Aviation Designs

Patrick why are you not replying my messages? (6 replies)

Designer — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 23:18:11 +0200

I have been maling you much before the excahnge with raydon that may have caused you offence to ignore my messages, but why havent you responded to earlier ones prior to that and why arent my pics appearing in database inspite of uploading repeatedly, please respond, thanks.

KELN-KMWH-KPDT with Pics (no replies)

bluewhale — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:49:14 +0100

*Originally written in June of 2011, but the forums broke*

This trip report is long overdue since I did this flight almost a month ago. The object of this flight was to log 4 solid hours of cross country flying solo. This is the longest flight out of the whole private rating course and is also in preparation for the final checkride. My flight instructor had first offered me the option of either flying to Moses Lake and Pasco, Moses Lake and Pullman, or The Dalles and Pendleton in Oregon. I didn’t really like any of the options, so I decided to get creative and play around with the times and mileage. The requirements were that one segment of this trip had to be at least 100 miles. So I finally decided on flying to Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, and then down south to Pendleton, Oregon, because I wanted to fly out of, and land in a different state! I have already flown other cross countries, both solos and duals to Moses Lake and Pasco, but I wanted to write about this one since this one is the most fun and I have the most media coverage of it!

So on May 19th, I got to the airport at 8:45 to get the plane preflighted. Today, I was in the Cessna 152 numbered N5499Q, which was also the plane that I had flown in the other trip report that I wrote. As I preflighted the plane, checked the fuel, and checked the oil, my flight instructor went over my flight plan and determined that everything looked fine. She signed me off and then off I went! I taxied to the hold line for runway 29 and after I did my run up, I took off and started flying to Moses Lake. Today’s routing took me to the east at an altitude of 5,500. After leaning the fuel to air mixture, opening my flight plan with Seattle Radio, and establishing flight following with Grant County approach, it was time for some sightseeing!

Looking south down the Columbia River – it separates Kittitas County where Ellensburg is, and Grant County which is where Moses Lake is. Further south, the Columbia separates Washington and Oregon.

More of the Columbia

A settlement by the Columbia

Looking north – the city that you see here is Quincy, WA and the town of Wenatchee is off the screen to the left. The funny thing about Wenatchee airport is that their radio frequency is the same as ours (we are an uncontrolled airport and so are they) yet Wenatchee gets regularly scheduled service from QX to SEA and I frequently hear the pilot say something along the lines of “Wenatchee traffic, Horizon 2158 Q400 is 20 miles to the west, planning a straight in approach for runway 12, Wenatchee.”

The town of Quincy off into the distance

Canyons

The town of George… yes that is correct, there is indeed a town called George, Washington.

At this point, I was getting pretty close to MWH and Grant County Approach handed me off to Grant County tower. I also called Seattle Radio to close my flight plan because I had the airport in sight. Approach had told me to expect runway 36, and tower confirmed me for runway 36 and I was cleared to land. I began my descent down to traffic pattern altitude, and I was already on base. Tower told me to keep west of runway 32R at all times because of heavy traffic taking off on that runway, so I made sure to mind that. About 5 minutes after starting my descent, I was on final and I did my touch and go and I got back in the air and banked left to head south towards Oregon!

Departing Grant County International’s traffic pattern on the downwind leg of runway 36 – runway 36 is actually the narrow paved way that looks like a taxiway because it is also used as a taxiway and the actual runway is runway 32R. This airport has a few of these runways that basically double as a taxiway for the larger runways because the Air Force and Boeing have a lot of heavies coming in and out in addition to all of the Cessnas and Pipers that always do touch and goes.

Part of the city of Moses Lake – right now I was struggling to get contact with Seattle Radio to reopen my flight plan to Pendleton. Seattle Radio is notorious for not responding back to calls, so sometimes I wonder if they are sleeping! 8-) But after I finally opened my flight plan about 5 minutes later, I contacted the approach frequency for flight following.

Part of the city of Moses Lake – I was now at a south heading and I would keep the same heading for the majority of this flight. Cruising altitude is 5,500.

Potholes Reservoir south of MWH

Flying over Potholes Reservoir – luckily I don’t need ETOPS for this! :D

Warden, WA

Meeting up with the Columbia River – basically following this all the way to Oregon. Also, Mt. Stuart is on the right and Mt. Rainier is on the left into the distance.

My instrument panel! Notice anything wrong? (Hint: I was in straight and level flight at the time)

Tri-Cities Airport in Pasco – Like I’ve said, I’ve flown into this airport several times already and they have airline service from Allegiant, United Express, Delta Connection, and Horizon.

This one’s better

The Tri-Cities area features the city of Pasco, and then the cities of Richland and Kennewick on the other side of the river.

PSC

Pasco

Tri Cities Area

About 5 minutes later, I reached the Washington-Oregon border! The left side of the river is Washington and the right side is Oregon.

Looking back at the Tri-Cities area

Town of Kennewick, WA

Looking down at the border

I have reached Oregon!

Mosaic Scenery

Washington on the right and Oregon on the left

Farmland off in Washington

More mosaic scenery – at this point, the approach frequency handed me off to Pendleton’s tower, after reading me the weather report.

Here’s the town of Pendleton, OR and the airport. Tower told me to fly a left downwind to land on runway 29.

A bigger view of PDT.

The intersection of runway 7/25 and 11/29 as I’m on left downwind for runway 29. To the right of this picture, I found out that PDT sits on a cliff above the town and the threshold for runway 29 was right by the edge of said cliff. It was beautiful.

Slowing down on runway 29

As I was slowing down, tower told me to exit off runway 29 at the intersection with runway 7 and to contact ground, who was actually the same guy, which I thought, was funny. I don’t know why Pendleton has a tower and Ellensburg doesn’t because Pendleton is a very quiet airport and only one other plane landed during the 30 or so minutes I was on the ground. In Ellensburg, you’d see at least 3 different planes (all flight students incidentally) doing touch and goes in the same time frame and the pattern can get very chaotic and get thrown off if one or two additional planes enters the pattern, which happens frequently!

Off the runway and taxiing to the fuel stands

Once I got to the fuel stands, I shut off the plane and then I got out and stretched. I took a short break just looking around at stuff, and then I began to refuel the plane.

The FBO in Pendleton – it really isn’t much!

The ironic thing about fueling in PDT is that it is self-serve, while pumping your own gas for your car in Oregon is illegal and you have to wait for the foreman to do it for you. In contrast, most aviation fuel stands are not self-serve, so of all the places in the world for there to be self-serve aviation fuel, an airport in the state of Oregon, where you don’t normally pump gas, is the one to have it!

The fuel pump

Fueling the airplane is quite different than a car. I first had to clamp the plane to a clip tied down to the ground to secure it and help prevent static. Then the fuel machine told me to swipe the Air BP credit card that the FBO in ELN gave me, and then it told me to turn on the valve and begin fueling. Since the Cessna is a high wing aircraft, I got up on a ladder and I started to fill the tank on the left side. It seemed to be going pretty slow, but that’s alright because I wanted to be cautious. I filled the left side to the brim, and then I moved on to the right side. Here, I squeezed the handle harder to make things a little quicker. Originally, I thought that the pump was just slow since I was being cautious, but then I figured out that this thing actually goes quite fast. To experiment, I squeezed the handle all the way, and fuel came shooting out so fast that the tank filled up so quickly that it overflowed and a bunch of fuel spilled and ran down the back of the wing and down the flaps! Oops, at least I’m not paying for that, oh well! :D I quickly made sure nobody was looking, and then I resumed filling up that side more cautiously. Five minutes later, I was finished and I got the receipt and the bill was over $80 for 10.6 gallons. Fortunately, the fuel bill was on the flight school, but still, I pay $100 an hour on the Hobbs meter inside the plane to rent this thing!

After I was done fueling, I went inside the FBO to use the bathroom and wash up for my 2 hour trip back home. The inside was definitely showing its age and the fact that it was a really quiet airport, since there was only one guy working in here and half the time he was inside doing something, and the other half he was outside hosing down his truck. There was a small display case and a cash register if you wanted to buy a map or an airport directory, a couch and some easy chairs, and a small old TV that he was watching whenever he was inside. The bathroom was small and what you would see at a small old house, not a business. So after seeing the state of the place, I figured it was time to go, so I went outside to do an abbreviated preflight inspection.

