Maleth-Aero A346 landing, takeoff and Flyby, lauda A320 and more at Bournemouth airport on 5/7/2020

Well this has to be one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen. Definitely one of the most this year. On the Friday 3/6/2020 one of my mates told me that this A340 and a spitfire was doing a flypast at Bournemouth Airport. These aircraft have been are owned Maleth Aero well the A340-600’s and are currently operating for European aviation out of Bournemouth. They operate daily flights to China carrying in PPE for the NHS workers.

The A340-600 is one of my all time favourite aircraft. All these aircraft are ex Virgin aircraft and they retired theirs finally because of Covid. I thought well there goes my chance to capture one up-close. But then they were bought by this company to operate out of BOH and when I heard they were doing this I thought I must get down there to see them. The A340-600 was longest variant of the A340 family being 75 metre's long making it the longest airliner in service anywhere in the world before the 748 and 777X came along. Launched in 2001. Virgin was the launch customer. The A340 itself has had an unfortunate life. The first one came out in 1991. The -200 built in tandem with the A330. The -200 being the same size but having four engines and being heavier and less efficient was very unpopular with airlines. Only 28 were made. Though it had pretty good range. Hence why alot of governments use the low capacity long range airliner still. Then the -300 came along with it' improve capacity in 1993. It had moderate success for the first two years. Then in 1996. The 60 minute rule was extended to 180 minutes which allowed twin engine aircraft such as 777,767, 757 and Airbuses own A330 and A350 operate longer flights and over water. The A340 with it's gas guzzling 4 engines quickly fell out of favour with airlines. Though It had done well with the ones that remained loyal to Airbus. 159 were made. Then the 500 came out it was longest range airliner in the world. It was lengthened and new Trent 500 engines fitted. It had an astonishing range of 9000 miles. Making it able to operate direct between Singapore and Los Angles. Once again like the -200 it was a very niche market. So unsurprisingly the -500 only sold 18. Only 2 remain in commercial service and a few in government use. Then there was the -600 the longest variant and newest. It was designed by Airbus to compete with the 777-300er. Though in the end despite it's range and it's little bit extra length it couldn't compete with the 777. Only 89 were ever made before Airbus closed its production in 2011 ending the A340 family for good. It simply couldn’t compete with 777’s two engines Production Completely stopped in 2011 because of the 787. It did find the same niche market operating high capacity long haul flights.
It this that made European aviation choice it to operate these flights. There couldn't really be a more prefect aircraft for the job. So these A340's have been given a knew less of life. which is great to see also it's also great they being used to do life saving work. The flypast was for a little celebration of the work the NHS and European aviation has done in these hard times and it was their 72nd Birthday. It was supposed to involve two Spitfires and two A340's. In the end we only got one of each though I wasn't complaining. We got down there early 8am for the 340 coming in from it's direct 13h flight from Kuala Lumpur. On this day also we had an Laudamotion A320 operating the Ryanair flight. Ryanair have a large stake in them and now own a few of their aircraft. We also had one of Maleth-Aero's other aircraft a 733 operating to Dublin carrying over the PPE for Ireland. There was a few Bizjets. Then there was the BA stored aircraft including my first look at the BEA A319 retro.Then we had the main event the Spitfire came over and did an awesome Victory roll over the airfield. twice as it went over the over Hospitals in the area. Then the 340 taxied out backtracked the runway which had been sprayed because the aircraft would of ripped it up if it hadn't. Then she lifted off keeping it nice low baked round and shot overhead in what has to be the lowest flyby by an airliner at an airport I have ever seen. Absolutely breathtaking. One of the most awesome sight's I have had the pleasure of seeing. I have also now finally captured an A346 on camera which was a dream come true for me and see it like that has to be one of the greatest moments of my life.

Anyway I hope you enjoy the shots the I got. It was incredibly windy at times so sorry about the shakky shots even with a tripod and the bloody windy noise. There is a few spelling mistakes in the video. My bad on that. But other than that sit back and enjoy and thanks for watching

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[daughterslayer]

Hi, where do you stand to watch this ?

[zetecrv]

The A340s are owned by European Skybus based in BOH They have been flying in PPE for the NHS recently. They go above and beyond to get the job done Great Job ...