The Olympic flame is going to make a world tour. Starting this Friday in Sydney, the flame will visit 38 airports around the world.
Brussels will be visited on June 22nd. The plane which will be used is TF-ARO, an Air Atlanta B747-200 now painted in a special Olympic Games colourscheme.
A picture of the freshly painted bird can be found here :
Just came across the schedule of the Olympic flame at the Dutch Spotters Mailing list. (Credits Chris Witt)
1 Sydney, Australia Fri 4 June 2004
2 Melbourne, Australia Sat 5 June 2004
3 Tokyo, Japan Sun 6 June 2004
4 Seoul, Korea Mon 7 June 2004
5 Beijing, China Tues 8 June 2004
6 Delhi, India Thur 10 June 2004
7 Cairo, Egypt Fri 11 June 2004
8 Cape Town, South Africa Sat 12 June 2004
9 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Sun 13 June 2004
10 Mexico City, Mexico Tues 15 June 2004
11 Los Angeles, USA Wed 16 June 2004
12 St. Louis, USA Thur 17 June 2004
13 Atlanta, USA Fri 18 June 2004
14 New York, USA Sat 19 June 2004
15 Montreal, Canada Sun 20 June 2004
16 Antwerp, Belgium Mon 21 June 2004
17 Brussels, Belgium Mon 21 June 2004
18 Amsterdam, Holland Wed 23 June 2004
19 Geneva, Switzerland Thur 24 June 2004
20 Lausanne, Switzerland Thur 24 June 2004
21 Paris, France Fri 25 June 2004
22 London, England Sat 26 June 2004
23 Barcelona, Spain Sun 27 June 2004
24 Rome, Italy Mon 28 June 2004
25 Munich, Germany Tues 29 June 2004
26 Berlin, Germany Wed 30 June 2004
27 Stockholm, Sweden Thur 1 July 2004
28 Helsinki, Finland Fri 2 July 2004
29 Moscow, Russia Sat 3 July 2004
30 Kiev, Ukraine Mon 5 July 2004
31 Istanbul, Turkey Tues 6 July 2004
32 Sofia, Bulgaria Wed 7 July 2004
33 Nicosia, Cyprus Thur 8 July 2004
34 Athens, Greece Fri 9 July 2004
Note that this is the route for the Olympic flame so the plane won't land in every city.
For example the plane only lands in BRU and not in Antwerp.
AN124,
How are you so sure this 747 will not land at Antwerp ? I suppose it doesnot carry a full load of passengers and fuel when it comes from Canada.
Would be nice to see it apporaching Antwerp as there is only 1 runway and chances are better to get a picture of it.
At EBBR it might land on the other runway than the one you expect.
Anyway, I am not sure to be able to be around.
Greetz, Karl
After browsing around in some Syndey spotters forums, I founf out the following.
2 Air Atlanta 747-200 birds are bringing around the Olympic Flame and a 200-man crew around the world.
TF-ARO is the one with the special livery, and will transport the flame. It will apparently have flightnumber 'ABD001', radio callsign will be either 'Atlanta One' or 'Alpha Bravo Delta One'.
TF-ARO will always be preceeded by another Air Atlanta default livery 747-200 TF-ARG. That one will apparently have flightnumber 'ABD002', radio callsign will either 'Atlanta Two' or 'Alpha Bravo Delta Two'. This plane carries the 200 passengers crew. I'm not sure how long in advance this plane will land prior to the TF-ARO.
The A.net database already contains very fine pictures on this Olympic Flame 747 and we can surely expect many more great pictures to come from this world tour.
Therefore today's photo challenge is perhaps not so much to capture TF-ARO by itself in a dull cell of common air space. However the main target is to have one or both of these 747 classics in combination with a clear BRU landmark (tower, terminal, SN aircraft, Atomium...).