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Comment by kweks | Hacker News Reader

The Airbus HQ is in Toulouse, France. The runway of TLS runs roughly perpendicular to the ring road, and it's common to see the Belugas at very low altitudes crossing above.

The first time I saw one cross, I nearly drove off the road - the scale and form of these things is quite spectacular.

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Yep, I see Belugas flying over Hamburg nearly every week, as they deliver or take away parts from the assembly in Finkenwerder. It's great to see those planes gliding across the Elbe river, always looks amazing.

I am still sad that I missed the Beluga during my internship at Munich Airport in air freight. My boss really should have called me, even at midnight. But then I heard some strange stories afterwards about that flight that might explain why it was done with a limited number of people at the dead of night. Never found out how much was rumors and how much fact so. I did have the opportunity to load a Antonov 124 so. That was fun!

What rumors? Come on!

Something with a hole in the tail of an aircraft, big enough to fly a new tail in over night. As I said, rumors. And those always flew high while I was there. Or maybe it was story told to a poor intern to not have him feel bad about having missed a Beluga. Your guess is as good as mine.

"Parts delivery from Hamburg" is a thing I hear repeatedly month-after-month from the repair, purchasing, and inventory departments. Small world.

Hamburg has one of the world's largest ports, second only to Rotterdam in Europe. Maybe there's a connection here?

airplane parts

Hrr Hrr. I have a theory regarding a mysterious anomaly,

wherein mostly older people crash their cars into the windows of shops in a small shopping street.

Like nowhere else.

Thing is, this is exactly in the glide path of them on landing approach to Hamburg-Finkenwerder,

where they are already 300 to 200meters down, maybe even just 150.

There is nothing special to the street, just some small shops, banks, one-way, speed limited, some 'Metro-Station' nearby.

OTOH, I don't really get the 'scale' thing. Compare

[1] https://www.schiffbilder.de/1200/hamburg-am-2142015-fix-was-...

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Airbus_Beluga_%C3%BC...

[3] https://bildarchiv-hamburg.com/photo/eine-airbus-beluga-land...

with

[4] https://www.flickr.com/photos/158928162@N07/50522989532/

[5] https://www.flickr.com/photos/100322148@N02/47244267731/

all about the same place from different directions at similar altitude.

And both are nothing against an Antonov-225, also sound-wise :-)

Kind of hard to compare due to differences in the distance to the planes bring pictures.

I can understanding that, a little.

The one time I drove round a residential area of west London, near Heathrow, I was startled when I went round a corner and saw a 747 (or A380?) apparently at the end of the road at roughly eye level. (The road was on a slight incline.)

This kind of thing, but I can't find a from-a-car type view: https://www.dreamstime.com/editorial-stock-image-emirates-ai...

A bit different but I had a disconcerting experience joining a motorway from a slip road. There was a Huey-style helicopter fuselage on the back of a lorry in lane 1 and for a second I thought I was driving alongside a flying helicopter

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