the pictures are on my laptop, I'm posting from my phone.