NZFF

Yesterday Jono (my nephew) with the help of ANZ ground staff got these shots of a Ukrainian AN-12 here via Perth and Melbourne.....A 50 plus year old airframe.
The jury is out on why it was here, and I'm ignoring all the local speculation.

Probably picking up supplies of winter clothes with lots of wool by courtesy of famous New Zealand sheep

Very nice pics. One very ugly but mean looking machine. A very long way from home for something like that.

Very long way: getting home would take 5 hops and 3 days if it were carting 20 t.
Woolly clothing? I think not.
The US connection with CH perhaps, although that is very tenuous - you could launder stuff through any European vassal far more quickly.
Interesting spotting, a real conundrum.



Interesting to see how close this one is to the C130H:

CHCH - Brisbane-Singapore-Bengaluru-Kuwait-Kiev
C130 / AN12
Length:  29m / 33m
Wingspan:  40m / 38m
Height:  12m / 11m
Max takeoff weight:  70t / 61t
Cruise speed:  292kts / 310kts
Range: 3800km / 3600km
Service ceiling: 33000ft / 33500ft
Rate of climb 1830 ft/min / 2010ft/min

awesome, love me an AN-12 .. wonder if that's its first visit here. That machine does get around tho, have seen pics of it in South America and Africa over recent years.

Thanks for looking.
Charl , Thank you for the research and the link

Cool, thanks for posting these... a rare beast in these neck of the woods.

Not sure about that particular one, but one did visit Auckland a couple of years ago. Certainly not a common sight here though!