Yes, a taxi driver explained that to me in the wee hours of a morning a few months ago. I had a bit too much to drink at a party in Palo Alto. When I saw the planes from the 101, I said "man, I must be drunk -- I see planes on the San Mateo Bridge." He told me that I was indeed drunk, but that the planes were real.

I understand the whole process is much faster now that the planes have FasTrak.

i always thought that they were delivered by giant storks!

while fishing at christmas island, about 1300 misouth of hawaii [great bone fishing], i learned that it is a regular stop for trans pacific ferry pilots of small planes....

I was told by a Helo-pilot that during the Vietnam War helos were flown non-stop from Hawaii to Subic Bay using in air refueling,never saw an documentation on this however hell of a long way at 200mph ,anyone know if this was true?

I am going to stay tuned. It will be interesting what they say. I was at the Boeing Factory this past summer, what a great factory!

Wow I have never heard of that before.

Um, that's because he's pulling your leg.


No need to wait for a reply from Boeing. If the ferry flight can't be routed via airports within the airplane's normal range then ferry tanks are installed so it can make the necessary flight(s).

Of course, an empty airplane, with full fuel tanks, will have a significantly longer range than the same airplane with a normal load of passengers, bags and cargo.

Wow, really? I lived in the bay area for over 10 years, had friends who worked or relatives at UA, and this is the first time I heard that....

True Story
 

After living in Russia for 5 years, I now live about half of the year in Novosibirsk, Russia and half just outside Atlanta, GA. While living there full time in 2003, an interesting thing happened. The Canadian Ambassador to Russia called a friend of mine in Novosibirsk who is a very influential American business man. My friend knows a lot of local higher ups. The Ambassador asked him if he could intervene in a touchy situation that was unfolding out at the international airport just outside of the city. Seems that a very wealthy business man in the Russian Far East had bought a Canadianiar aircraft of some sort for his own use. It was being delivered from Canada to the Far East of Russia over and through Europe. It landed in Novosibirsk for its last fuel stop before delivery. A huge stink was raised about "documents" which, if you've lived or worked or even visited Russia, you know is a cause for daily concern. The pilots, two total, had landed already in something like 6 cities in Russia due to fuel needs, military escorts ordering them down, or to drop off power brokers that had hitched a ride from earlier destinations. It's Russia so this should not come as a surprise. Anyway, the two pilots were just about at their wits end and were thinking of just dumping the plane there in Novosibirsk and getting back to good old Canada. My friend was asked to both pamper them a bit and to see if he could lesson the red tape that was mounting by the minute. It took about two days and who knows how many promises for who knows what but it finally got done.

As they were leaving, my friend asked them why they did not just come through Alaska down the Kamchatka Pennisula and into the Russian Far East. Shocked, they looked at him like such a thing was impossible. He told them that Alaskan Air used to fly to a number of Far Eastern Russian cities so there is more than enough emergency places to land if you need and not nearly as many "apparatchiki" to deal with. They said not that they would ever come back but they would let their bosses know of that option for future deliveries. The Canadian Ambassador was very grateful to my friend for working it out and assured him that he owed him one for the future.

From the eastern coast of Canada to southwest Siberia, these guys made many stops though the ones over Russian air space were clearly more than fuel related. I imagine there are some interesting stories out there of pilots who delivered planes to very out of the way destinations around the world.

I asked myself the same question when I ended sitting on the last row of a fully booked ERJ flying from MUC to CPH. A CRJ can easily make the trip from the East Coast of Canada to the West Coast of Europe but an ERJ from Brazil?

Sao Jose to Bahia to Port of Spain[Trinidad] to Hamilton [Bermuda] to Santa Maria [Azores] to Most European Cities

I think the only real challenge is to Hawaii, hence the extra fuel tanks mentioned above. You can do short hops to just about everywhere else.

We all know about the planes, of course, since that method is also used in the reverse direction when SFO is reduced to one runway ops for long periods of time.

However, maybe you could clarify exactly where on 101 you were when you saw the San Mateo bridge. :)

With enough imbibing, you can see the San Mateo Bridge even when you're below an underpass on 101.

>Can someone explain to me how small Boeing/Airbus/Embraer/Saab/Etc planes are delivered to foreign places?

If you ever read Airways magazine they occasionally have articles about these delivery flights.

They're usually a fun read. Recent examples that spring to mind are an article about Frontier taking delivery of an Airbus narrowbody and flying it from France to Denver (no paying passengers - Just Frontier employees on a jaunt) and a new Flying Skidoo turboprop hopping its way from Canada to Scandinavia. These articles always seem to include a required picture on a life raft strapped to one of the seat rows :)

Geoff Glave
Vancouver, Canada

Here is the route for a delivery of a leased 737 from MEL (Australia) to TLV (Israel).