My C-152 for the day – N5499Q with the flaps drawn and doors open while I was checking the lights, fuel, and oil. And the fuel pump says Self-Serve!

After preflighting, I found nothing wrong and I got in and got myself set up with my map, flight plan, and everything as I started up the plane. I dialed in the ground frequency, saying that I was at the fuel pumps, ready to taxi to the active. Ground control gave me instructions, saying to taxi on taxiway alpha all the way to the end and hold short of runway 29. Once I got to the hold short line, he told me to do my run up, so I checked my magentos and did the before takeoff checklist. When I was done, I told him that I am ready to takeoff, so he cleared me and off I went. I even have a video!

I started off going on a heading of 290, and then the tower cleared me for my right turn to a northerly heading back to the Tri-Cities area. This time, my cruising altitude was 6,500.

Approaching the Columbia River and Washington from the south

A small mountain too

Columbia River

Right now I’m over the water almost into Washington

Back in Washington

Interstate 82

Kennewick, WA

More of the Tri-Cities area

Highland, WA

Interstate 82

Kennewick, WA and Vista Field Airport on the left

Some newer developments off the left side

Richland/Kennewick

Richland Airport – Each one of the Tri-Cities has an airport for some reason, but only Pasco has airline service. Richland is a general aviation airport and Vista Field is a private airport.

The way this trip was scheduled, was that when I got back into Ellensburg, I would have about 40 minutes of extra time to use to practice maneuvers and do touch and goes. After departing the Tri-Cities area, I decided to pull back on the power and fly slower though, since I knew Ellensburg would be really windy, bumpy, and unstable once I got back. Here, the air was really smooth and flying conditions were very favorable and I wanted to fly in this air for as much of the two hours as I could. So instead of flying at about 95 knots, I was now going 75 knots to burn up some time.

Some high cirrus clouds with the effects of the propeller spinning at 2200 RPM.

One of the many military tankers that are based out of MWH

The bridge by Vantage, WA that separates Grant County from Kittitas County – It was funny now because I actually heard one of my friends talking to the same approach frequency I was on and she was also flying back to ELN from MWH, doing the 2 hour solo that I had completed prior to this trip.

More of the bridge

Cumulus clouds and precipitation while arriving back into the Kittitas Valley – indicative of unstable air

More of these scattered rain showers over the hills – like I expected, it was beginning to get bumpy. I have gotten a whole new perspective of turbulence from flying these Cessnas, and I have learned that it can be difficult to control the plane sometimes, and a downdraft may even force your plane into a bank and you have to fight with the controls for a second or two if it’s bad. But that’s just the Cessna 152; it’s a light piece of metal that can even blow away in the wind while it’s parked if you aren’t being careful. :D

Once I got back into Ellensburg, I radioed in that I was arriving and I got set up to join the pattern for the active runway at the time, which was 29. It was pretty windy, so my landings were not great, and I kept getting bounced around a lot since the plane was lighter than what I’m used to without my instructor with me. So after doing 3 touch and goes, the pattern was beginning to get crowded and the air was bad so I decided to stop. After I passed the hold line for runway 29, I took a video of the same friend flying a solo from MWH doing a soft field takeoff:

I took my time taxiing to the fuel pumps here in Ellensburg, which took about 5 minutes. I had to make sure that I logged 4 hours on the Hobbs meter so that I could get this lesson done. Once I had reached the fuel pumps, I began to shut off the plane and when I was done, the Hobbs turned and I was good to go. I shut off the plane, and I went into the office and returned the credit cards, gave them my fuel receipt, and I went off to fill out my log book and other paper work. I had gone to Oregon and back, all in time to go to my classes!

This trip was probably the most fun out of them all, since this trip required me to land at 2 other airports besides ELN, and do a full stop at one of them to refuel. This lesson is probably one of the biggest highlights of my private year, besides my first solo, my first cross-country, and most of all, passing my checkride with flying colors! (no pun intended) I am now a registered private pilot, and I have learned a lot over this pass year. Getting a private pilot license and going through all of the training and courses will definitely take an aviation enthusiast to a whole new dimension! Feel free to ask questions!

Just Checking In (3 replies)

Orca333 — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:16:01 +0100

Hey guys,

Long time no talk!

I have to apologize for my absence as I've had a very busy year with work and school. I'm on the final year of my Graphic Design course now which is exciting but stressful too! I'm learning so many new things constantly and it's an excellent program.

Just thought I'd check in to see how every one is these days!

I'll be around a bit more, make that a resolution for the year! :)-D

Maybe I'll get some free time to work on some designs too.

Cheers & Happy New Years!

Trev

Modified photos being uploaded at My Aviation (no replies)

Designer — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 01:58:12 +0200

Admin take note that some people are uploading photos from here to your sister site, they are modified photos of images from airliners.net, medium format, with black a.net banner underneath the image complete with a.net logo but image copyright photogprahers name changed to the fraudulent uploaders name using photoshop resulting in very real look with exact same font.

So far PIA A320 and Saudi Arabian A380 have been uploaded by same person. These very photos are also uploaded at aviation-design but in large format.

EDITED TO ADD IMAGES:

PIA modification

[www.cardatabase.net]

and the same uploaded at my aviation [www.myaviation.net]

Saudi Arabian modification

[www.cardatabase.net]

and the same uploaded at my aviation [www.myaviation.net]

Surprised that photo editors there didnt notice, are not aviation savvy to know PK dont have A320s and SV dont have A380s.

IMPORTANT: Cathay Pacific and Dragon Air (4 replies)

Admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:37:45 +0200

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry to say that Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong DragonAir do not appreciate their names being used on our site. My personal view is that being seen here is a token of appreciation.

We will no longer be able to show images including their logo or registered names.

Their images will be taken offline during the day.

Regards,
Henrik

Rules of uploading (-1 replies)

raydon — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

I thought that we were only allowed to upload submissions of one airline, one aircraft. Does this rule still apply? I had my fleet submissions rejected once. I also had an alliance/airline same aircraft rejected too. What's the deal with it?

Mario asked the same question here

flight sim pics (-1 replies)

jonf45 — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

hi,
can i upload fs9 pics to the site?
have been messing about with new liveries for old aircraft etc:

have tried the search option, but it keeps coming back with an error message!!

jon

Canadian Airlines / Oneworld Boeing 777 & 787 (-1 replies)

JohnsonSmith — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

Canadian Airlines was a charter member of Oneworld but they were bought by Air Canada soon after the foundation of the alliance. I would love to see a Canadian Airlines 787, 777-200 & 777-300 in the alliance colours & also in their first colours & their Proud Goose livery. Any takers?

Off-Topic Forum Broken? (-1 replies)

bluewhale — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

I tried to post a trip report on the off topic, but it says that an error has occured and that I should try later. But still, on the splash page where you have options to go to General, Off Topic, or Photo Request, it says that the topic has already been posted, even though it doesn't show up. Also when I go to try to repost, it says that the thread has already been posted and that I need a different subject title.

Solo TR: ELN-MWH-PDT-ELN with pics (-1 replies)

bluewhale — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

This trip report is long overdue since I did this flight almost a month ago. The object of this flight was to log 4 solid hours of cross country flying solo. This is the longest flight out of the whole private rating course and is also in preparation for the final checkride. My flight instructor had first offered me the option of either flying to Moses Lake and Pasco, Moses Lake and Pullman, or The Dalles and Pendleton in Oregon. I didn’t really like any of the options, so I decided to get creative and play around with the times and mileage. The requirements were that one segment of this trip had to be at least 100 miles. So I finally decided on flying to Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake, and then down south to Pendleton, Oregon, because I wanted to fly out of, and land in a different state! I have already flown other cross countries, both solos and duals to Moses Lake and Pasco, but I wanted to write about this one since this one is the most fun and I have the most media coverage of it!

