Archives for the 'Flying' Category
365: Dawn over the Atlantic
Overlooking a Boeing 777 forest.
365: Selling off the family Silverjet
What’s that? What happened to defunct all-business airline Silverjet’s aircraft? Well look what’s turned up here around the back of Amman Queen Alia airport… a re-registered but not re-painted Silverjet 767. Hmm.
(Sorry for the Wikipedia entry, that’s lazy linking.)
365: You may use your mobile phone onboard
Is it the future? Probably, but I’ll miss the isolation of flight. This is one of Royal Jordanian’s new A320 aircraft equipped with (I think) AirGo, which means one can send and receive calls whilst in the air. The plane was absolutely new, a couple of days in service I think, and thankfully the ‘turn off phone’ light remained lit for the whole journey to amman. Ha!
Operators have a choice between data, or data and voice. Guess which one Ryanair’s opted for?
365: Compression
Tonight, having to fly away on a Saturday night and lose another weekend to work, life felt a bit like this. Board:hop:deboard.
(From the front of the inter-terminal shuttle at Heathrow T5.)
365: Qantas Sydney first class lounge
Farewell Sydney, but what a view for a departure. This is a lounge that brings the glamour and style back to aviation.
The departures board is pretty nifty too:
365: Night flight
An hour or two’s uncomfortable napping before touching down in Sydney.
365: Classy yet trashy
One picture masks a gritty day: from the deserts of Kuwait, to slushy London, a taxi back home for a change of clothes and back to the airport and on to freezing New York. If I’d had the sense to check the weather forecast for my stopover on the way to Florida I’ve had noticed that it was -8 degrees celsius at Newark and I had only a jumper for protection. It was an uncomfortable wait for the airport shuttlebus.
A nice contrast of rose and paper towel in the business toilet, high class and low class at the same time.
365: Clunk click
This photo sums up quite a lot about Kuwait: the KFC, Burger King, traffic lights that are a legacy of British rule contrasting with the safely seatbelted Kuwaiti in full dishdash. West jars with Middle East.
When the seat belt sign is extinguished…
…this is why you should keep your seat belts fastened. There’s a full gallery of images here (the toilet seat looks very uncomfortable) and background plus an eminently sensible commentary by Kieran Daly here.
Let this be a lesson to you. Note that the aircraft dipped its nose 8.4 degrees for a couple of moments and then recovered, to be follow by a shallow descent a few seconds later. That’s it. No plunge. And look at the damage it caused. Without wishing to worry you, it seems to have been a (clearly, rare) computer malfunction.
Whilst we’re looking at flying blogs – something I take care to avoid here – one of the best written and most engaging, if you have the slightest interest in what’s happening up front, is Flight Level 390. It’s one of the few blogs I’m excited to see updated, and I urge you to subscribe immediately.
Leaving Las Vegas
Or rather, overflying Las Vegas in seat 1K of the BA 279 to LAX. It doesn’t look so big from up here, eh? Look closely and you’ll spot all of the landmarks on The Strip.
Oh yes – I’m in California for a week. A holiday at last!
