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World’s Last Operational Boeing 720 Retires
After 50 Years Of Service Boeing’s Last Hot Rod of The Skies
Fades Into The Sunset Unnoticed Without Fanfare, Recognition
VANCOUVER, Canada – October 4, 2010 – Once there were two, and then there was one, and now there is none.
The operational service life of the Boeing 720 came to an end on Wednesday, September 29, 2010, at 714pm East Standard Time when Pratt and Whitney Canada’s Boeing 720-023B engine test-bed C-FETB landed at it’s St.-Hubert, Quebec base after completing its last ever test-flight.
The Pratt and Whitney Canada (PWC) Boeing 720’s last assignment was a small series of test flights during the month of September with a PW150 engine mounted on it’s nose.
The PW150 engine powers the Dash 8-400 with a 6 bladed Dowty Rotol propeller.
The 720’s last operational flight on September 29 was from St-Hubert to St-Hubert and lasted 4 hours and 39 minutes.
The aircraft reached the end of it’s CPCP calendar life remaining, and can only be flown one last ferry-flight to it’s final resting place, museum or salvage depot.
In October, 2009, C-FETB was sent to Premier Aviation at Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, for it last ever CPCP heavy maintenance base visit, which provided PWC with one final year of flight operations with the classic aircraft.
Honeywell operated the world’s second to last operational Boeing 720 as an engine and avionics test-bed from their Phoenix, AZ base until it ran out of hours and was scrapped at Phoenix on June 21, 2008.
Unfortunately no museum wanted the aircraft, and useful engine parts were donated to the US Air Force.
Honeywell’s 720 N720H was replaced with a Boeing 757 test-bed, and Pratt and Whitney Canada has acquired a Boeing 747SP as a test-bed replacement for their 720.
s of this writing, PWC has not announced any decision as to the future fate that awaits it’s Boeing 720. Let’s hope it doesn’t end up like Honeywell’s 720 … reduced to scrap.
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