United Air Lines  Boeing 747SP-21    N140UA                (c/n  21022)

                                 

                                     This shot by Frank C. Duarte Jr. certainly points up the massive tail empenage of this marque of
                                     jumbo.   When United acquired Pan American World Airways' entire Pacific route structure in
                                     1985, a fleet of eleven of these long range 747s came with the deal.  This aircraft was formerly
                                     N530PA and was inbound from Sydney, Australia into LAX when Frank captured the above shot
                                     in September of 1989.   United flew them on just about all its long range routes for ten years, after
                                     which most of them wound up as scrap, many at Ardmore, Oklahoma.