So on May 19th, I got to the airport at 8:45 to get the plane preflighted. Today, I was in the Cessna 152 numbered N5499Q, which was also the plane that I had flown in the other trip report that I wrote. As I preflighted the plane, checked the fuel, and checked the oil, my flight instructor went over my flight plan and determined that everything looked fine. She signed me off and then off I went! I taxied to the hold line for runway 29 and after I did my run up, I took off and started flying to Moses Lake. Today’s routing took me to the east at an altitude of 5,500. After leaning the fuel to air mixture, opening my flight plan with Seattle Radio, and establishing flight following with Grant County approach, it was time for some sightseeing!

Looking south down the Columbia River – it separates Kittitas County where Ellensburg is, and Grant County which is where Moses Lake is. Further south, the Columbia separates Washington and Oregon.

More of the Columbia

A settlement by the Columbia

Looking north – the city that you see here is Quincy, WA and the town of Wenatchee is off the screen to the left. The funny thing about Wenatchee airport is that their radio frequency is the same as ours (we are an uncontrolled airport and so are they) yet Wenatchee gets regularly scheduled service from QX to SEA and I frequently hear the pilot say something along the lines of “Wenatchee traffic, Horizon 2158 Q400 is 20 miles to the west, planning a straight in approach for runway 12, Wenatchee.”

The town of Quincy off into the distance

Canyons

The town of George… yes that is correct, there is indeed a town called George, Washington.

At this point, I was getting pretty close to MWH and Grant County Approach handed me off to Grant County tower. I also called Seattle Radio to close my flight plan because I had the airport in sight. Approach had told me to expect runway 36, and tower confirmed me for runway 36 and I was cleared to land. I began my descent down to traffic pattern altitude, and I was already on base. Tower told me to keep west of runway 32R at all times because of heavy traffic taking off on that runway, so I made sure to mind that. About 5 minutes after starting my descent, I was on final and I did my touch and go and I got back in the air and banked left to head south towards Oregon!

Departing Grant County International’s traffic pattern on the downwind leg of runway 36 – runway 36 is actually the narrow paved way that looks like a taxiway because it is also used as a taxiway and the actual runway is runway 32R. This airport has a few of these runways that basically double as a taxiway for the larger runways because the Air Force and Boeing have a lot of heavies coming in and out in addition to all of the Cessnas and Pipers that always do touch and goes.

Part of the city of Moses Lake – right now I was struggling to get contact with Seattle Radio to reopen my flight plan to Pendleton. Seattle Radio is notorious for not responding back to calls, so sometimes I wonder if they are sleeping! 8-) But after I finally opened my flight plan about 5 minutes later, I contacted the approach frequency for flight following.

Part of the city of Moses Lake – I was now at a south heading and I would keep the same heading for the majority of this flight. Cruising altitude is 5,500.

Potholes Reservoir south of MWH

Flying over Potholes Reservoir – luckily I don’t need ETOPS for this! :D

Warden, WA

Meeting up with the Columbia River – basically following this all the way to Oregon. Also, Mt. Stuart is on the right and Mt. Rainier is on the left into the distance.

My instrument panel! Notice anything wrong? (Hint: I was in straight and level flight at the time)

Tri-Cities Airport in Pasco – Like I’ve said, I’ve flown into this airport several times already and they have airline service from Allegiant, United Express, Delta Connection, and Horizon.

This one’s better

The Tri-Cities area features the city of Pasco, and then the cities of Richland and Kennewick on the other side of the river.

PSC

Pasco

Tri Cities Area

About 5 minutes later, I reached the Washington-Oregon border! The left side of the river is Washington and the right side is Oregon.

Looking back at the Tri-Cities area

Town of Kennewick, WA

Looking down at the border

I have reached Oregon!

Mosaic Scenery

Washington on the right and Oregon on the left

Farmland off in Washington

More mosaic scenery – at this point, the approach frequency handed me off to Pendleton’s tower, after reading me the weather report.

Here’s the town of Pendleton, OR and the airport. Tower told me to fly a left downwind to land on runway 29.

A bigger view of PDT.

The intersection of runway 7/25 and 11/29 as I’m on left downwind for runway 29. To the right of this picture, I found out that PDT sits on a cliff above the town and the threshold for runway 29 was right by the edge of said cliff. It was beautiful.

Slowing down on runway 29

As I was slowing down, tower told me to exit off runway 29 at the intersection with runway 7 and to contact ground, who was actually the same guy, which I thought, was funny. I don’t know why Pendleton has a tower and Ellensburg doesn’t because Pendleton is a very quiet airport and only one other plane landed during the 30 or so minutes I was on the ground. In Ellensburg, you’d see at least 3 different planes (all flight students incidentally) doing touch and goes in the same time frame and the pattern can get very chaotic and get thrown off if one or two additional planes enters the pattern, which happens frequently!

Off the runway and taxiing to the fuel stands

Once I got to the fuel stands, I shut off the plane and then I got out and stretched. I took a short break just looking around at stuff, and then I began to refuel the plane.

The FBO in Pendleton – it really isn’t much!

The ironic thing about fueling in PDT is that it is self-serve, while pumping your own gas for your car in Oregon is illegal and you have to wait for the foreman to do it for you. In contrast, most aviation fuel stands are not self-serve, so of all the places in the world for there to be self-serve aviation fuel, an airport in the state of Oregon, where you don’t normally pump gas, is the one to have it!

The fuel pump

Fueling the airplane is quite different than a car. I first had to clamp the plane to a clip tied down to the ground to secure it and help prevent static. Then the fuel machine told me to swipe the Air BP credit card that the FBO in ELN gave me, and then it told me to turn on the valve and begin fueling. Since the Cessna is a high wing aircraft, I got up on a ladder and I started to fill the tank on the left side. It seemed to be going pretty slow, but that’s alright because I wanted to be cautious. I filled the left side to the brim, and then I moved on to the right side. Here, I squeezed the handle harder to make things a little quicker. Originally, I thought that the pump was just slow since I was being cautious, but then I figured out that this thing actually goes quite fast. To experiment, I squeezed the handle all the way, and fuel came shooting out so fast that the tank filled up so quickly that it overflowed and a bunch of fuel spilled and ran down the back of the wing and down the flaps! Oops, at least I’m not paying for that, oh well! :D I quickly made sure nobody was looking, and then I resumed filling up that side more cautiously. Five minutes later, I was finished and I got the receipt and the bill was over $80 for 10.6 gallons. Fortunately, the fuel bill was on the flight school, but still, I pay $100 an hour on the Hobbs meter inside the plane to rent this thing!

After I was done fueling, I went inside the FBO to use the bathroom and wash up for my 2 hour trip back home. The inside was definitely showing its age and the fact that it was a really quiet airport, since there was only one guy working in here and half the time he was inside doing something, and the other half he was outside hosing down his truck. There was a small display case and a cash register if you wanted to buy a map or an airport directory, a couch and some easy chairs, and a small old TV that he was watching whenever he was inside. The bathroom was small and what you would see at a small old house, not a business. So after seeing the state of the place, I figured it was time to go, so I went outside to do an abbreviated preflight inspection.

My C-152 for the day – N5499Q with the flaps drawn and doors open while I was checking the lights, fuel, and oil. And the fuel pump says Self-Serve!

After preflighting, I found nothing wrong and I got in and got myself set up with my map, flight plan, and everything as I started up the plane. I dialed in the ground frequency, saying that I was at the fuel pumps, ready to taxi to the active. Ground control gave me instructions, saying to taxi on taxiway alpha all the way to the end and hold short of runway 29. Once I got to the hold short line, he told me to do my run up, so I checked my magentos and did the before takeoff checklist. When I was done, I told him that I am ready to takeoff, so he cleared me and off I went. I even have a video!

I started off going on a heading of 290, and then the tower cleared me for my right turn to a northerly heading back to the Tri-Cities area. This time, my cruising altitude was 6,500.

Approaching the Columbia River and Washington from the south

A small mountain too

Columbia River

Right now I’m over the water almost into Washington

Back in Washington

Interstate 82

Kennewick, WA

More of the Tri-Cities area

Highland, WA

Interstate 82

Kennewick, WA and Vista Field Airport on the left

Some newer developments off the left side

Richland/Kennewick

Richland Airport – Each one of the Tri-Cities has an airport for some reason, but only Pasco has airline service. Richland is a general aviation airport and Vista Field is a private airport.

