A Final Farewell (11) - 14 September 2020

British Airways B747-400 G-CIVB at Heathrow

VB was one of three B747-400s painted by BA in retro liveries, this being Negus. It was intended, I understand, to keep them in their revised liveries until their withdrawal from service and that came much sooner than any of us expected.

When a situation is bad, you have to make the best of it. When the only photographs you can take are, by the usual criteria, bad, those are what you have to take. Perhaps posterity will look kindly on the thought.

There were four B747-400s in BA Maintenance, officially withdrawn from service, of course. They were G-CIVY, G-CIVK, G-CIVB (in Negus) and G-CIVP.

The BA B747-400 has been a part of my working and travelling lives and I contend to this very hour that the sight of one in the turn on a SID is unsurpassed in aviation. It was and is a beautiful aircraft.

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