I was watching some old ‘Top Gear’ episodes (2004-2005). If you’re a petrolhead like me, you will know that the gang tests some of their cars at Dunsfold Pk, an airstrip in Surrey (England).
In several camera angles, one sees what looks like a 747 parked alongside the runway. I thought it may be a freighter of some kind. I thought it may be a permanent resident of the airfield but I do not see it on Google Earth.
Anyway, what struck me as strange is that the engines on the wings are paired on a single pylon (like a B52). I could not see if each wing had two engines on one pylon or four engines on two pylons. In any event, I have been unable to find details of such an aircraft. All the 747s that I have researched have two engines per wing, one per pylon.
Two engines on a pylon is very unusual, are you sure it wasn’t simply the angle from which you were viewing? Sometimes it really looks like that… and this was a civilian aircraft, or? How was the tail? Did the wings attach to the side or on top of the fuselage?
It’s a 747-200 modified to be a movie prop. Doesn’t fly.
Oh, and I thought Nimrod, just because the whole RAF thing worked, and the B-52 and B-47 are the only aircraft I know of with the twin-podded engines… And the Nimrod has 2 in close proximity, even though they’re not podded.