A great set of pictures, very interesting! I’ll never forget the time I stood there at STN watching one of the Volga An-124’s (once very common to STN) being loaded up with lorries. Not 1, not 2, not 3! But 4 articulated lorries drove on and were engulfed into that huge hold.

And sorry for being rude, nice report Green320! Lucky you, I still want to go on a 146 (or Avro). I was due on one to AMS last year with Buzz, until Ryanair took over and cancelled the flights 😡

Originally posted by LBARULES
Is that true Allen? I would be quite surprised if they were.

I heard this too, but apparently they’re having difficulty in selling them due to the ‘underground’ toilets in the planes. The other airlines don’t seem to want them configured like that :confused:

Great photos Tom! Especially like the Bmi Fokker, very nice. Look forward to seeing more 🙂

Andrew, the smaller the bar the bigger the aircraft in general. With say a 747, the tug can get right under the nose of the plane, and so only a very short bar is needed. Planes such as the Fokker 100 have the longest tow bars, as the the tug has to be quite a distance from the nose wheel, as it cant fit under the plane!

Jeanske, that would not have been caused by pushing the aircraft extremely hard (or I very much doubt so). The tow-bar is connected to the tug via shear pins (they slide into that small ring at the front of the bar) and in the case of the tug going faster than it should be, these pins will snap. The pins can also snap if you brake too hard in the tug, as the plane will want to carry on forward whereas the tug wont! This is why it is not a very easy job, and you also have to be very careful, because if these pins snap there is a chance of the plane hitting the tug, or visa versa. On occasions they have been known to make the nose wheel collapse, and on a big aircraft that would crush the tug at the same time.