Tag Archives: retirement

Delta Bids Farewell to the QOTS

The disappearance of the 747 from the world’s airline fleets continues apace. The most recent company to bid the Queen of the Skies farewell is Delta. Delta did operate 747s in the early days but its current fleet was acquired as a result of the takeover of Northwest. Northwest has operated plenty of 747s over the years and was the launch operator of the 747-400. They continued to operate older generation freighters for a number of years too.

Delta carried out a farewell tour for the type and it included a visit to Seattle. Prior to going to SeaTac, the plane stopped off at Everett, the place where it, and every 747 before or since, was built. It was a dismal day with low cloud and rain. The plane emerged from the clag on final approach and zipped low over the threshold to touch down before reversing thrust in a cloud of spray. It parked up at the Boeing facility next to the Future of Flight Museum where it stayed for a few hours before heading to SeaTac.

Here are a few shots of the Northwest/Delta aircraft I have photographed along with the farewell tour jet as it landed at Everett.

Bye Bye United 747s

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The disappearance of passenger 747s from service continues. Today is the last day for the United 747 fleet. I do not have anything of their earlier versions of the jet but I have seen the 747-400s in service a lot and have flown on them a couple of times too. I won’t be doing so again. A flight from San Francisco to Honolulu will repeat the first service and was sold out a long time ago. The planes have been heading to the storage yards in recent weeks and after today, there is one more to make the trip. Now the 777s and 787s will be responsible for the long-haul services.

EVA 747s Are the Next to Have Gone

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I have documented the demise of some of the fleets of Boeing 747s as airlines progressively send their planes to a new owner or a recycler. The latest airline to join the trend is EVA Air. Based in Taiwan and owned by the Evergreen shipping line, the airline was originally launched under the Evergreen name. However, there was another airline called Evergreen at that time so they had to change the name to EVA Air. Now Evergreen have gone bust, I guess they could change their name but at this point there seems little reason to do so.

I don’t know whether the retirement of the 747s includes from the freight services or whether it is just passenger use but I suspect the latter. These shots are just of the passenger jets that I have seen over the years. They have been harder to see as the 777-300ERs took on more of the routes and now they will be harder still!

Texas One Retires (for now)

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I saw online this weekend that Southwest Airlines had retired Texas One, a jet painted up in Texas colors. Texas One is a 737-300 and Southwest is accelerating the withdrawal of the 300 Series jets. It flew out of Dallas to a facility that will break the jet for parts. By coincidence, I happened to shoot this very jet the day before when it arrived at SFO. I had no idea that it would be at the end of its career. Nice surprise. For those that like the colors, fear not. I hear that Southwest will be painting another jet in this scheme before too long.

Farewell to the Junglies

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The end of the line has come for another UK military type. The Sea King HC4 has come to the end of the line for the Royal Navy. The Navy operated many Sea Kings in the anti-submarine role and for search and rescue before the Commando role was taken on. The Wessex fleet was aging and Westland had already come up with an assault version for the export market. Distinguished by its lack of radome and sponsons, the RN decided to use them as the replacement for the Wessex. I have seen them on many occasions. Living near Portsmouth as a kid, they frequently flew by. I also saw them at Navy Days. However, I have far fewer shots of them than I expected. They were not big airshow regulars.

The Junglie name had come from operations before their time and will, I suspect continue with their replacement in service, the Merlins that have been transferred from the RAF. With over 30 years of service, I guess they have done their job well.

Another 747 Operator Bites the Dust

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There is a steady stream of Boeing 747 fleet retirements right now. This month another one occurred when the last Air France 747 flight took place. I have not seen a huge number of their Jumbos over the years but they have cropped up from time to time. It turns out that the best shots I have got have all been at SFO although these were mainly taken long before I moved here.

Anyway, farewell Air France 747s. I wonder which operator will be next?

Farewell to the 58

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CHI Aviation recently said goodbye to one of their fleets. They posted online a couple of videos of three Sikorsky S-58Ts carrying out a flyby of their Howell MI headquarters before departing. Their fleet covers many types and a lot of airframes and I guess the 58s no longer fulfill a role for them. Consequently, they have gone.

I visited Howell a few years back as part of another project I was working on. While I was there, I got a few pictures of the 58s that they had in the hangar at the time. Here are a few of those shots.

Goodbye USAirways 737-400

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There are some airlines in the US that I have spent a lot of time with and there are others that have only been an occasional feature of my travel. USAirways is one that I did not use a great deal since I didn’t live in one of their core markets. However, I did sometimes find myself on one of their planes and I have certainly seen plenty of them around.

Their fleet has included a lot of the A320 family but for a long time the 737 was a big part of operations with the 737-400 a regular sight. Now, their time has come and the last flight has taken place. This prompted me to dig through the collection to see what I had of them. It seems that most of my shots come from the Washington DC area but it was nice to have older and newer schemes on the jets.

Here are a few of the jets that have now either gone to another home or have ended up as spares for the rapidly diminishing fleet of what became known as 737 Classics (although the 100 and 200 series jets might cause an eyebrow to be raised at that description).

Bye Bye ADVs

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In 1993 I was working at BAe’s plant in Warton when we had a special event. It was the last delivery of a Tornado to the RAF and the aircraft was AT051, a twin stick ADV (or F3 in RAF parlance). We all received a print of a painting of the aircraft to celebrate the event and trooped out to watch the aircraft depart. I don’t have pictures of that since cameras were not permitted inside the security perimeter at Warton.

It therefore feels slightly more personal to read all of the information online about the demise of the RAF’s ADV fleet. They have been on the way out for quite a while but the end has finally come. Since I made it across to RIAT last year, I did get some final shots of the remaining aircraft and I am glad that I did. My transition to digital shooting coincided with my move to the US so I don’t have many ADV shots that aren’t on film and I certainly didn’t shoot as many shots before going digital.

I only have a limited number of shots which amazes me given how often I saw ADVs over the years. I guess when they were common I didn’t make much effort to shoot them when film was something I treated as precious.

So here are a few mementos and good bye to a plane I liked working on.