The Twilight Zone

[Tommy]

This thread idea is pretty simple and I'll leave it open to reasonable interpretation.

Simply post your shots of recently retired aircraft types or ones which only have a few years left in them. It might make some of us realise how time is short for relatively bog-standard machines (RAF SAR Sea Kings being one type that comes to mind).

There should be plenty of scope for this with the recent retirement of VC-10s, Luftwaffe F4s, French Mirage F.1s etc so post away!

Just a few to kick start:

French Mirage F.1 - I haven't seen it publicised but I read somewhere that they should have been retired by now, certainly their RIAT appearance was one of the last times to see them in public.




German Navy Sea King Mk.41 - I think their retirement is somewhere in early 2014 (stand to be corrected), so I'm not sure if RIAT was their final appearance also.


Finally, an aircraft that often played second fiddle to the VC-10, the Tristar is on its way out within the next year or two as the Voyager comes on strength

[DeanW]

A few British types..





And some international types..

[Andover]

[Maisie]

XV295 by Totallyrad.co.uk, on Flickr

[TonyO]

Crumbs, there are so many aircraft going to disappear in the next 3-4 years it's quite frightening...

Tommy, the Tristar is out of service in March 2014, whilst the Marineflieger Sea Kings should have had a reprieve as its not clear when the new NH-90 Sealions will enter service.

One of my favourites, the Dassault Super Etendard is scheduled to be out of service by 2015 and replaced by a shrinking number of Rafale Ms...



The Lynx Mk3 exited service in March/April this year, with little or no fanfare, its uglier brother, the Lynx Mk8 should be going in 2016 once Wildcat is in operational service.



...and there is it's American cousin, the SH-60F Ocean Hawks along with other Seahawk variants are disappearing in place of the MH-60R and "S" variants.

[Tommy]

With France beginning to take deliveries of A400Ms, time is running out for the C-160

[Professor_M]

So many types nearing the end of their service lives, many recently retired too - here's just three from RIAT 2022...

Italian AMX hanging on in there...
Italian Air Force TA-11B by Professor M, on Flickr

Dutch F-16s will be gone soon too...
RNLAF F-16AM Fighting Falcon (312 Sqn 70th) by Professor M, on Flickr

Czech Hinds have been donated to Ukraine...
Czech Air Force Mi-35 Hind by Professor M, on Flickr