Yes the DC-10's were 'different' and they are missed, even if the odd MD-11F does fly over from time to time. I remember seeing one of the THY DC-10's doing and emergency return to LHR a few days after one of their's crashed in the forest outside Paris in 1974 (I think ?), the crew had an issue with a cargo door or some such, which was a contributing factor to the Paris crash. I remember also waiting until it was dark to glimpse an Air Zaire DC-10 landing for the first time at LHR, such was it's rarity back then ;-) The colour-scheme of National always used to make me smile, even on grey winter days when spotting at the Queens Building :-)

The lease of a NZ 10 caused confusion to pax, “I’m not going to NZ” when on a BA flight. 🤣

I flew on the last BA service operated by an Air New Zealand DC-10,in 1980.
Boarding from a jetty, I doubt if many of the passengers even noticed it wasn't a BA plane.

There were coaching stands, and I have found they were used on Miami and Montreal BA services, thus a surprise to wary pax.

I saw a Virgin Atlantic 747 float by earlier today, rather nice to see I must say. I'm assuming this doesn't mean that they are going to used on a limited basis as traffic increases on the long-haul sector ?

The 747 was being retired from Manchester to Heathrow, from where it will be going to USA to join Atlas Air as a troop carrier.

Noticed an interesting 787 outbound the other day, forget to mention it - Far Eastern airline I'd never heard of I think. Quick check online, Vistara from India I think it was?

Also Biman 787s now, they been regular for a bit? I hadn't noticed them until sometime in August.

Vistara started their 3 x weekly service to/from Delhi at the end of August. Biman resumed services in June, currently only one a week serving, variously, Dhaka or Sylhet.

Anyone know what happened here? Did this BA flight immediately return to LHR or is the site showing bad data?

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c2dd5ed5d6.png

It returned to Heathrow because that was exactly what it was supposed to do (planned LHR-LHR, presumably an engineering flight)

FR24 and other trackers notoriously unreliable when it comes to 'ferry' flight numbers as they will always default to the route flown the last time that flight number was used

Ah makes sense, thanks for the info!

Yes, BAW9277 (alias BA9277E) is, as the suffix indicates, an Engineering flight number.

An exotic bird blowing in on the breeze today from Mongolia apparently, eta 12.30 local. A 737 of MIAT, for what reasons who knows, but it haspinged my curiosity gene ;-)

According to Routesonline a second MIAT B737-800 flight is operating on 3rd October departing Heathrow at 1410hrs.

Seems like they are charter flights. I wonder how profitable they are using that aircraft over that distance ? Oh well, still curious as to why, maybe repatriation due to covid ??

Another chance to view the MIAT 737 at LHR today. Due in before 1pm apparently.

Not much chance of seeing it on the way in at the mo, really claggy though I think clearer weather is just over the horizon. I'm currently a couple of miles west of Biggin and I couldn't see a Citation that just departed though the following G280 was visible.

Apparently the last two BA 747's will be departing LHR at 7.40am tomorrow, Thursday8th October.

Or 08:15, or 08:40, depending on which source you believe.

8am I've seen quoted by Kemble where they are due to be headed with Friday a backup. I read they'll take off simultaneously and one will do a fly over however not sure if that's true or not.