Plain White 747-300 at Sydney

David W · #1 14th December 2009, 02:44 PM

Hi,

I was at Sydney airport on the 06/12/2009 to catch a flight to Christchurch and I noticed while driving towards the international terminal that there was a plain white 747-300 just about to take off it was around 6.00am-6.30am. Does anyone no where this plane was going or any information on it.

Thanks,

Mark W · #2 14th December 2009, 04:21 PM

The system here at work shows a movement of a MAS6207D at 0620 on the day, which is a B742 registered TF-AAA.

That is probably your bird. It was going to MEL having come from KUL.

I can't attest to its color - they all look the same where I work!

Rick G. · #3 14th December 2009, 07:58 PM

Greetings David W.,

Last week, I observed a plain white 747 taking off from Dubai International Airport, in the UAE. I was not close enough to see any registration numbers.

There is probably more than one plain white 747 plying the skies of the world however.

Rick G.

NickN · #4 14th December 2009, 08:10 PM

Dubai Air Wing have plain white 747's from memory. They use them to collect racehorses from Oz on occasion.

phil.l · #5 14th December 2009, 09:16 PM

That aircraft would be A6-GDP.

Nigel C · #6 14th December 2009, 10:33 PM

And that would make it a -200, not a -300.

Matt_L · #7 15th December 2009, 07:31 AM

Nigel's right,

it was a 200 and it was at cargo yesterday at around 1130am

NickN · #8 15th December 2009, 07:44 AM

To the untrained eye, or even if you just catch a glimpse of a plain white 747-200 it wouldn't be hard to confuse it with a -300. Either way the guy was just looking for some info and asking a question lets help him out without going into semantics once more.

David W · #9 15th December 2009, 10:27 AM

Thanks, for the reply's guys. It must have been a 200 then I didn’t get a long look at it as I was driving and it had already taken off by the time I got into the international Terminal. It looked quite dirty though.

On another note while I was waiting for the aircraft I was on (Jetstar A320 VH-VQA) to leave the gate I noticed that there was an Emirates A330 that had to wait on the taxiway for well over 25 minutes maybe even longer as it was still waiting as I was departing out. When we passed it I noticed they had shut down one of the engines.
I know Sunday mornings are extremely busy at Sydney airport but I would be surprised if this was a regular occurrence, having to wait that long for a gate. I’m sure the passengers must have been frustrated.

matthew mcdonald · #10 15th December 2009, 10:43 AM

Are you positive that it was an EK A330 as they only fly A388's, 77W's and 772LR's to Sydney.