aviation
Spotted at SeaTac
Not sure how much goods this little guy was able to deliver.
Discussion
You'd be surprised how much can fit in the mighty Caravan.
They're the biggest operator of the Caravan! The cargo variant was developed for them
I love this bad ass little plane. single pilot, full avionics package, flying over the Rockies in a zero vis snow storm
Maybe not in a zero vis snowstorm over the rocks, they handle ice extremely poorly. Otherwise, you're spot on.
They’re also the launch customer for the bigger version, Courier
Nothing. The first year consists of scavenging. He won't carry goods until he's at least two.
Fedex operates nearly 250 of these.
I used to regularly see a FedEx Caravan fly across Phoenix pretty much same time every day late afternoon. Probably coming from small towns between Phoenix and Flagstaff
No, just Flagstaff. And Yuma, iirc
hey, was that you!?
No, I flew for UPS feed for a while out of FLG.
Ya know, UPS lost a package of mine coming from a small bookstore out of FLG. Probably in a plain brown wrapper. Do you think you saw it?
Love seeing this Cessna 208 Grand Caravan with the cargo pod! 😍
Gary Ridgeway is on the loose!
these fly in and out of SMF quite often! i’ve seen loads of them driving by
Normally they are flying
delivery by any means necessary, i suppose
Probably came from pdx. When I drove by the airport on my way to work I'd see this little guy go out everyday around 8am. Must he haulin expensive packages
It actually flew from a local airport north of Seattle:
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N856FE/history/20250709/0004Z/KBVS/KSEA
It’s Empire Air. They have a base at SeaTac and PDX (among others). PDX base pretty much only handles Oregon, Spokane and Seattle handle Washington.
I keep seeing this guy on flight radar at least once a week. I love it
Gotta get freight to Salmon somehow!
we see this little guy and n788fe all the time down at pdx theyre so cute lol. like ohh look at you in your big boy paintjob awww haha
Mighty
they service the san juan’s out of bellingham
I saw once that UPS offers a “same day critical” service where a letter or package or whatever is delivered the same day. I wonder what the logistics of that are
Three of these operate out of Grand Rapids, MI and go to Traverse City, Pelston, and Sault St. marie. They usually take off around 8-9 AM and sometimes come back in the evening.
They're operated by Iron Air on behalf of FedEx and you can usually see them on ADS-B exchange by filtering type: 208 and Callsign: IRO
Used to load and unload these in 90 degree heat and 30 below zero when I worked for FedEx at MKE. One of the best (outside of the pay) damn jobs I ever had.
Caravan is a beast of a machine. Can do such diverse missions from Medevac, Executive charter, cargo operations, survey work, etc.
You’d be surprised with how much you can fit. For the ops I work with, we can take about 3,200lbs of cargo to a strip about 30mins away from base.
Just an all around workhorse that can get into tough strips, especially where I work, with isolated northern Canadian communities.
I work on FedEx Feeder and other freight dog’s Caravan’s in my area. They’re fun aircraft. Work horse is an under statement. These things will carry almost anything and provide much needed freight assistance for rural areas. Where I’m at we see about 30 flights a day with this type. The only thing I don’t like about them is the overwing fueling. It’s a pain in ass to climb a ladder with a 50lbs hose and maintain your balance while the aircraft shifts in weight. Other than that, really cool aircraft.
These are going to become rarer to see. Pretty sure FedEx is replacing this fleet with 408s, but not sure what timeframe they’re working with
As fast as Textron can build them.
Pretty sure they got the 408 by cross-breeding a Twotter and a Beech 1900.
A little tiny FedEx plane! Oh, I just want to pick it up and kiss it. 🥰
https://youtu.be/snQV5eXmUSk?si=cUzL75lShOTgv_qF
When it absolutely positively has to be there....
We have a parade of these that fly over head almost every night.
How many hours does a pilot of these typically have? What’s the pay? In their own bed every night?
Idk but this is regular fed ex express
Heading to Moses Lake I’m sure
The registration looks handwritten
The photo was taken with a phone through a window at SeaTac, plus the heat, probably caused some distortion. You can see the rest of the photo is slightly distorted too.
Most likely operated by Mountain Air Cargo
Generally we carry 1000lbs of fuel (2.5 hours worth) and 3000 lbs of cargo.
Not everything needs a big airplane. These are very common and not particularly noteworthy.
aren't these used to transport transplant organs if needed?
Organs almost always go by helicopter so they can go direct hospital-to-hospital.
Unless they're going kinda far, it also depends on the insurance. I once transported a liver and team of 1 surgeon and 2 nurses in a light twin for 1.5 hrs. Needless to say we were gobsmacked when we got to the airport at 3 am and found out what we were really doing. I've never felt so much pride in flying before.
Edit: we took the liver and the learjet took the heart.
This is not accurate.
Most organs are transported well beyond helicopter range.
If it happens to be close, maybe. Long distance is usually done by light business jets. I happen to take care of a few phenom 300s that run organs on an almost daily basis
Transmedics?
Yup! Was waiting for somebody to guess it
They can’t just throw the organs with a tiny parachute out of one of these? Just do it right above the hospital. I don’t see anything that could go wrong.
So?
Feeder airplane. Generally they serve smaller markets to bring freight to/from the nearest big ramp where it gets transferred to mainline airplanes
What do they feed them to, those big 747s? Are they like bait?
The feeder planes will feed the Airbus A300s (being retired), 757-200SFs, 767-300F (the workhorse), 777F, and a few MD-11F (being retired). They will fly to Memphis (the FedEx Superhub) or one of the other hubs. Wendover Productions did a great video on YT describing the process.
Video Link from Wendover Productions
Whoosh
This. Empire Air would operate these from Spokane and SeaTac to Pullman-Moscow and Lewiston-Clarkston. These towns have 30k people.
And walla walla, pasco, yakima, Ellensburg, wenatchee, and Grangeville. From spokane at least