If you happened to notice the sound of a larger than normal plane over West Orange County around 2:40 PM Wednesday, that would have been a Russian made Antonov 124 taking off from Long Beach Airport. Don’t worry, the Russians aren’t invading, it was a cargo operation.

The big plane, also known as AN-124, arrived on Tuesday, July 6 and departed Wednesday afternoon from runway 12. This runway departure is unusual because it means the flight path was a Southeast pattern, rather than the normal Northwest direction.

The southeast departure from the long Beach airport put the flight path directly over Rossmoor, the Northern portions of Seal Beach and the rest of West Orange County. Although the four engine plane makes plenty of noise on take off, by the time it got over West OC, it was high enough where it was not too noticeable.

The AN-124 is comparable to Boeing’s C-17, which is assembled right here at the Boeing Long Beach facility. There is plenty of irony about this plane operating out of the very same airport where Boeing builds the C-17.

The Boeing Company, and its 5,000 C-17 aircraft workers located in Long Beach, are in a very serious battle to keep their jobs and production line operating. See related article below. Beside the C-17, there are only two other airplanes flying today which can transport the super-duty loads, such as the Army’s main battle tanks, which are carried by the C-17. One of those two planes is the U.S. Air Force c-5. The other is the Russian built Antonov 124.

While the C-17 and C-5 are in military service only, the Antonov 124 is chartered out for commercial operations. In fact, even the U.S. Air Force charters the Antonov 124 when it is running a little short on available C-17s or C-5s. Although the Air Force says they don’t need or want any more C-17s after they get all of the 223 planes already in the plans, they continue to charter the Russian built planes.

Boeing spokesman Jerry Drelling told www.OC180NEWS.com his company does not have anything to do with the Antonov 124 which overnighted in Long Beach. These planes are used for both commercial and military operations. The airport spokesperson told us the plane was in Long Beach for “cargo operations.”

The big plane was handled in Long Beach by Air Serv Corp., which is a major airport services company based in Georgia. Company spokesperson Kevin McAchren, told us the departure, which originally was scheduled for around 1:00 PM was delayed because the “customs release was just a little later than we expected.” We spoke to McAchren just after we heard the plane fly over Rossmoor.