The way this trip was scheduled, was that when I got back into Ellensburg, I would have about 40 minutes of extra time to use to practice maneuvers and do touch and goes. After departing the Tri-Cities area, I decided to pull back on the power and fly slower though, since I knew Ellensburg would be really windy, bumpy, and unstable once I got back. Here, the air was really smooth and flying conditions were very favorable and I wanted to fly in this air for as much of the two hours as I could. So instead of flying at about 95 knots, I was now going 75 knots to burn up some time.

Some high cirrus clouds with the effects of the propeller spinning at 2200 RPM.

One of the many military tankers that are based out of MWH

The bridge by Vantage, WA that separates Grant County from Kittitas County – It was funny now because I actually heard one of my friends talking to the same approach frequency I was on and she was also flying back to ELN from MWH, doing the 2 hour solo that I had completed prior to this trip.

More of the bridge

Cumulus clouds and precipitation while arriving back into the Kittitas Valley – indicative of unstable air

More of these scattered rain showers over the hills – like I expected, it was beginning to get bumpy. I have gotten a whole new perspective of turbulence from flying these Cessnas, and I have learned that it can be difficult to control the plane sometimes, and a downdraft may even force your plane into a bank and you have to fight with the controls for a second or two if it’s bad. But that’s just the Cessna 152; it’s a light piece of metal that can even blow away in the wind while it’s parked if you aren’t being careful. :D

Once I got back into Ellensburg, I radioed in that I was arriving and I got set up to join the pattern for the active runway at the time, which was 29. It was pretty windy, so my landings were not great, and I kept getting bounced around a lot since the plane was lighter than what I’m used to without my instructor with me. So after doing 3 touch and goes, the pattern was beginning to get crowded and the air was bad so I decided to stop. After I passed the hold line for runway 29, I took a video of the same friend flying a solo from MWH doing a soft field takeoff:

I took my time taxiing to the fuel pumps here in Ellensburg, which took about 5 minutes. I had to make sure that I logged 4 hours on the Hobbs meter so that I could get this lesson done. Once I had reached the fuel pumps, I began to shut off the plane and when I was done, the Hobbs turned and I was good to go. I shut off the plane, and I went into the office and returned the credit cards, gave them my fuel receipt, and I went off to fill out my log book and other paper work. I had gone to Oregon and back, all in time to go to my classes!

This trip was probably the most fun out of them all, since this trip required me to land at 2 other airports besides ELN, and do a full stop at one of them to refuel. This lesson is probably one of the biggest highlights of my private year, besides my first solo, my first cross-country, and most of all, passing my checkride with flying colors! (no pun intended) I am now a registered private pilot, and I have learned a lot over this pass year. Getting a private pilot license and going through all of the training and courses will definitely take an aviation enthusiast to a whole new dimension! Feel free to ask questions!

Solo Trip Report: ELN-MWH-PDT-ELN with pics (-1 replies)

bluewhale — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100

templates (3 replies)

jleewild — Fri, 27 May 2011 11:53:49 +0200

hi guys, just wondering if someone could point me in the direction of some good templates, im lookin for some unusual ones in the same sort of style like the ones by jetabout.

thankyou =)

Virgin Australia (1 reply)

Spyco — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:23:11 +0200

I'm actually surprised you folks haven't been on this one already. If you're not aware, Virgin Blue is being rebranded to get away from the no frills image they've built and sold up until now. I'd like to see what you all think the new Virgin Australia livery would look like

Hai (3 replies)

Spyco — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:34:23 +0200

Wow it's quiet around here, but at least there's still some familiar faces around.Nice to see that the community is still kicking :)

I went on a volunteer trip a couple weeks ago to South Africa and, even if the 31 hours of travel was painful, it was a total planespotters dream. I went from Vancouver to SFO to JFK (I SAW T5!) to Johannesburg, and coming back I went JNB to Washington Dulles (via Dakar) to O'Hare to Vancouver.
BTW, I had to fly United. The new livery makes me want to cry. Then again, so does the "new" JAL one

Who uploaded this photo? (1 reply)

N776AU — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 17:25:51 +0200

It's a great photo, and I'd like to accept it into the database, but I have no name attached to it. Anyone want to claim it?

New Templates! (4 replies)

raydon — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:41:37 +0200

Hi All!

I have added some new templates to the site. They haven't been moderated yet but you can go to my site so long to check 'em out! Hope to add more as time progresses! They're not quite RP Abraham friendly but you can always try!

Templates

2 Solos Around KELN (2 replies)

bluewhale — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:12:33 +0100

I am going to incorporate 2 flights into one report. The first flight was my solo flight around the traffic pattern that was to be logged for an hour. On the second flight, I was flying a practice area solo flight, where technically, I am supposed to be practicing doing stalls, flight during minimum airspeed, and ground-reference maneuvers. Since these flights are for practice and are mainly a lot of the same things done over and over again, unlike commercial flying from airport to airport, this report will be more pictures than literature.

The first flight I took on February 1st at 11:00. I would be flying in a Cessna 152 reg. N5499Q. Contrary to what my CFI thinks (because I fly the plane, she doesn’t) all 6 of the FBO’s C-152s handle slightly different from each other. N5499Q is known as the worst plane amongst us Cessna students because this plane is very uncoordinated and requires a lot of rudder control, whereas others require rudder control only during severe maneuvers. However, this plane, being one that was manufactured in 1981, has a brand new engine and is one of the fastest in the fleet. That kind of worked against me because my speed would always go over 100 knots while on my downwind leg (I also had a slight tailwind aloft, which didn’t register on the ground’s automated weather observation system), when I should have been at around 80 or 90 maximum so that I could slow the plane down enough to land well.

My plane for today during preflight

During preflight, I have to follow a set checklist to check each individual component of the plane. I have preflighted a Cessna so many times that I already know what to do without the checklist. The first think is to insure that the operating documents, which are the airworthiness certificate, the federal and state registration certificates, the operating handbook, and the weight and balance, are in the plane. Without those, it is illegal to fly the plane. Next, I turn on the Alternator and Battery switch to check all the exterior lights and check to see if the flaps retract properly. To put a spotlight on things, one aircraft that I was about to fly that I was preflighting had a flap problem, in which the flaps would retract all the way to 30 degrees, even if I only set the switch to 10 degrees. Luckily this was not the case today. After that I check the antennas to see that they won’t fly off, and the rear fuselage for dents and whatnot. I then walk to the rear where I make sure that the horizontal stabilizer works and that it is not frozen over, and also check to see that the rudder works. Next is the right wing, in which I check the light, the flaps to make sure that there is nothing caught in the tracks, and also the aileron. I also check fuel quantity, and the fuel cap is on the top of the wing, so the FBO requires us to get up on a ladder. I also make sure that the brakes and tires are good, as well as the front gear, shimmy dampner, and oleo strut. Lastly, I check the propeller for damage and check everything in the left wing.

By now, my CFI had already walked out since she wanted to do 4 landings with me to make sure that I was good to go. We got into the plane, and did the 4 touch and goes. However, it seemed a bit windy up while landing, so she told me to just practice normal landings, instead of short field or soft field landings.

So the fourth time around, I pulled the plane off the runway and she got out. This was a supervised solo, so she had to stand on the side of the runway with a two way radio to communicate with me. But just for funsies, she also decided to film the first three landings that I did. So after she got out, I taxied back around the airport, back to the entry for runway 29.

Taxiing

Instrument panel – normally I’m not supposed to be taking pictures like this with my phone, but there’s nobody in the plane with me to stop me!

After takeoff from runway 29, I did a few touch and goes to get warmed up, and then I took a few more pictures.

Banking left crosswind out of runway 29 with a view of runway 7

Final seconds of the downwind leg – I had already reduced the engine RPM and retracted 10 degrees of flaps. This is the street that my dorm is on.

