Goodbye Sofia

From the media .. ."NASA’s flying telescope known as SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) is hoping to make a flyover of Christchurch to thank the city for its support of the deployments"

And so it was - around midday I heard the sound of a low flying aircraft. Looking of the window, NASA's 747 was flying past low (900ft) and slow. I wished I'd had the camera ready. So a screen shot of the flight path will have to suffice.
As I watched on the flight tracking, it turned back around and flew straight down the line of the runway again before climbing out, this time high above the house and off to Honolulu. After nearly 10 years in NZ skies, she is now gone for good, retiring on Oct 1st.
On digging into the flight tracker data a bit deeper it looks like it did a pass over the runway at about 250 feet and over 200 knots, no touch and go! That would have been a sight to see (if I have interpreted the data correctly?)