This airplane is older than most of you, dear friends. Because, according to statistics, my main audience is people under 50, and this airliner was already cruising the skies of our planet in the mid-1970s. At the time of these shots – it is already half a century old, can you imagine?
So, meet the Boeing 747-200, or according to other sources – Boeing 747-212B. What’s the difference – I don’t know, but welcome to the comments, dear aviation enthusiasts, maybe you can tell us.
Actually, I also get aesthetic pleasure from admiring airplanes, and I even visited a real professional spotting session at Sheremetyevo Airport twice. It was a lo-o-ong time ago… feels like not even in the last, but in the previous life… But it’s one thing to take pictures, and quite another to understand the details.
In the 20th century, 50 years ago, this airliner soared into the sky under the emblem of the Canadian airline CP AIR (Canadian Pacific Airlines). Can you imagine how people were flying inside this giant? Stewardesses were serving hot meals and coffee, the captain greeted passengers on board, fuelers refueled the plane, technicians fixed it, and passengers flew about their business, for vacations, important meetings, and so on.
A decade later, CP Air ceased to exist, and our today’s hero continued its journey and headed to a completely different part of the world, to a country completely unlike Canada, giving the impression that it flew to another planet simply because it ended up in Pakistan.
Yes-yes-yes, in December 1985 it became part of the airline PIA (Pakistan International Airlines). Can you imagine? Completely different atmosphere, different people, sounds, smells, air temperature on the ground (of course, in the sky it’s about the same everywhere)… Yes, friends, in the livery of Pakistan Airlines, our hero flew for as long as 20 years until in 2006 it changed its owner again. And once more it headed to another continent – this time to Africa. Can you imagine what a traveler it is? A real wanderer!))
Since 2006 it began flying under the flag of Sierra Leone, wearing the livery of the airline Orange Air. Can you imagine its feelings from a new change of everything around? First there was Canada, then Pakistan, and now – Sierra Leone.
But that’s not all. Our sky conqueror did not stop there, its soul was calling for other lands, and in 2007 it again changed not only the country but also the part of the world, heading here, to Asia, to Thailand, under the emblem of the airline Orient Thai Airlines.
After 7 years, our giant realized that this country is quite suitable for settling down and living a carefree retired life. Which is exactly what it did.
In 2014, this Boeing 747 hero was decommissioned and even partially dismantled, but it was not planning to fade into oblivion, so it was brought here, to Runway Street Food – a food market, that is, a street food market. Probably transported in parts and assembled here, but that’s not certain.
In any case, today our beauty, which had been cruising the heavenly ocean of our planet for decades, has found its peace here. Moreover, judging by the photos – at first it settled here on an empty lot, and only later Runway Street Food grew around it, where the airplane serves as a real attraction, a calling card. For me personally, this Boeing 747-200 is one of the unofficial landmarks of Pattaya.
Well, let’s be happy for this retiree, it had a great flight, I don’t know how many times, but summing up the kilometers in the sky, it probably circled our planet, and now it enjoys a calm retired life in Thailand, still attracting attention and inspiring respect.
Links to photos and sources of information about the biography of this Boeing 747 I left under the video.
