Fly Me Friendly

You know, a rose by any other name would still have thorns. For those of you who may be wondering why I’m using the handle “Falcon 124″, this quick note explains all.

It would seem that my blog is getting noticed out there as according to Google Analytics, my traffic is up (yay). Even if I never went to check out the analytics information though, I’d still know that awareness was building, just by the volume of spam being automatically captured by the Akismet plug-in on the blog. There’s also the GMail spam filters on my email address – they’ve been trapping lots more too.

My thanks to those other blogs out there who have cross linked to me – that’s very much appreciated and I’m in the process of updating my Blogroll down the side of the page.

Meanwhile, at least I know that the spammers have noticed me :)

Carlo and I are really enjoying our sessions in the Flight Experience 737-800 fixed-base simulator. Even when we have a comparatively bad session with all sorts of hassles and mistakes, we’re still enjoying it. So, are we just having these sessions for the fun of it? Well, yes, there is a large “fun” component involved, but we have two major goals we’re working on:

• Our Skills: We both dream of one day flying a real commercial jet liner, but we have a long way to go to get there. We both have families, work, debts and other pressures that get in the way (as most people do). Carlo has extensive experience with MS Flight Simulator while most of my flying has been in real aircraft (usually Cessnas). We both went and flew a full-motion 737-400 sim many years ago and have been considering ways to work in aviation. I spent a few years as crew chief for Balloon Sunrise and have had a couple of goes at getting my pilot’s license, while in 2007, Carlo set up the Melbourne Flight Experience operation. When time permits, we’ve had a few adventures in the sim. Initially it was a “fun thing to do” but it has now become a challenge, learning systems, getting used to how the 737 handles, practicing procedures, working on our CRM and trying to do the best, professional job we can. Like I said, even when it goes wrong, we’re really enjoying it.
• Route Proving: While Flight Experience lets members of the public see what it’s like to fly a commercial jet, they also cater to serious simmers and pilots wanting to step up. For those who want more than a simple flight, they are going to offer 3 hour packages featuring multiple take-offs and landings in a realistic, commercial environment. So, the flights we’re planning and executing are tests to prepare these 3 hour packages. The EuroFun trip has already had a beta-test with a real customer and the feedback has been helpful (yup, there’s problems to address). This certainly provides us with a more challenging situation as we’re not just focusing on our own education but also creating experiences for others to follow.

While this is not directly contributing to progress on my path to getting back in the air, the experience I’m building is certainly helping, I’m having a great time and it’s also giving something back to Flight Experience that, in turn, allows others to be challenged as well. Does it get much better than this?

I’ve started loading some of my old flying articles onto the site for you to enjoy. So far there’s:

Hope you enjoy them – I’ll get around to putting some more up there one day (and writing some new ones).

Given I’ve been involved in flying adventures for quite some time before I started this blog, I’ve wound up with a number of entries about flying over on my regular blog. I decided to split off my flying related activities to this site, including my photos, as I wanted to have everything flight related in its own space.

So, now that it’s up and running, I’m going to start copying my early flying related stories into this blog. Not sure how these will appear in the RSS feed but what the heck – at least I’ll wind up with everything together. Apologies for any confusion this may cause.

EDIT: And we’re done – about a day later and I’ve loaded a stack of back entries from the old blog over to here. Now all my flying related posts are in one place and the RSS feed didn’t get all stuffed up either.

Today we flew back from Tweed Heads to Melbourne and I have to say the time in the Gold Coast terminal wasn’t that bad at all. While our aircraft was packed solid, there was lots of space in the departure lounge, check in was a breeze and the walk out to the aircraft was fun. Of course, the clear blue skies and lack of rain helped (we’d had rain all weekend so I was dreading getting soaked today).

This time we flew back on a B737-700 and the differences inside between it and the B737-800 we flew up on were quite obvious. Only one over-wing exit, row 12 is the exit row (on the way up we were in row 12 and were one or two rows ahead of the exit at least) and much more cramped seating.

On the way up from Melbourne we’d had a bunch of young sporting types in the back who were being a tad rowdy at times. I was thinking this time would probably be crying kids but no, it looked like the same bunch of rowdies were heading back home this flight. DOH!

So, which is worse. An aircraft with crying kids or an aircraft of rowdy sporting types? Hell, how about both? We had some kids behind us and rowdies all around us. Hmmm… Actually, it wasn’t too bad as I think they were all pretty tired and slept or snoozed all the way down.

