A long way from home.

[Splitpin]

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.

[Aharon]

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

[cowpatz]

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

[Charl]

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.

Watch on youtube.com

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

[deeknow]

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.

[Splitpin]

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

[Naki]

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

[FlyingKiwi]

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