QF 744 Temporary Storage

[Fred C]

Hi, first post. Please be gentle.

Rumour has it that VH-OJH will shortly be parked in AVV for a rest. Lets hope it doesn't end up like VH-EBU.

[Tom PER]

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Suprised we haven't seen some B763's being parked.

Thanks for the info.

[Brian Wilkes]

They will rotate a number of 744's for a rest over the next 12 months, OJH being the first maybe for 3 months to 4 months then swapped by another QF 744 and so on!

[Adrian B]

Any heavies that are due for maintenance, rather than just sitting there? As for space I would not have thought there was the ramps space for long term parking, given the use of the 'main apron' for freight and special ops, such as moto GP, F1, Super bike etc etc etc.

[Brian Wilkes]

CX parked a number of aircraft there a few years back due to SARS. There plenty of room!

[Kent Broadhead]

And just before its 19th birthday too, with its old RR engines!!

Just looking at Airfleets, and 21 of the 30 QF 744s are 16 or more years old...

That said, 3 of the 763s come of age later in the year!

Kent

[Mike W]

Interesting it's OJH because we know the history of that bird, plunging off the end of a soaking wet Bangkok runway a few years ago, incurring millions of Qantas dollars in repairs to render the mishap as an incident rather than an accident.

Probably the most expensive 744 in the fleet (ER's included) thanks to that and now parked up

[Fred C]

It didn't take long for that old chestnut to come up.. I especially liked the use of the words "plunging & soaking wet".

It is just another aeroplane in the fleet.

[Martin Buzzell]

Originally Posted by Fred C

It didn't take long for that old chestnut to come up.. I especially liked the use of the words "plunging & soaking wet".

It is just another aeroplane in the fleet.

Exactly. It handles and flies just like the others, well not at the moment.

[Grahame Hutchison]

I would have called it "Gracefully Aquaplaning", after all the B747 is the Queen of The Skies.