Well this was a sombre but awesome sight to see. On 12/7/2020 this 747 was apparently due into St Athan in wales for scrapping. Me and my mate planned to catch it. Thinking well this could possibly be last Virgin 747 we’ll see fly. It was due out of Manchester originally at 16:00 on Wednesday 15/7/2020. Then apparently it rescheduled in LHR as part of farewell flight and the arrival into St Athan was pushed back to unknown date. Then it cancelled altogether. Then all of sudden it rescheduled into St Athan at 11:00am and dropped LHR. So I and my mate and I decided to go for it. We got down there at around 9:30 to avoid the crowds. we waited and watched the radar. Then at around 11:00am she appeared on the radar and we breathed a sigh of relief as with these sort of things you never really know if they’ll cancel at the last minute or not. We watched the live feed of her taking off from Manchester and her wing wave. Then about half an hour later she turned up and positioned onto final. I was stood on top of my car with the tripod on the roof to get it arriving. She came and touched down smoothly then the scream and thunderous roar of the Cf6's kicked in and she stopped right in front of me. Then she was pushed back and towed into the scrapping area. Interesting bit of trivia this very 747 was used in the top gear episode where to show the raw power of a jet engine it blasted over a 2CV and a Ford Mondeo throwing them about 50 feet.

This aircraft first flight was 5/6/97 and entered service on June 17th of that year. now 23.1 years old it was the oldest 747 in Virgin's fleet. It's probably got a few cycles under it's belt. This was also my first capture of a Virgin aircraft up-close and probably my last of their iconic, Queen of the skies.

It was a slightly windy day so sorry about the few shakes and horrible wind noise. Anyway hope you enjoy, Thanks for watching like comment subscribe

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