Armée de l'Air's F-RADB

F-RADB (msn 422), a Armée de l'Air A310-304, made a stop at HNL on a flight from PPT, and was parked on Taxiway RH.

Armée de l'Air's F-RADA

F-RADA (msn 421), an Armé de l'Air A310-304, is making a stop at HNL today from PPT.

This A310-304 was originally delivered to Royal Jordanian in March 1987 as F-ODVD "Prince Hashem", leased from AFS. In November 1993, it was purchased by the Armée de l'Air as F-RADA, and the interior converted for VIPs.

The Rare Tahitian Airport Views Facebook page as a video clip of F-RADA departing PPT for HNL early this morning.

Royal Canadian Air Force's 15003

A Royal Canadian Air Force CC-150 (A310-304), 15003 (msn 425), made a stop at HNL as CFC3184, this evening. It's pictured above departing the next morning.

425 was originally delivered to Wardair Canada in January 1988 as C-FWDX "H.W. 'Harry' Hayter" (f/n 802). When Wardair was acquired by Canadian Airlines International, the former's fleet was transferred. From June 1991 to January 1992, it was leased to Compass Airlines [YM/CYM] (Australia) as VH-YMI. After its return to Canadian Airlines International, it flew with the airline until December, when it was sold to the Royal Canadian Air Force as 15003.

Royal Canadian Air Force's 15001

The Royal Canadian Air Force's CC-150 Polaris 15001(msn 446, f/n 01) has made a stop at HNL. This is the only Polaris in the RCAF fleet that has a VIP interior, and is usually the transport for their prime minister.

446 was originally delivered to Wardair Canada [WD/WDA] in February 1988 as C-GBWD "C.C. 'Carl' Agar" (f/n 806). In January 1990, it was transferred to the Canadian International Airlines fleet, when they acquired Wardair. In 1993, this A310 was purchased by the Royal Canadian Air Force, registered as 15001, and had the cabin configured for a VIP transport. In 2013, 15001 was painted in the present livery, and part of "O Canada" ('True North strong and free') is below the cockpit windows English and French.

Royal Canadian Air Force CC-150 Polaris

Also stopping over for a refueling stop was Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the Royal Canadian Air Force's CC-150 Polaris VIP Transport, 15001 (c/n 446).

Royal Canadian Air Force's 15001

An RCAF Airbus CC-150 Polaris (A310-304), 15001 (msn 446), paid a visit to HNL today, and parked at Gate 34. It's one of five CC-150s in the RCAF fleet.

This A310 was originally delivered to Wardair Canada as C-GBWD in February 1988. When Canadian Airlines acquired Wardair Canada, C-GBWD was absorbed into the combined fleet. The Royal Canadian Air Force acquired the A310 in 1993, and had a main deck cargo door installed in 1996.

A big mahalo to team member Aeros for the photo!

This also our 1,500th blog post!

Royal Airlines' C-GRYI

The April edition of "HNL RareBirds Classics" takes us to December 1998, and this Royal Airlines A310-304, C-GRYI (msn 432, l/n 379), seen above being pushed out of Gate 25.

This A310 was originally delivered to Emirates Airlines (EK/UAE) as A6-EKA in July 1987. It was sold back to Airbus as F-WGYW in May 1997. Two months later, it was leased to Royal (QN/ROY) as C-GYRI, and kept the same registration when Royal was acquired by Canada 3000 (2T/CMM) in January 2001. After the closure of Canada 3000 in November 2001, it was returned to Airbus, then leased to Euralair International Airlines (RN/ERL) as F-GRNS in May 2002. From July to December of the same year, it was sub-leased to Nas Air (P9/NCM) of Mali. In April to June 2003, it was sub-leased to Nigerian Global (NGI). After it was returned to Euralair, it was put in storage, and has since been scrapped.

If you look left of the A310's tail, is a Canada 3000 757-200 parked at Gate 26. In the 90s, there were a host of Canadian carriers serving HNL from the "Great White North" that includes: Skyservice, Air Transat, Royal Airlines, Canada 3000, Canadian Airlines, and Air Canada. Of those airlines, only Air Canada is the remaining survivor that regularly serves the Hawai‘i market.

Ex-Singapore A310

In today's pre-HNL RareBird blog post (I'm leaving the classic title to Bluewave since my pictures only date from 2004)...Back at the end of March 2004, an ex-SQ A310 stopped over on its way to the mainland. It had all its titles painted over. Sorry, I couldn't see the registration as I was in the middle of working a flight and it wasn't clear enough to make out on my 2MP camera.