A few hours before on the other side of the World Pope Benedict XVI boarded on the Qantas B747-400 “QF6035” departing from Sydney to Rome Ciampino via Darwin (as usual the return flight of the Pontiff arrives in Ciampino), I went to Fiumicino to take a few pictures of another B747-400 landing on RWY 16R: the Japan Airlines flight JAL 409 from Tokyo. Here are the pictures I took of the JAL flight and a few other aircraft departing from RWY 25 or landing on 16R.
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.