Certainly not an every day sight! The heaviest aircraft operating in the world. These were taken a few hundred feet from the terminal entrance to ICT. You see this thing from the parking lot I park in on the other side of the runway.

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I'm an airline pilot and a couple of years ago it was parked at the cargo terminal at Charlotte. Words can't describe just how big that thing is. It makes my dad's plane, a 500,000 lb Airbus A330, feel like a toy.

That's large. Largest thing I ever worked on was a 727. And considering I typically worked on everything from kit planes and Piper Cubs to business jets...the 727 seemed large at the time.

Are you an A&P?

I did civilian avionics work at an FCC repair station (Hagerstown Aviation Service in Hagerstown, MD). Then I went to another shop where an A&P/inspector signed off anything I did...which was completely gut military U-21 (King Air C90 turbines on a Queen Air airframe) instrument panels, have the fab shop weld up the holes and recut the panel so that all of the aircraft matched, then they ran them through the paint shop and we switched all the wiring from military to civilian and installed a completely new avionics package.

I worked for these guys:

http://www.dynamicaviation.com/

And when you see those things fly over, even at altitude, you think 'Man, that's a big plane'. When they look big from 30,000 feet away, they ARE big!

Too bad to did not get to take a look inside, you would have found everything in russian. My wife used to arrange transportation for large industrial packages all over the world. The company set up a shipment and I got lucky enough to get a peak inside.

Who do you fly for? I'm also Steve, a pilot, for Chautauqua, and hope to see that 225 in person one day.

Piedmont, flying the Dash 8. I'm hoping to be moving on to US Airways very soon and fly a big boy plane (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And a small piston flew in today...

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Long EZ kit plane, pretty neat to look at, The cockpit makes my old miata look like a caddy in terms of size...

This post has been edited by roostmeyer: Apr 20 2012, 12:31 AM

Those are fast little planes. If your miata had tandem seating, you would probably find that the Long EZ had more room.

Kit planes are awesome. Here's my dad's. RV7.

2 passenger, side by side seating, 180 HP, cruises at about 180 MPH on 8.5 GPH. With no wind, that equals about 21 MPG. The avionics are far more advanced than a lot of airliners flying around today, including my plane. On a trip from Charlotte to Orlando and back, the cost in fuel for the trip was only $40 more than if they drove. 3 hrs round trip compared to 16 hrs in a car.

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This post has been edited by Steve91T: Apr 20 2012, 01:41 PM

yes, hopefully one day, a big plane for work and a small plane for fun.