
Russian Mystery Planes at SFO - shill
http://blog.sfgate.com/cmcginnis/2017/05/04/russian-mystery-plane-at-sfo/
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hourislate
Probably delivering Aircraft Engines to different Maintenance facilities
around the country. If you recall they had to lease an Anatov to deliver an
engine for Swiss Air when one of their 777's had an emergency landing in
Iqaluit.

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/swiss-air-777-engine-
rep...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/swiss-air-777-engine-repair-
iqaluit-airport-1.3970708)

~~~
pdelbarba
That's a common use of these kinds of cargo aircraft, but if they have
multiple visits from multiple aircraft for a single company, I'd be surprised
if it was all just replacement engine transport.

~~~
hourislate
How come? Couldn't Rolls Royce or GE have them under contract for parts
distribution. Perhaps with all the new aircraft deliveries all the carriers
are taking, they need to bring in new parts and engines, etc. Would make sense
to have 1 cargo company bid on distribution to keep cargo costs down.

~~~
abstractbeliefs
Because heavy lift aircraft are perfect when you need to get something bulky
somewhere else, fast.

When it's multiple somethings and it's not time critical (days or weeks rather
than hours), it's economically far more sensible to ship by sea.

Sure, a service centre _could_ really need half a dozen flights of engines,
but given how well planned aircraft maintenance is, it would certainly be a
turn up for the books to suddenly need such a number so urgently.

~~~
hourislate
That makes sense....

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pdelbarba
I doubt they'd run one of these to ship Teslas. You can just throw them on a
car carrier ship and have them anywhere in the world within a few weeks. You'd
only be able to fit maybe 12 cars in there but it could cost in excess of
$200k to run the flight anywhere outside the continent (rough numbers)

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ricardobeat
That's only 16k per car, not outlandish considering they can sell for $80k+

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niftich
You can find the tail numbers for Volga-Dnepr's A124 fleet on various flight
tracker sites, like FlightRadar24 [1].

Four of their planes have been in SFO in the past week:

RA-82081 was in SFO on April 28 and flew to Kinston, South Carolina, then
continued on May 2 to Nantes, then Leipzig.

RA-82074 arrived in SFO on April 30 from Milan MXP via Goose Bay, then from
May 2-4 flew to Kinston, Nantes, and Chateauroux.

RA-82047 was in SFO on May 2, and flew to Columbus OH, then to Everett WA.

RA-82077 landed in SFO on May 3, arriving from Tokyo via Anchorage, then flew
onto Kinston the next day.

\---

Meanwhile, in the same week, RA-82042 has been to French Guiana, Barbados,
Toulouse, Madrid, and East Midlands; RA-82043 flew on May 3 from Leipzig to
Beijing; and RA-82044 has been in Iraq, France, Germany, Mali, Germany,
Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, and Germany again.

[1] [https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/volga-dnepr-
airl...](https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/volga-dnepr-airlines-vi-
vda)

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bobochan
Amazing planes. Bombardier used one to ship a locomotive to Ireland a few
years back. If I remember correctly they were a little behind on the order,
but they needed to get at least one locomotive delivered so that crews could
start training on it.

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joezydeco
I spotted one of these at ORD (Chicago O'Hare) back in January.

It was a regular flight as far as air traffic went, FlightAware listed it as
Volga-Dnepr Airlines flight 9305.

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everybodyknows
Witnessing an AN-124 takeoff, from ground level, is unforgettable. I was half
a mile away and still had to put my fingers in my ears.

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lsllc
Space-X moving rockets around?

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greglindahl
SpaceX's rockets are small enough that they can move by road.

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oldmancoyote
I noticed two gratuitous cuts at liberals: Clinton and Sanders. The cuts are
the sort that don't normally appear is such venues. They resemble the fake
comments that Russian opinion manipulation AIs generate.

