Earlier today I took a tour of Kaiser Air, an aircraft management company based out of Oakland International Airport. I was surprised to see an Antonov AN-124 sitting on the ramp and didn’t hesitate to take the opportunity to snag a few photos.
I can not describe to you how massive this airplane is. You wouldn’t even think it’d be able to get off the ground when looking at it. With a wingspan of 240 feet, 24 wheels and four Lotarev D-18 high-bypass turbofan engines, the AN-124 comfortably cruises 440 knots while hauling over 300,000 pounds of cargo.
After checking out the Antonov, we went over to one of the 738s that Kaiser Air manages. They use this plane to commute passengers to and from Hawaii, thus the Hawaiian flower on the tail. It was originally owned by a Chinese airline, where at the time smoking was legal on domestic flights. After Kaiser Air purchased it, they obviously “had a lot of cleaning up to do” after ferrying it over to the States. All the seats in this plane were once business class seats on a now-retired Air France plane.
That’s all I have for now! Let me know which photo was your favorite!