City Bird MD-11 N6203U to be OO-CTB 'Albatros' (48766/600) Del. 12/13/1996
I will never forget the first time I saw this beautiful aircraft. A friend of mine stopped by my usual shooting spot at Long Beach Airport and asked me what airline is getting a big green MD-11? I had no idea what he was talking about and asked were is this plane. Well a few minutes later I was standing on the east side of Building 84 completely dumbfounded by what I saw, a big green MD-11 with City Bird titles named 'Albatros'. Well in due time I got all the information about the new airline and waited to see this beautiful machine fly. I eventually saw the aircraft fly on three occasions as we see in the above photo. The aircraft was returning to Long Beach from a test flight just days prior to delivery when I got this shot.
(Photo by Michael J. Carter)
City Bird MD-11 N273WA 'Seagull' (48519/539) Del. 04/22/1993 to World Airways
City Bird leased two MD-11s from World Airways (N273WA and N280WA) though at different times. In the above photo we see N273WA 'Seagull' about to land at Zurich (ZRH)
(Michael J. Carter Collection)
Sabena MD-11 OO-CTS 'Cormorant' (48756/623) Del. 03/27/1998
City Bird ordered and took delivery of three MD-11s. The last two though, were wet leased to Sabena and delivered from Long Beach wearing full Sabena colors and titles. Both aircraft were eventually returned to City Bird and immediately retired being flown to Victorville, California (VCV) in the Mojave Desert to await their next assignments. The aircraft pictured above now operates with World Airways as N279WA the other aircraft OO-CTC (48780/624) now operates with Finnair as OH-LGE.
(Photo By Michael J. Carter)
