Boeing 727 G-OSRB just flying overhead south towards Reading area... beautiful red tail as it flew away from the Chilterns

Cargologic 747 G-CLAA came out of Heathrow now climbing like stink - 16000' when he passed over Purley. Not sure if that is down to the aircraft being very light or the absence of conflicting traffic in the Biggin hold - or both!

That is high so close to coming out of LHR! Over the last weeks there seems to have been many cargo 747's visiting LHR and I've noticed that quite a few come in from far-away and then seem to hop over to somewhere near on the continent and thus being light seem to 'hammer it' on departure. Probably only saw them hit 12,000ft by your neck of the woods mr T, perhaps the captain of your 16,000ft 747 is an ex-U2 driver ? ;-)

See the NASA SOFIA 747SP has just got airborne from Cologne...

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....967a743fb8.png

Now on a SW course between Faroes and Iceland - wonder what they are observing...

4 x F-16s (3 x USAF, 1 x Greek AF)

NASA SP returned to Cologne via the UK Midlands in the wee hours (the reason I know is I'm starting to find out why they are known as the wee hours! :})

Fatlass about to depart Northolt...

Thanks for that

Currently here near London City we have one of the Antonovs audibly go directly overhead it seems every day for several months now. Random times and indeed aircraft. Sometimes more than one. The sound difference between the 12 and the 26 can be learned.

Only shame is it seems to be unfailingly overcast when they go over, have hardly ever seen one. As an amazing contrast, when the Mars spaceshot touched down late last night it was brilliant sky clear and Mars, plus plenty of stars, for once visible (Little Miss WHBM, on having Mars pointed out, says "OK, now where's the rocket ?").

It was nice and clear last night, I whipped me telescope out and had a peer at the moon - the crater edges along the terminator really stand out well.

NASA 747 SP SOFIA flying laboratory out of Cologne, routing via Norwich and currently over Wales

Is the NASA 747 unwelcome over Belgium just like most USAF flights? It's just flown CGN-S Wales via Norwich.

G-CLAA just came over out of Heathrow again - rate of climb not nearly so good this time, only around 12000' - came in earlier from the US.

AN124 RA-82044 also just came over at 33000 and clearly visible below most of whatever species of cloud is up in the stratosphere this morning, presumably cirrus though it didn't look any different to the lower level clag drifting slowly over...

SOFIA SP N747NA returned to Cologne a little after 1am, via France and Belgium - presume the routing via Norfolk positioned it for whatever observations it was doing last night... love to see it; although doubtless I saw it with Pan Am back in me spotting days, I do like to see unusual aeroplanes and I've always had a soft spot for the SP. Remember the first one I ever saw over my school during the summer term of '76.

I'm a fellow 747SP fan so, here's a question for the spotters out there. How many SPs are still air worthy, l would guess there are not many.

Planespotters lists just four as active, NASA, two with Pratt & Whitney and one based at Las Vegas. Three written off, one preserved and of the remainder, roughly half are listed as scrapped, the rest stored or parked.

Thought I'd spotted Russia's equivalent yesterday, but I think it was just an optical Ilyushin.

Classic! :}

Thanks Treadigraph for the quick reply. Only four left! Last time l saw one was VP-BAT bashing the circuit at Prestwick and that's about three years ago. Seems unlikely that I'll see another :{

I thought that VP-BAT was still airworthy and for sale ?

In other news A7-HHK inbound to LHR in the next while for any rare A340 fans out there.