Ivory Coast G3 arrives at Luton

Continuing the series of rare Gulfstream arrivals. The Ivory Coast G3 TU-VAF (462) arrived at Luton a little before 0700 this morning from Abidjan. Using the callsign Ivory 03. Not a first visit of the frame as I saw it here as N303GA in February 1986.

arrival photo courtesy of Dave Lythgoe

TU-VAF departed the following morning back to Abidjan as Ivory 05 so not a fixed callsign. See departure shot



Another rare G4 visits Stansted



Long term readers of this blog may recall the interest that the Ivory Coast G4 that arrived at Luton in August 2012 generated. Well, that was nothing compared to the news that the Sultan of Johor's G4 9M-ISJ (1106) was coming to Stansted today. Delivered in 1990 and not seen outside the Far East other than Long Beach where maintenance is carried out.

I stood in a soggy field for over an hour to catch this. It initially came in on approach without flaps so aborted the landing and went round again. There were many happy people there today as this is probably one of the hardest G4s to see. 2 more pictures can be seen at the links below.

landing shot 1            landing shot 2

Rare G4 visits Luton

It's not often that the arrival of a Gulfstream 4 causes excitement but when the Ivory Coast one landed at Luton last night, the boys started jibbering. TU-VAD is an early build machine (con 1019) and probably last visited the UK in the early 90s.

She departed this evening to Nice using the callsign Ivory Zero Three.

See also http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob-holland/7832297384/