NZFF

by **JonARNZ** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 9:33 pm

Well, 727 posts, yay me!

As the Boeing milestones roll by in post numbers, how could I not share some photos I found this evening on me external HD. I remember taking these, some years back now, they have been scanned from the photos themselves and saved for prosperity.

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You cant beat the sound the JT8D's use to make, no hush kits here thanks very much!

>nzflag<

by **Charl** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 9:35 pm

Yeah! Real AF noise! And smoked like a chimney too

by **ZÃƒÂ¶ltuger** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 9:43 pm

JonARNZ wrote: You cant beat the sound the JT8D's use to make, no hush kits here thanks very much!

ain't that the truth. i often hear the DHL 727 trying to climb out of auckland- it's incredible that the 737's rotate and go nearly vertical upwards, whereas the 727 seems to stuggle to maintain 5 degrees nose up, all the while belching brown smoke

by **ardypilot** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 1:45 pm

Wow- I've never seen or heard about RNZAF 727's- when were they in service?

Congrats on 727 plus posts too :clap:

by **FlyingKiwi** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 6:31 pm

As much as I like the 757s, I do wish we still had the old 72s, nothing quite like that smoke and noise. Photo from a while ago:

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by **Alex** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:25 pm

Trolly wrote: Wow- I've never seen or heard about RNZAF 727's- when were they in service?

The 727's were in use immediately prior to the Air Force using 757's, as far as I know.

Thanks for posting these Jon, I've never really seen one of these 'close up'.

Alex

by **Jimmy** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:43 pm

man I love that DHL livelry :drool:

The first time I saw a 727 I heard it before seeing it, and although id never heard one before I knew what it was! A lovely sound.

by **ZK-Brock** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:47 pm

Yeah apparently the 727s were getting a bit old for the job. I prefer the 727 livery to the 757 though.

by **deaneb** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:09 pm

the 727's were in use from 1981 until 2004. We bought 3 of them (for about $15 million if I remember correctly). One 727 was stripped for spares and scrapped the other 2 remained in service. Once retired NZ7271 went overseas - Africa. The other 7272, we got at Woodbourne for use as a training aircraft for our Technical Training school. I was responsible for its arrival, prep and induction. A huge job which involved removing the tail and putting it in the hangar (with 4 inches to spare on each wing tip !!)

I will drag out some pics

Deane

by **towerguy** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:06 pm

I got to ride in it ( down the back) a couple of times up and down the country as an OCDT Pilot back in '82-'83 - didn't really appreciate it back then as much as I would now as we had other things on our minds then - like how to get through wings course etc...

by **Jenks** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:05 pm

Nice to see the old stuff being remembered Jon.

Here's another couple to bring back memories from an even earlier time...

First up the scheme that the RNZAF 727s originally wore in service. This particular one has a race number '23' on the engine as it had just finished competing in the England to New Zealand Air Race. Photographed at Christchurch after the race had finished.

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And this is the one that never entered service, although it was allocated the serial NZ7273. It was the third one and was bought purely to be broken up for spares to keep the other two going. In this pic it is sitting on the far side of Woodbourne airfield with pretty much all the useful bits already gone, and still in the old United Airlines scheme that it wore when it arrived. Note too some other old airframes put out to grass alongside. This was in 1983/84 and believe it or not there were four Vampires quietly rotting away beside the control tower as well.

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