The Chart:

Sunday, March 10, 2013

A Tribute to an Overdue Delivery #1 : Line 1420

Line 1420 (RC501) LX-VCA, Cargolux's 7th 747-8F, delivered on Friday. This frame was the first ever 747-8 built and flown, and was the first and primary test article for the program.



 She rolled out on November 12th, 2009, and first flew on February 8th, 2010, over three years ago.







After a long and diligent test program, line 1420 was flown down to Lackland Airforce Base in San Antonio to begin a slow refurbishment to delivery standards. She reappeared towards the end of 2012, flying back to Paine Field on October 2nd, 2012. Shortly after that, she flew to Portland for a paint job. When she returned to Paine Field on November 12th, 2012, she looked like she was ready to start going to work (photo thanks to Russel Hill).



Finally she delivered to Cargolux to enter a long life of revenue service, flying to her new home in Luxembourg on Friday (all other photos and video thanks to Matt Cawby).

I should have done something like this for lines 1422, 1426, 1430, and 1431. Maybe I will in the future. I think it's cool to see some visual history for frames that took two or more years to deliver into service, especially the former test frames that changed liveries.

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