If someone is too mentally unwell to understand the laws of foreign countries and the ramifications of not complying with them (whatever those ramifications might be and whatever their “excuse”), then they should have their passports taken off them and they should not be allowed to travel – allowing such people to travel is just asking for these sorts of things to happen.

Andy

Thus, I suppose, that these “Irish” Caravelles never carried any Irish registrations, painted on them. In my opinion, these registrations were rather the “paper” registrations, for ferry flights from Spain to Taiwan only (or, maybe, those registrations were the call signs only).

No, as I said above, there is a picture of EI-AVY (marked as such – basic Iberia colours, no titles or logos but with the Irish registration) in John Wegg’s Caravelle book. The caption says that it is landing in Rome on its delivery flight from Spain to Taiwan. The registrations were undoubtedly painted on the aircraft, but I suspect for only a short period.

Andy

Nice pics… I’ve only been to Wevelgem once – there used to be a former French Air Force Caravelle 10 parked there

Andy

Unless you have a real compelling reason to go with such a wide-ranging lens, I’d question the wisdom of acquiring one. The Canon in that range is very expensive. For the most part, I do not rate Tamron these days. Lenses of this range ARE a compromise between flexibility and absolute quality. If you are looking for something that primarily covers the wide end of the range (you said you already had a 100-400 for the long stuff) then a 28-300 will be bulky and heavy compared to a wide-to-short-tele zoom. I know if I had a 28-300 (I don’t) I’d end up using it mostly at the short end of its range and I’d still use the 100-400 for the longer stuff. OK, undoubtedly there are occasions when going from wide to medium-tele in one lens is useful and flexible. But my advice – look for a 28-135 or 24-105 to complement the 100-400, not a 28-300 – and if you want to cover 28 all the way up to 300 in one go, use the 100-400 on one body and a 28-135 or similar on a second body.

Andy

Surprised ZA001 hasn’t flown a second time (add up the flight times for ZA001’s first flight and ZA002’s flight). Perhaps ZA001 has reached the current limit of its fatigue life – maybe they’re still checking to see if any cracks have appeared in the wing/fuselage join! 😀

Andy

I’ve never flown on any version of the A340 but the 343 is notorious for having a very sluggish climb rate. I’ve seen a good few lumbering out of LIS over the city and they never seem to be getting anywhere fast!

No quad is as well endowed with power as are twins – simplistically, a twin jet needs to be able to continue takeoff after V1 on 50% of its engines (i.e. half of the available maximum power), whereas a quad only needs to be able to continue takeoff on 75% of its engines (three quarters of normal available maxiimum power). Thus a quad will always tend towards inferior performance versus an equivalent twin.

Having said that, the A340 wing is also optimised towards efficient cruise rather than to climb performance, and the wing design whilst very good comes from an era where such compromises were sometimes necessary.

Any airline looking for a cheap and capable plane just now will find plenty in the desert.

Actually, that’s not true. There are very few A340s stored and even fewer have been parted out – three Cathay aircraft are at Victorville, but they are not disposed of yet and may go back to Cathay if the economy picks up. Virgin and Iberia have parked a few A343s and A346s, but these again are the result of the economy rather than the airline’s desire to get rid. And actually, recently Air Asia X have had problems acquiring additional “good” (i.e. ones that don’t need a major check) A343s for its long haul expansion.

There aren’t really any other “cheap and capable” planes in the desert that are in the same class as the A340 – hardly any used 777s or A330s are parked, and in general (and as long as an airline needs the full capabilities of an A340 class aircraft) 767s are smaller, less capable and less efficient than A340s.

Andy

These two are for part-out – probably in need of a d-check or the likes, and worth more in parts than it will cost to keep them opreational (especially as GF have a bunch of A330s coming).

If you think a 15 year old A340 is young for scrapping, you might be surprised to learn at least one (alhtough I think its two) four year old Frontier A318s have recently been sold for part-out – again, worth more in parts than to sell as there’s only a limited market for A318s

Andy