While doing research, I came across a few things that have me intensely curious. Most of Atlas Airs' fleet is designated( at least, as far as Airliners.net is concerned...) 747-47UF/SCD...Most of UPS's fleet is 747-44AF/SCD. Now, the SCD probably stands for Side Cargo Door, or something of that nature... but...There's a -4HAF/ER/SCD, -4J6M, -4R7F/SCD...I'm guessing it has to do with the type of engines installed, or special equipment...Can someone enlighten me? THANKS!!!

-4XX indicates that it's a -400 series of some variant, and the 00s get replaced by the Boeing customer code. So actually, the customer code in your example of Boeing 747-47UF and Boeing 747-44AF would be 7U and 4A respectively. The F indicates that it's a freighter, and rightfully so since it's a -400F. Then you have the -400ERF, which for some reason, in your example, got listed as the -4HAF/ER (HA being the airline's customer code). As for -4J6M, the M actually indicates that it's a combi, and the airline's customer code is J6.

You are correct, it is indeed Side Cargo Door (sometimes you will see other stuff such as SDF, which is Side Door Freighter or BCF, which is Boeing Converted Freighter).

What is confusing however, is that some of the other stuff is related to the original customer of the aircraft and its spec for that customer (including engines, seating etc), and that won't change unless the aircraft is significantly altered in configuration. As you probably know, a lot of freighter planes started out as passenger aircraft (most famously perhaps the MD-11, which was a flop as a commercial airliner since it was a tri-jet when all the airlines wanted ETOPs aircraft cos they are cheaper to run, so it was snapped up by freight companies). This means they could have an original customer code which is completely irrelevant to what the aeroplane is presently employed as. Not only that, quite a lot of airliners are in fact bought by leasing companies and then leased out to airlines, there are several big companies around the world which do that and one of them is Guggenheim Aviation Partners, they were the original customer for a lot of freighter 747s and their Boeing Customer Code is HA, so the HAF designation is a freighter for them, even though they actually sold them to another leasing company, Air Castle. See how stupid and confusing the system is?

In fact, it is so confusing, that Boeing have now dropped the use of customer codes (starting last year in fact).

Ahh, OK...Got it...Customer codes..ugh...So, other than seeing that it has PW or GE's, and counting antennae...And BTW, I also got BDSF. Which is a Bedek converted freighter. They're a company in Israel that converts Pax into freighters. From what I can tell, there's an extra window on the lower level of these in front of the regular door window...Thanks!

12 hours ago, Curtis Smith said:

While doing research, I came across a few things that have me intensely curious. Most of Atlas Airs' fleet is designated( at least, as far as Airliners.net is concerned...) 747-47UF/SCD...Most of UPS's fleet is 747-44AF/SCD. Now, the SCD probably stands for Side Cargo Door, or something of that nature... but...There's a -4HAF/ER/SCD, -4J6M, -4R7F/SCD...I'm guessing it has to do with the type of engines installed, or special equipment...Can someone enlighten me? THANKS!!!

For what it's worth, something like -4HAF/ER/SCD is incredibly non-standard (and redundant, an ERF has a side cargo door by default). I'm guessing you're getting this from an operator website, or some random site? PlaneSpotters.net is pretty accurate with the proper naming scheme. I believe we simplify it slightly in our own aircraft titles, so instead of -4HAF/ER, it's -4HAERF.

Interestingly enough, when you look at it on the level of ICAO, all you're looking at is B744. The only outlier in all of the aircraft we're giving you is the 400D, which is B74D.

You will not have to worry about some of that in the future, Boeing has announced they are stopping customer codes - David Lee

...And taking it a little further...It wouldn't be much of an "F" without the SCD now would it? VERY labor intensive to load that one.  Thanks, I was just wondering if there was a clue hidden to say EXACTLY what kind of equipment it had... Was looking at pictures at Airliners.net for some project ideas...

58 minutes ago, Curtis Smith said:

...And taking it a little further...It wouldn't be much of an "F" without the SCD now would it? VERY labor intensive to load that one.  Thanks, I was just wondering if there was a clue hidden to say EXACTLY what kind of equipment it had... Was looking at pictures at Airliners.net for some project ideas...

Abx had some older 767 freighters without a main cargo door a long time ago - David Lee

8 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

For what it's worth, something like -4HAF/ER/SCD is incredibly non-standard (and redundant, an ERF has a side cargo door by default). I'm guessing you're getting this from an operator website, or some random site

From his initial post, looks like Airliners.net.

14 hours ago, Captain Kevin said:

From his initial post, looks like Airliners.net.

Well...there's the problem then.

I wouldn't trust the photography frat of the internet more than I could throw one of their DSLRs...

On 3/7/2017 at 5:32 PM, Curtis Smith said:

 

...And taking it a little further...It wouldn't be much of an "F" without the SCD now would it? VERY labor intensive to load that one.