A picture of my dorm – it’s the tallish building in the top half of this picture with the circle around it

View of the 11 end of runway 29/11

Whole view of the airport – during the spring summer and fall months, runway 7 is the primary use runway, despite the fact that runway 29 is in better condition, has lighting, and was recently redone.

On one of the later touch and goes, things began to get interesting. A pilot who wasn’t based in Ellensburg was flying a GPS approach for runway 11, even though 11 does not have GPS, only 29 does. Normally, most operations that happen at Ellensburg airport are operations from us students doing flight lessons, the CFIs from the FBO doing standardization if they aren’t with a student, and even sometimes, one of our flight professors or someone else who lives in Ellensburg doing touch and goes who are still well-known in the CWU flight community. I was still in the pattern, doing landings on runway 29. However, once the GPS pilot was about 5 miles away, he yelled onto the radio “Land runway 11!” despite the fact that I was in the pattern first and I was landing on runway 29. Normally, whoever was in the pattern first decides the way the pattern goes, unless the wind drastically changes. Then, my CFI came on the radio and told me that I should try the landing on runway 11 instead, to help cater to the GPS pilot, and that the wind had in fact changed course a little bit. So, I changed my downwind leg into an upwind leg and I circled around the airport to change course. After that, I did about 3 more touch and goes and then I landed and parked the plane. Once I got back inside the airport, everyone in there told me how they were confused about what the GPS pilot was doing, because he wasn’t following the rules and runway 11 does not have a GPS receiver. Oh well, I’m still alive, and it was a fun ride.

My next solo flight was a fun one. In this flight, I actually got to leave the traffic pattern and go out and fly over a part of Ellensburg for about an hour or so. This flight felt a lot cooler than the previous one, since I could also practice maneuvers and look at stuff and do what I want. However, instead of flying N5499Q, I was now flying N95995, which is a real tongue-twister to say over the radio. I swear that the FBO purposely requested a registration number with a lot of 9s in it to get private students used to saying “niner.”

Seeing and standing next to this King Air was an early treat before I got started! This plane is not based here in Ellensburg, and the ramper was about to tow this plane to the fuel pumps as this plane was scheduled to leave later this morning.

This was a tall plane compared to all the little Cessnas parked all over the place

This has the Great Seal of the Navajo Nation

After I preflighted, my CFI came to check the plane one more time, because she has to sign me off in order to get the keys. Everything looked fine, so she signed the paper, went into the office, and got me the key and I was on my way! This was the first time I have begun a flight without anyone sitting next to me!

Taxiing to runway 29 – you can see the Beech King Air at the fuel pumps by the BP sign.

Here’s the FBO, a bunch of Cessnas, and a Piper to the left – the guy in the black next the closest Cessna is one of my buddies and he waved at me as I taxied out all by myself…

Other planes based out of Ellensburg that don’t belong to the FBO

Runway 29

Rotating

Liftoff

I climbed straight out and then after reaching 3,100 feet, I banked right to fly to the practice area to the east of the airport. This was my favorite practice area because it is the largest and seems to have the calmest winds.

Now flying east about a mile north of the airport—Ellensburg is the area just south of the airport.

Flying east

Road and the landing gear that doesn’t retract

Instrument panel at cruise

So I was now at cruise in the practice area, so I just started flying around and looking at stuff, and doing a few maneuvers.

I put down the flaps to slow the plane down enough to practice a power-off stall.

You’ll be able to hear the stall warning horn

The I-90 freeway which is the main freeway in Ellensburg that will take you to Seattle

I was flying around and I thought this looked a little like the Simpsons

These are stratiform clouds which indicate stable air

More clouds over Ellensburg

After that, I saw a rainbow off the right so I decided to follow it for a while.

Chasing rainbows in a Cessna! This was a once in a lifetime opportunity that not many people ever get!

However, it began to rain. I was wondering why the rain on the windshield wasn’t going away, because it normally gets whisked away by the propeller.

Someone’s house

The rain kept coming and sticking to the windshield, and then I figured out that this was freezing rain and that I was getting structural icing!

Icing on the plane – we actually had not yet talked about structural icing in class so I didn’t know what to do!

Couldn’t see much, but there was still a gap on the windshield.

Rainbow – At this point, I also decided to descend about 1,000 feet in hopes that the temperature would increase a little.

I didn’t want to land and end my flight early, so I decided to keep trying to get rid of the ice on my windshield. This time, I throttled up to get the propeller spinning faster to try to whisk away the ice.

This window has no ice so it must not be that bad

Houses – I was also trying to fly in places that did not have any precipitation.

One of the many farms in Ellensburg

These clouds are responsible for the freezing rain!

The rear of the plane on my way back to ELN

High winged plane

Entering the pattern on a 45 degree leg to the upwind for runway 29 – luckily most of the ice melted away

More farms

More clouds

Banking right to follow runway 29 upwind

Upwind

I believe that this is a tail-wheeled airplane that is based out of Ellensburg flown by one of the regulars here.

Downwind for runway 29 over the airport

The big plane next to the Piper to the right of ‘Bowers Field’ is a Cessna Citation and the plane towards the top going to the runway is the Beech King Air.

I’m not supposed to be taking pictures, especially on short final, but I had to make an exception!

Landing on runway 29

Coasting down the runway

Flaps down to 30 degrees

And then after I turned off the runway, I had to get a video of the King Air taking off!

Taxiing back to the fuel pumps

A look down runway 25

Looking down runway 7 – this runway is closed for the winter but has since opened back up on March 1st.

The plane that I flew on my practice area solo, N95995 parked at the fuel pumps!

Hope I got out all the typos and sorry that there isn't much to talk about. These flights are pretty routine and pictures do the talking better than also story telling.

A Trip to the Daytona 500. ATL-CLT-DAB-CLT-ATL (4 replies)

N776AU — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:41:51 +0100

This trip was very a very special one for me. I hadn't flown in 7 months, so that drought was over, and I was attending my first Daytona 500

I've been to two Budweiser Shootouts, including the one from the week prior, so I knew all about the speedway and what to expect, but it's the biggest race of the year. It would be like a baseball fan going to the World Series.

With filled hotels around DAB and Music Theory at 8:00 AM on Monday morning flying was the only choice. Not that it was a bad thing. Unfortunately Delta had no flights after the race until Monday, but as it was US Airways was cheaper by $30 anyway. As a result of this I was setting a personal best for most flights in a day with 4, the earliest and latest flights I've flown, and my first flight on a CRJ.

I'd also like to apologize for a general lack of pictures. Unfortunately taking pictures is rather difficult when 3 of your 4 flights take place in darkness. Anyway, on to the fun.

I always do this, but on this occasion I have a few more goodies.

Since the flight out of ATL was at 5:30, I was up and at 'em at 2:00 AM, ultimately leaving the house at 2:28.

Driving not far from my house. The roads were mostly deserted as one would expect, and the drive all the way there was a breeze, as we parked at the North Terminal at 3:21

A couple looks at the terminal form the parking lot. Sorry for the blurriness. My pictures are real hit-and-miss since I have really shaky hands.

The lower level entrance hallway to the North Terminal. I promise it looks nicer when there are lots of people around.

The sign that greets you when you make it out of the hall and into the main building.

And up the escelator into the termial.

The inactive US Airways counter. Lucky for me I printed all of the boarding passes for the day at home.

Where to next but the lovely TSA? This is one of the reasons I like to fly early. Things like waiting to be groped are quick and painless. And so it was on to the transportation hall

Going down

Unfortunately the train wasn't running since it was so early (Shortly before 4:00 AM). Needless to say I was disappointed.

But that wasn't going to stop me from taking a picture of an idle train in the Concourse T station. So we had no choice but to walk out to Concourse D. I really don't mind walking. I'm not lazy, and I wasn't pressed for time either, but I love that train.

Looking down the very long hallway that runs end to end of the airport.

Until finally we got to Concourse D. It's been a very long time since I've departed from D (6 years to be exact when I flew with Northwest)

And so we began our trip up to the concourse.

A bit of a mundane entrance compared to the other concourses, but I feel a picture was necessary nonetheless. We took a right since our flight left from gate D23.

A look down the concourse. Concourse D is very narrow. It's definitely not as nice say A or B.

