Great photo’s. Thanks for posting. Sad to see a World MD-11 tucked in amongst those DC-10’s! May yet see those China Southern 777F’s in a new white & purple scheme:D

I think both Virgin and Northwest 747-400’s have done it (with pax) at Biggin and North Weald Fighter Meet in years gone by (both during an inbound to LGW). Probably some rule about it now though?

Which country is registered as ‘M’? Referring to the first photo of M-LEAR…

Isle of Man i believe.

In our company SOPs the landing lights are on at all times below 10’000 (Climb and Descent)

Your thread title is a little misleading and a little worrying when first reading!

They will be shortly. They are taking over the “Houston Express” route between Houston and Luanda, Angola. This is a regular private charter for oil workers. There are two recently purchased 747-400s. The contract has been taken over as this service is currently provided by World Airways (and has been for some years) with MD-11ER’s. You will notice the registration ends with SG (Sonair Group) instead of the usual Atlas MC (after their late founder Michael Chowdry). The aircraft will be flown by Atlas pilots with Sonair cabin crew.

Personally Id choose the A340 from a rarity point of view,and also the 2-4-2 config,the 747 wins for speed,i gather on a typcial HKG-LHR flight its 45 mins faster than the airbus.

I flew Premium Economy on a Virgin 747-400 and it was 2-4-2 (in the small section on the main deck behind Upper Class) and 2-2 on the upper deck. It’s only 3-4-3 in Economy.