The McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 – end of an era

KLM MD-11On October 25, 2014 KLM will operate the last commercial flight of the MD-11 passenger jet. KLM has been the only operator of the last large passenger trijet since 2012, with four of its former MD-11 fleet of eleven planes still flying. All four MD-11’s are currently exclusively operating the Amsterdam-Montreal and Amsterdam-Toronto routes. Although once a pretty common sight at any major airport, only 200 MD-11 planes have ever been built, 53 of which in an all-cargo configuration. Continue reading

Finding the City of Everett

BOEING 747 FIRST FLIGHTAs claimed in my previous post: I am an aviation enthusiast, or an #avgeek as we are called on Twitter. As a kid I had an aviation history book, with photos of all milestones until then. One of the last pages in that early 1970’s book showed pictures of the first flight of a revolution in passenger transport: the brand new Boeing 747. With its two-storey and double aisle design it was the first truly large capacity airliner, aptly named “Jumbo Jet”. An image that I remembered for the rest of my life. Years later I ended up flying many variants of the 747 as a passenger, from the early -100 to the stretched upper deck -300 and -400. A few years ago I had the opportunity to spend a day in Seattle, which I dedicated to finding this first Boeing 747, named “City of Everett”, after the home town of the Boeing company. Continue reading