And here we are at D23 shortly after 4:00 AM.

And the gate sign

A small shot of the gate area

Most importantly, what we have out the window. Our A319 this morning was N704US

Time to fly:

US Airways Flight 881

ATL-CLT

Depart ATL: 5:30 AM

Arrive CLT: 6:36 AM

Airbus A319 N704US

-We started boarding at 5:02. We had to wait all the way til zone 5 to board ourselves.

Traveling down. Stupid hands of mine....

And really heading down.

The door logo that rather fascinates me.

Cabin view from my seat 14A.

The view out my window at the A320 next to us. This was the last picture I would take until off the plane in Charlotte.

We pushed back at 5:27 and very easily taxied waaaaaaay to the other side of the airport for a nice takeoff from Runway 8R.

Unfortunately my notes are very lacking with the flight being so short. There was no drink service, and we cruised at 27,000 feet. There was no light for picture taking, but I must say the view was amazing. Imagine looking down on the clouds (or down on the brightly-lit Atlanta) with your wing being lit up by the light of a full moon. It was almost serene.

We started descending at 6:14, landing at 6:31 on Runway 5, surprisingly using a fairly good amount of reverse, and we taxied our way to gate B12.

We thought we only had about 45 minutes in CLT. Unbeknownst to us, our flight to Daytona was going to be delayed. More on that later. First we had to make a journey from Concourse B to Concourse E.

At the giant center metting point for all the concourses.

The Wright Flyer heading down to Concourse E. Escelator + my bad hands = blur. Sorry

Descending down to the lovely RJ gates

The direction we were heading at the split in the middle of the concourse. We were heading to gate E26

But just to make it official, here's the sign.

Our CRJ-900 to fly us to DAB N903FJ

Were supposed to take off at 7:32, but we were waiting and waiting and waiting until they came on and told us there was fog in Daytona and we would have to wait. Thankfully wifi at CLT is free. That was a nice surprise. I was keeping tabs on US Airways.com and Flight Aware. Ultimately what tipped me off that were about to go was a Roush-Fenway 727 taking off. Now of course I didn't know officially where it was going, but I think Daytona was a pretty safe bet.

Finally we boarded at 8:05

US Airways Express Flight 2699

CLT-DAB

Depart CLT: 7:32 AM (Delayed to 8:25)

Arrive DAB: 8:58 AM (Actual time of arrival, 9:34)

Bombardier CRJ-900 N903FJ

Waiting to board.

Boarding through the semi-exposed jetway.

I literally had to duck to get in to this plane, and could only barely stand fully upright. If I was an inch taller, there would be no way.

I'm digging the America West interior

My view from 17A

And not much for the leg room either.

And a look out my misaligned and rather low window. Big people are not made for these airplanes. I remember why I had such an aversion to them. Unfortunately it was my only option.

We pushed at 8:05 and taxied over to Runway 18L

Hopefully my Youtube video of takeoff will embed. If not, here's a link

[www.youtube.com]

Takeoff was ok. Some good views of the surrounding area.

Breaking through the clouds.

Drinks started at 8:43 when we topped out at 24,000 feet.

I take it US Airways has done away with snacks? I read aviation news around the web every day, and maybe I read that, but I don't remember.

Some airport in Florida before we started descending at 9:04.

[www.youtube.com]

Once again, if it doesn't imbed, here's a link to my landing video in Daytona on Runway 7L

After we disembarked at gate 5 it was time to experience Daytona on race day!

My first impressions of DAB. Nice terminal, really, though very small.

No need for a car or a ride over to the front stretch

So we walked our way over to Richard Petty Boulevard.

Matt Kenseth's souvenir trailer. My favorite driver. My idea of self-control here is only spending $70.

We had several hours to kill before race time. A great thing with Nascar races is that there's always plenty to do beforehand.

AJ Allmandinger's car at the Ford area.

Speed stage broadcasting Nascar Raceday

Kenny Wallace talking to the crowd during a commercial break.

Eventually we made our way in to the track and up to our seats. The place was a zoo being such a huge event.

Depalma Tower where our seats were located

Our view of pre-race festivities.

A few of the cars starting at the back.

And a look over at turn 4. I should have been more heads-up. It kind of just looks like I was shooting for the Budweiser clydesdales and completely missed.

Matt Kenseth during driver intros

Some of the pack during the pace laps.

The start and opening lap of the 500. Once again, if the embed doesn't work, here's a link:

[www.youtube.com]

It really was a fantastic race, and a huge upset with Trevor Bayne winning, but the day wasn't nearly done yet. We still had two flights to go.

Back to the airport we walked

The walkway to the entrance. It was 6:00 straight up when we arrived at the airport again.

The entrance itself. Quite a contrast to what I'm used to in Atlanta for sure.

Escelator up towards security. It was a really nice and open area, but man is it small. I really was expecting the airport to be a zoo, but it was the total opposite, an absolute ghost town. As it was there were only two flights leaving after the race. Delta to ATL and my flight to CLT. I wish I would have known I could have made the Delta flight, because for time's sake it would have been better, and SkyMiles are for more valuable to me than Dividend Miles. Hindsight is always 20/20. No worries. Beore this day I had only flown the A319 once in my life. Now I get 3 in one day. Talk about a turnaround.

...Rambling over...

We got a bite to eat at the Subway there since hadn't eaten all afternoon. We kind of hung around for a bit before heading to security at 6:20

The very small, one-laned entrance to security.

Gate 5 was our departure. I guess our A319 was special for the race because the gate is marked as US Airways Express.

Our aircraft didn't get there until about 7:00, but I didn't catch the registration. I ended up having to walk down a ways to see it as N769US. While we waited to board the airport was abuzz with corprate traffic, the highlight of which was the Roush 727, which was easy to hear takeoff. A classic.

US Airways Flight 1422

DAB-CLT

Depart DAB: 7:55 PM

Arrive CLT: 9:17 PM

Airbus A319 N769US

This must be a recent repaint because it was in the new livery, but no photos on the database reflect that.

Borading began a tiny bit late at 7:30, but somehow we got going early. I was rather surprised because people fail when it comes to getting on and off an airplane, normally.

My window view. Not sure about the light or why it's there.

My view just after the door closed from seat 14F

Little more legroom here than on the CRJ

We managed to wedge our way in all the post-race traffic when we pushed at 7:50 and made our way to runway 7L

A view of the track from the taxiway

Takeoff was good. I guess I should have expected that from a pretty short runway. Due to my lack of knowledge from a pilot's perspective I probably won't explain this well, but....here goes...He was very up and down on the throttles, and we started to climb steeper the farther out to sea we got (think an exponential function on a graph). Is there a reason for either of these?

We leveled off after an interesting climb at 33,000 feet and got drinks at 8:15, about an hour before landing time.

Some things never change.

We descended at 8:45 for landing on runway 23 and pulling in to gate B1. We had about an hour before our next flight, but that was about to change unbeknownst to us.

US Airways Flight 895

CLT-ATL

Depart CLT: 10:20 PM

Arrive ATL: 11:30 PM

Airbus A319 N742PS

PSA Heritage Livery

I'm pretty sure this was an equipment change. I thought it was odd to be close to flight time that there was no aircraft at the gate, and my checking of Flight Aware showed the flight was delayed. After some research and putting two and two together, turns out the flight is a continuation from Minneapolis (which was experiencing a blizzard at the time), and the first leg of that flight was cancelled.

Gate board

Much to my surprise this is what I saw out the window. I had never flown on a special livery aircraft before. Of course it looks like any other A319 inside, but it was still cool to me.

Boarding began at 10:15 (just 5 minutes before our original departure time)

Boarding our smiling PSA jet in Charlotte

My view from 15A

We were quite delayed already pushing back at 10:44, and apparently our timing was awful. As we taxied to runway 23 there was a giant line of landing aircraft, which we had to wait for, and we were number 5 in line on top of that. You win some you lose some I guess in those cases.

I guess we our pilots wanted to get beck to Atlanta ASAP because it was the best takeoff of the day. Much more powerful than any other flight.

