Trip report/LOG Abu Dhabi, Tripoli & Milan Malpensa
Hi All;
Another flight to a couple of the scheduled destinations, a few photos as usual on Fotopic, again Flickr will have to wait.
AUH-TIP-MXP-AUH is a regular scheduled route that we undertake.As you all know, visiting the same airport all the time gets a little less exciting the more you do it and I feel the same now about Tripoli. I get several e-mails when I say things like this along the lines of "how dare you complain when I would give my right arm etc" so I apologise for my misdemeanour but it's the same in all walks of life isnt it?? variety being the spice of life?? We used to drop into Mitiga, the military airfield in Tripoli and drop the freight but no longer. Unfortunately, I only ever got to go there once and that was in the dark and I could see so many tails going begging, I was looking forward to a daylight visit and I am still waiting.....
Malpensa though had a nice surprise on this occasion in the shape of a brand new Ferrari California being shipped to Australia! We quite often carry vehicles and this one, Ferrari's first hard top convertible was rather nice and at a price tag of circa £147000, was the closest I will ever get to one!! I had to sit in it didnt I?? It would have been rude not to, and pop the bonnet....
The Airbus A300 freighter, as with all freighters, can carry a multitude of different sized pallets and the locks on the floor of the aircraft cater for all these sizes. There is a worlwide standard of pallet sizes and believe me, there is a lot of them! All with different codes: PMC, PAJ, PRA, PZA, PLA, PLB, AKE.....you get the picture.The thing is, you have different codes but the same sized pallets, that's when your job gets a little more difficult. Always handy keeping a document with all the different sizes/codes to hand helps! Anyway, this ferrari was shipped on a PRA pallet which equates to a 16foot long affair.On the airbus however, the 16foot pallets do not fit into any of the locks so it becomes what's known as a "floating" pallet which as the term suggests, will move around because of the lack of suitable locks. So, these pallets have to be restrained using straps, no problem just a little more work! I think you can see the strapping in one of the above pics. The red and white tag you can see in the pic states that this pallets carries dangerous goods, in this case petrol and batteries and not the launch button a la F1 you can see on the steering wheel!!
There is also a 20foot pallet available but these blighters thankfully dont fit on the airbus, they cannot be turned through the door on entry.
Abu Dhabi Sunday 27/09/09:
Only one of interest;
AP-BIT Shaheen 732, not in my Db and picture on Fotopic.
Tripoli Sunday 27/09/09:
Please don't call me like some of you do!! But TIP is getting rather mundane now, sorry!! How I wish we could go over to Mitiga like we used to L All the usual Afriqiyah/Buraq and not a lot else apart from:
SE-DUU Petro Air FK100 all white.
10201 Swedish Air Force G4.
5A-ONG Afriqiyah A330.
5A-ONI Afriqiyah A319.
5A-DLL Libyan Air Transport IL-76, picture on Fotopic.
5A-DRT & DZZ Libyan Air Transport IL-76's, picture on Fotopic.
These last two 76's seem to be in storage. They have appeared here recently and are parked on the same side and close to the IL-76's, Caravelles etc.
These two Libyan Air Transport IL-76's are recent arrivals here and appear to be in storage. 5A-DZZ And 5A-DRT.
More rotting corpses here in TIP in the shape of 3 727's and a couple of F-27's.
Milan Malpensa Sunday 27/09/09:
Not a great deal seen here this visit;
D-ACNA Lufthansa Regional CRJ900.
PT-MSL TAM A345.
SU-PBG Air Memphis A320.
Landing back in Abu Dhabi I managed to see A6-EHK so just EHL left for me.Luckily, I had to return to the airport later, near midnight to "kick-out" a flight which basically means I do all of my job despatching the flight but dont fly with it and A6-EHL taxied past me on departure so that's all of the Etihad fleet up to date for now!
Regards clive.
My photos can be found at http://superspottersgallery.fotopic.net
or www.flickr.com/photos/superspotter