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Old 26th May 2022, 06:43
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WHBM
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: London UK
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The flight engineer had the job of substituting the replacement chute, in the hold, for the original one. Engineers back at base packed them.

Aviogenex worked through two generations of Tu134, for 1969 they got three of the original spec Tu134 "no suffix" aircraft. These went back to Tupolev in early 1971 (ending up inevitably at Aeroflot), and were replaced by eventually nine Tu134A over the following several years. It was one of these latter ones, only weeks old, that was lost at Rijeka in early season 1971 with British holidaymakers, overturning on touchdown. The 134 had a notably swept wing, which may have been a handful on low speed touchdown.

Must have been an August Saturday morning in 1980 I saw three of them lined up on a remote stand facing Manchester airport terminal, with the uniformed crews (notably without ties) out on the tarmac in discussions with one another. I don't know if they were sufficiently into western aviation that they could get fuel on normal credit terms, rather than the senior captain having to come with a bagful of US Dollars.

Known as "export models", the aircraft supplied to Eastern European operators had a different fitout compared to Aeroflot aircraft, with a number of systems replaced by western products, especially the Bendix weather radar which replaced the Soviet-style glazed nose for the navigator.. The deals for sale of these were typically made at the Leipzig trade fair in the GDR each year. Besides the usual East European suspects, fleets were also sold to Vietnam, Syria, etc, and a 20-year life was quite common.
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