HiFly Black Airbus A340 at Manchester

[Chock 17,769]

Quick question for anyone who might know. Yesterday I saw a black-liveried HiFly Airbus A340 coming in to land at Manchester EGCC, I've never seen that thing land there before and I know HiFly do a lot of charter stuff, so does anyone know if that was a scheduled flight or a one-off visit? It looked really great in that black livery.

[wizzards 99]

would it be this one ,looks very smart to me,Taking off at Berlin Tegel according to the orig poster

 

 

[Chock 17,769]

Yup, that is it. I really liked the livery on it and was kind of hoping it would be coming into Manchester regularly as it looked really striking in that paint job. I love the appearance of the A340 anyway, it reminds me of the old 707s and DC-8s you used to see years ago.

[HighBypass 2,339]

Black invariably makes a plane look good. Did the pilot rotate a little early? The main gear seemed to be dragging along for quite some time? Nice bit of wing flex on the climb out - was it a gust or was pitch deliberately increased by a little too much?

Interesting to see the clean centre gear wheels - not equipped with brakes, unlike the ones on the DC-10-30 and MD-11.

[KevinAu 441]

No. Nobody would rotate 'early'. That's just somebody's technique you're noticing.  Instead of continuously rotating the nose higher throughout the takeoff into the climbout attitude, he gave a pause and held the attitude constant while rolling on the mains to wait for the mains to lift off before continuing the pitch up.  That's what you noticed.

[waleed 26]

It made a flight into KMIA for Thomas Cook.

 

[HighBypass 2,339]

Cheers Kevin! The technique would arguably lessen the chance of a tailstrike too.

Nice find Waleed.  It should make Alan more happy - the A340 was smoking almost as much as the old 707s and DC-8s!... almost...

[WingZ 547]

Natty... but remember, we got there first! :)

 

 

[HighBypass 2,339]

Er.. no.. We got there first I believe 

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2006/06/stuff_eng_profile_night_spitfires.htm

[WingZ 547]

Erm, discounted I believe on the grounds that

"It scared the ###### out of you"! 

[Chock 17,769]

2 hours ago, waleed said:

It made a flight into KMIA for Thomas Cook

Cheers. I figured it was probably 'filling in' for one of the locally based airlines and did think it might have been Thomas Cook. I guess one of their A330's or 767s is in for maintenance or something.

Anyway it was a really cool-looking paint job and unusual to see such an ETOPS-specialised airliner at Manchester. I was on the way to be all creative and make some storage cabinets for Katie the horsey's stable on Saturday morning, just thinking 'what a nice day' and putting the roof down on my car (not something you get much chance to do in Manchester lol) when that thing went overhead its wheels coming down and I thought, woaah, you don't see many A340s coming over here, and certainly not in that groovy paint scheme.