Sunday 22 June 2008

Stratotanker's Sunday visits to Okęcie

A Sunday morning visitor to Okęcie - this Israeli Airforce Boeing 707. Usually it flies in around seven am, this morning it took off over our house mid-morning. Note no visible markings; slim turbojets rather than the more efficient, clean-burning turbofans used by most jets these days. Note also tail boom for in-flight refuelling.

Incidentally, the Boeing 707 and its military equivalent, the KC-135 is one of five aircraft to have served a full half-century in the same air force. The others are the English Electric/BAC Canberra, Boeing B-52, Tupolev Tu-20/95 'Bear' and the Lockheed C-130 Hercules.

The plane is a tanker conversion of a cargo Boeing 707 operated by the Israeli Air Force. Click here for photo. We saw it today (Sunday 13 July at 09:13) flying in from the south. Below: Flying in on Sunday 2 November at 09:41.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Something very loud flew above Pruszków at 3:08CET 28.06.2009. The noise woke me up and from the direction and movement of the noise source I believe it was an aircraft starting from Okęcie. Is it possible it was this tanker aircraft?

Michael Dembinski said...

Hi Wełniak,

According to the Spottaz over at Lotnictwo.net, it was an Antonov An-124 Ruslan (take-off time cited as 03:10 on Sunday).

There was a time two years ago, when they'd fly in regularly.

Unknown said...

Thanks for this information.

That makes sense. Time matches accurately, and Ruslan is a really big beast. It surely makes dreadfull noise.