Saturday 19 July 2008

Little Fatso and the Catfish

Seen at Okęcie from time to time, this Polish Air Force PZL M-28B flew in today. This small, Polish-built transport is based on the Antonov An-28, in turn a development of the An-14 Pchelka ('Little Bee'), a most interesting aircraft. Oleg Antonov's original concept was to build a light transport plane with extreme short-take off characteristics that could be flown by a truck driver with just a few hours' tuition! Note the tan/dark green/olive camouflage is applied to under-surfaces as well.

Below: A Piaggio P180 Avanti (SP-MXI), one of two used by the Polish air ambulance service. This unconventional aircraft (props pushing rather than pulling and the nose-mounted winglets that give rise to the nickname) is quite a frequent visitor to Okęcie, identifiable from a distance by its noisy, high-pitched, whining engine sound.


This time last year:
On The Road Again
Visit to Wrocław
Some family history
Poland's best pub?

1 comment:

Aphelion said...

A very interesting plane indeed, love the picture! It's good to see the Antonovs are still around!