We hit some chop coming into Melbourne as usually – a bit of sharp stuff around the tops of the clouds as we descended then some rolling lumpy stuff around 8,000′ which lasted until around 3,000′ then mostly cleared up. Sadly, one of the lads around us couldn’t handle the ride and barfed during the last few minutes – whoops – there goes that “cool status”…

We’re having a break in Tweed Heads to visit family and are staying in a house not far from Coolangatta / Gold Coast Airport (YBCG). Sitting on the balcony with a beer, I can watch the commercial jets heading out (mostly Virgin Blue and JetStar), the occasional corporate jet, helicopters and a few lighties. There’s a couple of flight schools at this airport so there are a few lighties doing circuits in the gaps around the jets. This house would be perfect if it were only a little higher up the hill behind us, then I could see the tarmac as well.

As usual, we flew Virgin Blue out of Melbourne. We could fly JetStar but we’re not too impressed with them and only use them when there’s no alternative. While waiting for our flight at a cafe in Melbourne airport, we got our first “in the flesh” look at QANTAS’ new A380. It’s not yet in commercial service but is flying around Australia doing familiarisation and shake down flights. Damn that thing is huge – at first glance it was just another aircraft until you realise it’s got two levels of windows and/or it goes past another aircraft. They parked over on the freight ramp with a terminal building between us. We could only see the tails of the other aircraft there (including a B747) but the whole upper deck of the A380 could be seen. Amazing.

As we taxied out to the runway we passed one of Virgin Blue’s new Embraer E-jets. At first glance they look like a 737 until you get a better look at it. When seen against a 737, it looks like someone’s shrunk it down. I’d love to see one next to the A380.

After holding short for a Tiger Airways A321 to land we moved out onto the runway and sat there for ages. I have no idea why we waited so long on the runway but finally the engines were powered up and away we went. Otherwise, the flight was uneventful – some light chop in the early cruise and some sharp jolts as we descended into cloud on approach. Coolangatta terminal is undergoing some massive rebuilding so getting in involved long detours, queuing when the path narrowed and filing through a single door into a complete disaster inside – I imagine it’ll be great when it’s all finished, but for now it’s a place to avoid. Not looking forward to flying out on Monday, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, for now it’s time to relax, unwind and watch the aircraft while drinking some beers on the balcony.

I received an email from a friend of mine this afternoon after a rather wild attempted landing at Hong Kong (VHHH). Gotta love that inflight Internet access, no?

I am currently typing this at 29000 feet, 804km/h, sitting in row57h on an A330. We took off from Taipei .. got to Hong Kong and was put in two holding patterns with 4 circuits each then we start the approach in to the airport …. Mate I have never been thrown around like we were !!

The plane was like out of control …sliding and buffering and then lurching ….crazy !!!!

The wheels went down … I held my breath …. We were all over the place … I couldn’t see anything as the fog was so low.

Then out of nowhere in the middle of a lurch to the left a wheel hit the ground and then we had full power come on and we went hard up and took off straight away !!

So now were are on our way to Taipei again to refuel and then come back ….. but now the captain has told us we don’t have the fuel to get there so we are going to a smaller airport closer called Kaohsiung. We are to refuel there and then head back to Hong Kong

That’s certainly worse than my scariest landing which was going into Boston (KBOS) on a dark & stormy evening, rocking & rolling all over the place. Looking out the window at gray water then gray sky, engines spooling up and down – woo hoo – quite the ride. At least on my flight we made it down and didn’t need a go-around (all be it we touched down with a very positive return to earth).

We’ve just started Spring Carnival here in Melbourne – about 1.5 months of horse racing on tracks around Melbourne and through out the state of Victoria.

So, what does this have to do with helicopters?

Plenty!

Due to the popularity of the races, driving to the track can be a real joke. Long queues of cars often start before the off ramp on the highway let alone within a few blocks of the track. So, a number of people will arrange to get a helicopter ride into the track rather than go through the hell of driving or public transport. People typically get picked up in the city but some will go from Moorabbin (YMMB), Essendon (YMEN) or Melbourne International (YMML) airports.

Our apartment building is under the flight path most of the helicopters take between Moorabbin airport and the city and/or Flemington race track. So we’ll see a stream of various helicopters flying in to the city to track runs. Then, as they need to refuel, they’ll head back to YMMB before coming back again. Once the days racing is underway things settle down until later in the afternoon when the whole lot starts up all over again.

Sure makes for a great time if you like watching them pass overhead.

Thanks to a mention on Aviatrix’s blog I’ve found the blog of a flight dispatcher, the person on the ground who helps coordinate all the action on the ground. We’ve all seen the stories from the pilots and the cabin crew, but what about the poor folk on the ground who have to turn the aircraft around ASAP and get it back in the air earning money?

The aircraft has to be cleaned, catering have to remove the “used” stuff and put in the fresh meals & drinks, toilet tanks drained, drinking water refilled, gas tanks topped off and baggage taken off & put on. Whew – that’s a lot to happen in less than an hour (when the aircraft is on the ground, it’s not just not earning, it’s actually costing a LOT of money).

Check out The Dispatcher’s Diaries for an insight into an aspect of airline life that we may just take for granted.