Wednesday, 28 March 2012

Rare Czech visitor at Okęcie airport

Last year, the Polish Air Force withdrew from service or grounded all its Soviet-era VIP aircraft. The three-engined Yak-40, once a frequent sight in Polish colours over Okęcie Airport, is now a rare visitor. The one pictured below, 0260, belongs to the Czech Air Force, and is the one of two remaining examples in use by the Czechs (the other being a Yak-40K cargo variant).

For an aircraft that's 33 years old, it looks (from this distance at least) remarkably well looked after. Noisy and polluting, the Yak-40 will soon disappear from European skies altogether.

The shot was taken as I was boarding the WizzAir flight to "Glasgow" Prestwick, Wednesday 28 March (I have retrospectively uploaded this post for the record).

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