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B-HKV Cathay Pacific 747-412

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B-HKV Cathay Pacific 747-412

Old 11th Aug 2014, 20:34
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B-HKV Cathay Pacific 747-412

B-HKV Cathay Pacific 747-412 Made her last flight from Manchester to Bruntingthorpe Leics today as CPA3337 if anyone saw her down at low level this morning . She routed in over Melton turning SW over Oakham at just above 4000 ft and then across toward Lutterworth landing at Brunty where believed she will be dismantled Got me going when she passed overhead at Oakham and she seemed to be heading terrain bound and way off course for BHX or EMA. Even thought FLR24 was playing tricks when she vanished at 0944 UTC till spoke to mate at Brunty to find she was safely down there
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Old 11th Aug 2014, 23:26
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SAD
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Old 11th Aug 2014, 23:27
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B-HUB is there now or on her way for parting out too....

TW
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Old 12th Aug 2014, 04:51
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CX3337

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Old 12th Aug 2014, 13:18
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The final take-off from Manchester is also on YouTube:

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Old 12th Aug 2014, 14:54
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All I can say is that it makes me feel old seeing B747-400s heading for the scrapyard
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Old 12th Aug 2014, 21:16
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Yes, makes me feel old too. I liked the 747-400 (as business class passenger on upper deck, never flew economy in one).

Cathay are retiring their 747s – AFAIR they were a launch customer, so these aircraft must be among the oldest -400s – in favour of 777s and A350s.
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Old 13th Aug 2014, 10:09
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So these models are around 1988 vintage ? BA got their first 2 in the summer of 89 and I believe that United had a few before then.

I'd be more interested to see a video of them landing at Bruntingthorpe than leaving MAN. I wonder if Cathay pilots flew them on the last hop, or were they already someone else's property at that point and freelancers at the helm ? Always sad to see good condition aircraft meeting the scrappers, but reality states that the parts and scrap worth of the aircraft, minus expensive upcoming maintenance checks are the prudent course of action.



SHJ
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Old 13th Aug 2014, 10:38
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The final flight was designated as CX3337.
Does this not mean it was flown by Cathay?
Perhaps someone from CX could comment?
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Old 13th Aug 2014, 10:41
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Cool

HKE and HUB already there, next to go is HUF in Sept and 1 more after that as well. HKV still owned by CX, all flown by CX crew. There's 3 more scrapped at Kemble as well.
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Old 14th Aug 2014, 00:42
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Northwest was the launch customer for the 747-400 - with PW4000 engines. Lufthansa was launch for -400/GE, and Cathay for the -400 with Rolls engines. EIS (Pratt) was early 1989.


B-HKV was not delivered until 1995 (to Singapore) and is relatively young - 87,000 hours and 12,000 cycles as of the end of June. By contrast, there are a lot of -400s out there with over 110,000 hours that are still flying (B-HOP, which was the first -400 with Rolls, delivered to Cathay in 1989, still shows as "active" with almost 117,000 hrs. and over 19,000 cycles).


A surprisingly high number - 200 of the 280 - 747-400s delivered more than 20 years ago still show as "active" (55 "out of service" and 25 "active/parked"), although the database is usually a few months out of date.


But I agree, we're going to see those early -400s retired in large numbers pretty soon.
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Old 14th Aug 2014, 10:02
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A lots depends on if the a/c is owned or leased and if it is nearing a major check or not, waste of money, unfortunately the 777 has pretty much made the 744 redundant due better fuel economy and emissions.
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Old 16th Aug 2014, 04:38
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As posted above, yes flown by CX crew.
I can vouch for that as I was the F/O!
Out of MAN we flew the SID, and as we were heading S, radar gave us vectors towards Leicester, and pretty much put us on a long final for 24 at Bruntingthorpe.
She flew beautifully, as always, and it's truly sad to see her go.
Pretty much the first thing done after the tug parked us, was drill off the registration plate at L1.
The engines are heading back to HK (as on the previous 3 a/c). This was a Pratt engined ex-SQ a/c, built in 1994, as previously mentioned.
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Old 16th Aug 2014, 05:00
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Thanks blue_side_up and spannersatcx.
It's so good to hear from folks at CX away from the topics of the Fragrant Harbour forum.
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Old 16th Aug 2014, 07:17
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Mr blue side up, did the crew have to bid for the flight, or are such things randomly chosen by crewing etc ? Was it just a few hours duty and then car service back to MAN or LHR, or were the crew responsible for the preliminary handover/dismantling ?


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Old 16th Aug 2014, 09:16
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Cool

Certain things are done by the engineers before dismantling, dummy software in some systems, owner/registration plates and various other items removed, before dismantling starts. Some are sent back to CX the rest goes through an agency to sell.

the crew get transport to wherever they are going.
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Old 17th Aug 2014, 01:27
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The Capt's for these trips will all be very senior. It's a non-standard operation, with a purely visual approach, and no proper runway markings, etc. So in other words the Capt's are hand picked. As for the F/O's, I requested this trip, but for the most part, the F/O's are assigned off the standby list, or it will just have appeared on their roster. As it turned out, it was a great experience, just sad to see such a great a/c scrapped.
We operated heavy crew to MAN the day before, then just 2 of us MAN-Bruntingthorpe the next day. Transport provided to LHR, then back to HKG a day later.
As spanners mentioned, Engineering does some basic prep and item removal from the a/c before the dismantlers take over, but as for us crew, we just shut it down and set the park brake and that's it.
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Old 17th Aug 2014, 02:49
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By the look of it, overfly RWY 24, with one hand flown left hand circuit before the final approach. Must have been a poignant moment.
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Old 17th Aug 2014, 08:39
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Thanks for the replies, curious mind has been satiated.


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Old 17th Aug 2014, 10:46
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Thanks for all the replies especially flight crew, glad I started this thread


What started out as a rather panicky log onto FL24 after she overflew Oakham at low level opened a fascinating insight into EOL procedures for the big birds.
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