June 15, 2001 at 12:11 pm
Guys, I have got a bit of a problem here. You see, I just got back from a big trip to France and England a few days ago. Our group was in Paris and London most of the time. We stayed in London, what seemed like right under the approach path to either Gatwick or Heathrow, although I am not sure which. Anyway, we were all waiting outside the front door of the hotel, and I was watching the planes go into the airport. It was mostly what seemed like 777 and probably Airbus planes (A340 and A330). Once though, I saw a very different looking aircraft as opposed to those other types. It had four engines stacked on the rear sides of the fuselage just like a VC10 or an Il-62. I was looking through my Jane’s identification book on all the world’s aircraft and I looked up both and realized there was a little problem. The aircraft had a pair of a fairings coming from the backs of the wing, which is reminiscent of most Tupolev designs. The Il-62 and VC10 didn’t have this feature (at least not the photos I saw of them). I looked up all Russian airliners and the only other two it could have possibly been would be the Tu-134 Crusty or the Tu-154 Careless. Both of these jets have rear mounted engines like a DC-9 or Fokker 100 (although the Tu-154 also has a third tail-mounted engine like a 727. They don’t have four rearmouned engines, just two (three on the Tu-154 as I said). So what did I see?