I managed to take one picture (and my last one of the night) of the dark airplane. Really there wasn't much to see until we started from from 22,000 feet at 11:34. No drink service or any of that, so unfortunately this flight is without some detail. I can tell you that the lady next to me was in a very pissed off mood, though I'm not sure why. I figured that should be me since I was awake at this point for almost 24 hours.

We landed on runway 8L at 11:53 (the same one I left from early in the morning), and taxied to gate D23 (the same one I left from early in the morning). When we arrived there was only one gate crew working two gates, but they were occupied sending off an A320 somewhere (not sure where), which meant we had to wait. Luckily the train was working tonight because I was in no mood to walk, and I had to drive back to Athens because I had class at UGA at 8:00 that morning (since it was now past midnight).

I made it back to Athens in under 2 hours thanks to no traffic, arriving just before 2 AM. Suffice it to say I was a zombie the next day, but it's ok, because it was an excellent trip, and my first on US Airways in 10 years. I have my favorite airlines and favorite airplanes, but when you boil it down, I just love to fly (and who here doesn't?). I don't get to do it as often as I like, so when I do I try and savor it.

I hope my errors were kept to a minimum. I started writing this at 3:00 this afternoon and it's now 9:05 with a dinner break thrown in there. I apologize for any misspellings of words and grammatical errors. There are over 2600 words according to my word count, and surely they're not all correct.

Thanks for reading!

JNB-CPT-JNB (with some pics) (5 replies)

raydon — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:54:46 +0100

And here goes! The first trip report on A-D.net on an African flight

So I realized halfway through the first leg that I haven't taken much photos much because just as I got through security, boarding was already starting. Oh the photos were all taken with my phone so 'scuse the bad quality!

Here's the bird taking me to Cape Town, ZS-OTG flight BA 6407

BA has a franchise and South Africa called Comair, nothing to do with the Delta Comair, and operates regional and domestic routes in Southern Africa. They only operate 737-400s

So on the flight, I must say it was pretty good! I never quite liked BA because I think they're a bunch of selfish snobs when it comes to international flights so I was obviously a bit sceptical. But enter the cabin, wow it was great! I've only flew another domestic flight from CHC-AKL on Air NZ also on a 737 and the BA cabin is much better!

Even for a two hour flight we also got a meal. Breyani (South African Indian meal) with potato salad and a chocolate, sponsored by Woolworths, a local South African supermarket which is way better than the Woolworths in UK.

The crew was simply amazing! I salute Clara Sithole and her crew for excellent service! I've flown Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand and BA definitely ranks amongst the most friendliest and funniest crew! Well, for that flight at least. Clara even patted me on the cheek when I asked her for fruit cocktail saying "Sorry Honey, you know Woolies on grows the best and Fruit cocktail is just not as good as orange juice!" or something like that. Later on, I asked her for a souvenir when she just laughed at me and said "Honey, this is BA! We don't have anything, what do you want?!" obviously making a huge joke refering to how Asian airlines stock up their aircrafts with souvenirs, she did however go to Business class to fetch me a BA blanket! Thanks Clara

On the return journey, I was just amazed at how much the CPT airport has improved. Compared to JNB (that's always constructing something or where you get lost trying to find parking or drop off someone) CPT is clean and easy to get around. The new departure terminal is absolutely stunning!

Because my dad's a oneworld member, we got into the lounge and i got to go with as his guest

Obviously this does not compare to Int'l lounges but does the job with domestic flights. Besides the really grumpy ladies at reception, the lounge is pretty well done with some very smart features. Here's my favourite:

That's right, that's how every toilet should be made, with a view of the runway! I used the tiolet and got distracted by all the a/c's taking off I didn't realize how hot it was getting in there. Off to the lounge to get some munchings and some plane spotting done!

Kulula's jetsetter's plane

Some eats with planes in the background. Picture perfect!

Virgin and Singapore awaiting flights back to LHR and SIN respectively

So, 11h30 came and we were ready to board:
BA6414 on ZS-OAA

I still need to test out SAA's 737-800s, love those winglets!

Virgin Taxiing past while I wait in seat 22A

Lunch was served, cottage pie with a cold pasta salad. Unfortunately the crew on this flight were a bit more grumpy and I was too scared to go and socialize with them...

Somewhere in the middle of South Africa in air

Arriving at JNB, we parked next to this 1time DC

Overall, a pleasant domestic flight except for the return leg's crew!

So that was my trip. I fly kulula.com for the first time on Tuesday. It's a LCC so will be interesting to see what happens

Spring 2011 Class Schedule (5 replies)

N776AU — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 02:37:39 +0100

Let's generate some activity. Well, since the new semester has started, what does everybody's class schedule look like?

Mine is a bit loaded, but not terrible:
8:00-8:50 MW--Aural Skills II
8:00-9:15 TR--Music Theory II
9:05-9:55 MW--Percussion Methods
9:30-10:20 TR--Piano II
10:30-11:30 W--Clarinet Lesson
12:30-1:45 TR--Advanced Conducting
2:30-4:20 MW--Band
Variable--Clarinet Quartet

And that's my lovely schedule.

LAX-SFO-SEA on VX (Lots of Pics) (5 replies)

bluewhale — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 08:21:45 +0100

As we were walking down Sepulveda Blvd, we walked under an overpass that was the street that led to the airport. Luckily, there were stairs so we decided to go up them and see what was up there since we were not 100% sure how to walk to back to the airport. Once we got up there, we were on the road and there were sidewalks, so we decided to follow it to the airport.

Sea of taxicabs taken from the overpass

Here’s the road – there were cops who had a checkpoint here just to create a sense of security, but they didn’t stop anybody and they weren’t interested in us either.

Gate 1 from the road

As we were walking on the road, we passed by the Park One parking lot, and Reed wanted to get pictures of several cars as well. Even with stopping to get pictures of cars, we were at Terminal 1 within 10 to 15 minutes, which was a lot shorter than what we had anticipated. We could have still been at In N Out like I had wanted, but it was still true that arrivals had really dropped off since the lunch hour.

Once we were in the airport grounds by the terminal on the arrivals level, they had planters with the LAWA (Los Angeles World Airports, who owns and operates LAX, ONT, and PMD) logo.

Arrivals level of Terminal 1

When we passed by one of the open doors at Terminal 1, I decided to walk through the terminal, rather than the sidewalk, and Reed did too. I had never been inside Terminal 1, and I also saw this as a grand opportunity to swoop some luggage tags from different airlines. Since we were also downstairs on the arrivals level, we needed to get up to the departures level anyway, so we used the stairs in this terminal. In Terminal 1, I got several from US Airways.

Terminal 1 after coming up the stairs from the baggage claim area – they put Los Angeles repeatedly above the doors to remind you which one of the 4 LA area airports, BUR, LGB, LAX, or SNA, you were at.

After taking a right hand turn, we came to the US ticket counters, where I picked up several luggage tags.

These counters were empty but there were ones to the right of this picture that were on duty.

After that, we went out the door to walk down to Terminal 2. I know from past trips that in between Terminal 1 and 2, there’s a really good area that is really close to the planes, so we stopped there for a few minutes.

We were really lucky because there was a 747-400 parked in the gate closest to the street!

Theme building across the street

Here’s that same AF plane

And N229WN again

Here’s the NZ 747-400 – we were hoping that this one would land on 24R because I saw it on flightaware, but it instead landed on the other side. Next time, we should definitely have a scanner.

It seems like most American airports nowadays don’t have spots like this except here at LAX.

Only here can you get close to a 747 without having to have special permission or be an employee

Massive wings, engines, and winglet

Winglet

We also decided to walk inside Terminal 2, so I could get more luggage tags and to also see what the inside of this terminal looks like. Here I got some from Air Canada, and Air France.

Here’s Terminal 2 with NZ’s and VS’s ticket counters. Air New Zealand also had a VIP ticket counter for first class passengers next to the door that we went in.

I liked the pictures that they had on the ticket counter

This garden right by the security checkpoint was also really cool.

As we kept walking, Terminal 2 immediately turned into Terminal 3, and we were now in AS’s section. Here, I got tags from AirTran. (as well as a ticket jacket that I used to hold my passes for both flights on Virgin America!)

