Two Boeing 747s land in Whitehorse!
The arrival of the Boeing 747 that I reported on in my last post caused quite a stir among the many airplane fans in Whitehorse, and I expect that most of us thought that would be the last one we’d see for many years. Imagine our surprise when that same plane came back, and then was joined by another of Kalitta Air’s 747s.
N700CK had left Whitehorse the morning of November 11th, headed for China. At 07:38 on the 13th, it landed again, under similar circumstances – it was on a JFK-TAO flight, with a stop at ANC for fuel, but another storm had caused havoc at ANC and YXY became their alternate. I was soon back at the airport, and shot the first photo at 08:17. N700CK is a 1997 Boeing 747-4R7F (serial number 25868) operated by Kalitta Air LLC of Michigan.
The friend who alerted me to the first landing said that another one would probably be landing as well. I didn’t actually believe that, but watching the flight arrivals, I saw that it was true. It arrived from Hong Kong Int’l (HKG) at 2:23, and at 3:17 got the first photo of the two of them together, shot from the terminal. The second one, the one in front, is N743CK, a 1993 Boeing 747-446BCF (serial number 26350). I noted on Facebook that this was the first time in Whitehorse history that two Boeing 747s have been here voluntarily (the two Korean 74s that arrived on September 11, 2001, were forced to come here, escorted by CF-18 fighters.
I then moved to my usual shooting location to separate the planes.
C-FANF, Air North’s 1992 Boeing 737-55D, was loading for a Vancouver flight while I was mainly focussed on the big birds.
I decided to walk around to the far side of the airport to get some photos of the 747s from the front, which is the best angle to see them from. On the way, I caught C-FANF as it was about to depart.
At 4:08 I had reached the point where the trail now ends due to runway construction work – it’s about a 1-kilometer walk from a small parking lot at the north end of the airport property. A section of the chain link fence there is only about 3 feet high instead of 8 feet, so that made photography much easier 🙂
A better portrait of N700CK…
…and N743CK.
Very impressive! 🙂 I had only brought my 100-400 lens on the hike, but it was too long for this shot, so this is two photo stitched into a panorama.
That location turned out to also be a good spot to get a photo of C-FVGP, Air North’s 1989 Aerospatiale ATR 42-300.
The weather forecast had gotten ugly, and near-blizzard conditions and a heavy accumulation of snow were called for, starting that night.
I expect it wasn’t a coincidence that N700CK left at 01:40 on the 14th, just as it started to snow quite heavily. I had thought that they wouldn’t be allowed to depart at that time of the night, but perhaps Whitehorse doesn’t have noise regulations as many airports do. From my warm home, I watched it leave on FlightRadar24, headed for Hefei Xinqiao Airport (HFE) 🙂
The forecast storm didn’t arrive, and the 05:00 forecast removed the snowfall warning. I was watching for a flight plan for N743CK to be filed, and at about 05:40 it appeared. The plan showed a 07:55 departure, but the site I use was using PST time for some reason, and it wouldn’t be leaving until 08:55. Which was good – better light 🙂
Connie 743 finally lifted off at 09:48, almost an hour later than they had flight-planned for. Its destination was John F. Kennedy International (JFK). I almost missed this shot. I misjudged how long it would take to get the aircraft ready to go, and had gone downtown for a few groceries – when I got back, the plane was gone! Frantically trying to find it online, I noticed it moving north right at Whitehorse – it took a couple of seconds to realize it was coming down the runway, taking off! So this was very much a “grab shot” – one of four I got as it went by.
It will be interesting now to see if that was the start of something. Kalitta was obviously pleased with the service they got here from both the airport staff/crews and Air North’s ground handling crews.
I’ve spent a lot of time playing online in the world of Boeing 747s, trying to separate myths from facts (and I have a LOT of photos of 747s). It turns out that Whitehorse IS certified as an alternate for 747s up to the 400 series, but not the larger 800 series. Our main runway is 9500 x 150 feet, 2 feet wider than the ICAO requirement. The 2013 Nippon cargo that landed as an emergency in 2013 was an 800-series (an 747-8KZF), the two Katilla planes discussed above were 400-series. So 400-series 747s can use Whitehorse as an alternate whenever they choose, 800-series planes only in an emergency. In Canada, only Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, and Moncton are certified for scheduled 747-8 flights, but 8 others including Yellowknife can handle them as an alternate.
And that’s the end of my obsession for 747s – until the next one 🙂
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It would be interesting to know landing weights, minimum runway lengths, et al that determine the different airports allowed under normal circumstance. There must be some noise regs for Whitehorse, 4 big old jets engines being flung down the tarmac pretty hard with a full load of fuel and whatever cargo was on board, plus weather conditions and climbout regs…
I tried to find out all that information, with little luck. I don’t think Whitehorse has noise regulations yet – I suppose if we ever got a lot of night flights that would change.