I got the pics, and more news.

[Moin]

I went to the AEPT office today to pick up the 777LR Inauguration Ceremony picture CD and viewed it on my DVD player. There are about 59 pics on it including 4 of me at the end. Now I can either send this CD to Abbas and he can download the pics and post them here or I have a photoshop print the pics which I send to Abbas. Don't ask me how to do it on my computer because I haven't a clue. Anyway not all pics are very relevant. Only about a dozen or so will be of interest and I'm sure Abbas will know which ones to put up, so Abbas please send me your LHE address.

I asked my friend there once again to let me know when BAK will be rolled out for its test flight and he promised he'll call me to let me know but said that it won't come out till every single bug/defect has been ironed out, livery and otherwise.

He said the 777LR on its first flight to YYZ is carrying 2 extra nose wheels and 2 main wheels in the cargo hold as part of its mobile parts package as no airport at this point has spares available for the a/c and the wheels/landing gear and many other components or not interchangeable with the ER. A huge inventory of spares is going to have to be made exclusively for the LR to be seperate from the ER. No 777 simulator is on the cards either and the spare engines are yet to come.

As for fleet replacement he confirmed my suspicions that the future fleet of 12 777's are going to replace the 8 747's and PIA is looking at an all Boeing fleet including the 737-800NG to replace the 733's. LAP Modification will not be carried out if 737-800's are opted for and according to the Boeing rep who he spoke to, they are confident that they will get a 737-800 order from PIA and will take the 733's off their hands. The 787 Dreamliner is also on the cards as A310 replacements, yet at the same time A310F's are being looked at. He said that PIA has not been responsive to Airbus inspite of the fact that Airbus a/c require alot less maintenance, cost less and have the ability to fly even if some components are not operational. With a Boeing a/c, if one thing goes wrong, the a/c is grounded and can't fly. He's hoping PIA will go for A320's instead of the 737NG's as according to him the A320 is a superior a/c and a tried and tested workhorse and very maintenance friendly. He claims that Boeing is now implementing technology incorporated by Airbus 20 years ago right down to the way in which the doors of the a/c open, which Boeing has only now introduced on the 777 and composite materials etc. He met with the Airbus rep based here in Pakistan and he said he's not really hopeful of any deal coming through as Airbus made all their presentations and got no response.

We also spoke of the fleet of 'late' 747's (AYV, BCO and BCM) that were in the fleet and he told me that PIA sold 3 of their old 742's for Rs.1 crore and the scrap dealer who took them apart made Rs.4 crores just from the sale of the aluminium parts. The seats and cabin panels were sold off to some bus wala for Rs.2000/3000 per seat and the aluminium parts were broken down into smaller parts and sent to Gujrat. So that fan above your head right now might have been part of a 747 at one time! The a/c were guarded by guards hired by the scrap dealers and if the maintenance needed a particular part, a Rs.500 note to the guard allowed them to pick off whatever they needed. Alot of parts were taken off BCO by maintenance for if they ran short of anything, they'd run to pull something off Oscar. He said it was a sad sight to see them cut up BCO, but in the end all of those a/c had every last drop of juice squeezed out of them. The entire Section 41 area was cut away with a cutting torch and the a/c due to the imbalance went crashing down on its tail, a very dangerous process. All the wiring, which if tied together would stretch to 50 miles was pulled out and disposed off as well. He praised the JT9D-7A engines as being very maintenance friendly.

Coming to the topic of toilets, he said that when PIA was flying 742's to Sierra Leone via JED to ferry troops, the toilets were all but trashed when the a/c would return as the soldiers would actually take cup baths inside the toilets. They'd fill the cups with water and pour it over themselves and as a result, the entire carpeting was soaked due to the water flowing out from the toilets. He said that someone actually sent a suggestion to TK to have Muslim Showers installed in the toilets which went ignored (thankfully)!

Other than that I'll be getting my 743 RB211 fan blade gift alongwith other memorabilia soon which I'll take pics of once I've had the fan blade mounted on a wooden stand and inscribed for display purposes. The guy who locally makes models here has just completed a PIA 777 model which hopefully I should get to see soon as I might be meeting him on Sunday.

[Abbas Ali]

Thank you very much Moin for sharing info. Please check PM for address details. Looking forward to see the photos.

Abbas

[Abbas Ali]

Photos sent by Moin posted in Photography forum on following links:

Boeing 777-240LR induction ceremony – Photos by Moin – I
Boeing 777-240LR induction ceremony – Photos by Moin – II
Boeing 777-240LR induction ceremony – Photos by Moin – III

Thank you Moin.

[atmalik]

very nice pictures Moin. Thanks for sharing and Abbas thanks for posting them on here.

BTW good luck with the exercise program Moin. I have been wanting to start one for wuite some time and it hasnt happened as yet lol. im gonna start some day.

[flyingsystem]

All the photos are really nice and thanks for sharing them. I hope u will come back soon with other so interesting reports !!