Since we already had our tickets, we went directly to the base of the stairs where the old guy sitting there checked them. We then went up the stairs, where security surprisingly was short and quiet, and not that chaotic. Waiting to get to a metal detector took 5 minutes, and waiting to get through and afterwards, getting everything together took another 5 minutes. 10 minutes – a new record for security at LAX! Luckily the terminal was pretty quiet at the time and there were not many people at all. The TSA were also helpful and courteous since the stress level was pretty low. There was one guy who was there to help streamline our bin usage to help cut down the amount of times they would have to retrieve the used ones on the airside and cause more waits. He said that shoes did not have to go in the bin, and neither did carry-ons or backpacks. Really, the reason why they have bins now is just for things like liquids, laptops, jackets, coats, or anything else that would cause a mess if it weren’t in a container going through the x-ray. Again, like in SEA, LAX had full body scanners, but they were just sitting in front of the metal detector inactive.

There Patrick, I’ve finally taken a picture of the security area, but only with the iPhone. Those blue closet-like structures are the full body scanners and you stand in between the the two on the black mat.

After gathering our bearings, we went to our gate which was 36. This particular gate is quite awkward and it is nearly impossible to see the plane. Our waiting area was in a separate hallway from the round terminal, and was next to two other gates that weren’t ours. Since it was around 3:30 and boarding wasn’t until 5:05, our plane was definitely not here yet, so I decided to do some spotting and walking around the terminal, while Reed just stayed in the general vicinity of our gate and spotted from there.

N529VA is parked at the gate next to our waiting corridor. This plane’s name is really funny with the moodlights. I also did not know that the big square to the right of the airplane’s name was a static port.

All of the planes that can park in this gate – obviously this is a narrow body only gate. Why would they put the CRJ-700 with the MD-80 instead of putting the B717 there instead?

Virgin America A319

Alitalia and KLM, plus an AF 77W tail peeking over the Alitalia plane, and an AC tail peeking over the 747 – Terminal 2 is the relief International terminal to the Tom Bradley one.

This is quite special and was really happy to see this– a HA A330-200! Right now, there are only 2 of these in the air and they only fly HNL-LAX and HNL-LAS.

This is N381HA – HA’s second A330.

Another angle of this plane – you can see this plane’s CFM engines, and many satellite pods on the roof.

A320 – nothing much else to be said

A WN 73G – N757LV

CRJ-900 – this one is good compared all of the ones at In N Out

Now I started my way over to the other side of Terminal 3 where all of AS’s gates are. Several of these pictures were taken from a really good spot in the hallway in between the AS gate and the FL gate. This corridor has windows that overlook the taxiways and the runways.

Grabbed this shot on the way there – plenty going on.

I’m glad I was able to see so many special liveries while I was here.

QX Q400 – I think this one was headed to Mammoth Lakes, and there was one parked to the right of that one headed to RNO.

This is Air Drake – N639VA isn’t even in the a.net database yet!

Here’s AS’s side of Terminal 3. I remember the time when the radar system for all of Southern California went down and all flights were grounded. When that happened, this terminal was super packed and it looked like a refuge center, as all seats were taken and there were dozens of people sitting in circles on the floor, and along the windows and walls. That AirTran ticket counter to the right of this picture used to belong to AS. Once I was done shooting the Eva plane, I went to the corridor under where it says 33A, and I got several pictures there.

AZ 772 starting to leave for its journey back to FCO

B6 A320 trying to get ready to push for JFK – this flight was also late.

WSU plane again – they should be flying that around GEG, not down here!

The 777’s trademark APU valve

Eva 777-300 starting its taxi to 24L

The 777-300ER is a much more impressive aircraft in person!

Luckily they don’t have to use the rudder pedals to turn this beast, like I have to do in the Cessna!

B737-300 with winglets – had the pleasure to fly on one last time. Due to the winglets, the untrained eye may mistake them for a 737-700.

KLM 747-400 PH-BFT, named the “City of Tokyo” – also there’s a SQ A340-500 on short final for 24L.

This plane is being pushed back for the start of its journey back across the pond.

Singapore A340-500 on 24R

Another 737 Classic with winglets

Head on of the same Q400 at gate 32 headed to Mammoth Lakes – those are some really tall jetways in the back compared to this thing parked in front of me!

It’s starting to get a little hectic, especially with that caravan of police vehicles by the Southwest plane.

Here’s the my ride to SFO – N524VA named “Dark Horse”

Here comes the caravan – it’d be really cool to be able to drive on the tarmac like that, but I would be so distracted!

Here’s a hearse – they were loading a casket onto a WN plane down at Terminal 1.

This plane just arrived from PDX

Here’s N548AS, the 737-800 that replaced N774AS, the original .com plane.

N649JB pushing back for JFK as flight 674 about an hour late

Air China 747-400 just arrived as flight 983 from PEK and is taxiing to Terminal 2

United Express EMB-120 – I wonder what this would look like in the CO paint scheme.

Another special paint scheme – AeroMexico’s Go Visa 737-700

Since my spotting location was by the B6 gate, B6 had a cart of headphones next to the gate. These headphones were the same ones as at VX, although VX offered them in three different colors, whereas B6’s were purely black. VX also had them in a Plexiglas box on wheels and had them on sale for $2. I decided to grab the B6 ones, and I’m glad I did because VX’s IFE would be nothing without headphones.

KLM 747-400 taxiing to 24L for a departure back to AMS as flight 602

After running around the terminal spotting for an hour and a half, I was tired and decided to find Reed and sit down. He was playing games on his iTouch right where I saw him last. So I sat down next to him and we talked and I surfed the net on my phone for 10 minutes. By then, the CSAs at VX were getting ready to start boarding for our flight to SFO. We were now getting so excited, because we both had read all of the trip reports on a.net about VX, with the mood lights and whatnot! After 5 minutes, they welcomed us to the flight and started boarding for all F passengers and Y passengers in Main Cabin Select, which is essentially their version of Economy Plus, with free food, free movies and TV shows on demand, and one free checked bag. VX also had the usual display that showed you whether or not your bag was small enough to fit in the overhead bin. However, there was also an advertisement above it that read “Let your bag fly with bags their own size, check it in!” I thought it was pretty funny and that was a new approach to trying to sell checked bags. Boarding at VX is done from the rear forward, and they use Groups A through E, with E farthest to the rear. After another 5 minutes, they called my group, which was C.

Virgin America #945
December 15, 2010
Airbus A319 (N524VA, Dark Horse)
5:35PM-6:50PM
Gate: 36
Seat: 14A
[flightaware.com]

I went first, since I was now sitting in front of Reed. He also wanted to purchase a headset, but I already got my B6 one, which is again, the same ones that VX has, but in a different color.

Virgin America signage – our gate was at the end of a wall and there was a door in the corner that we went through. It was nearly impossible to even get a glimpse of the plane from our gate area. LAX has weird terminals.

The first thing that I thought when I saw this plane was “Oh my god!” I even said it, and the woman behind me (who’s also the same woman in the previous picture) could only smile at me.

There are no conventional lights in this plane at all. Even the reading lights are LED Xenon-ish lights, sort of like the blue-ish color of headlights that expensive cars have. Instantly, I thought that we were in a flying bar/dance club. However, it was kind of warm in the cabin, even though the outside temperature was just a mere 60 or so degrees.

At this point, I was really not shy at all in the least way about taking cabin pictures with people around me. I don’t care what they think, but they might be more forgiving because this is the only airline that has a fancy cabin like this.

These may possibly be the best F seats I have ever seen on a domestic flight. They are huge leather, massaging, fully power-operated seats that also have built-in footrests, exactly like a La-Z-Boy recliner. What does AS have? Just a beefier, wider, softer, larger version of their Y seats in F.

The Y seats are still none too shabby.

Rear of the seats – there were mesh pockets instead of your other normal sheet of upholstery pocket.

I got to my seat in row 14, and they were all empty so far. The rear wasn’t too full either, so I’m estimating that this flight was at about 75% to 80% full.

This is definitely one of the best cabins I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It seemed like flying in this plane would cost way more than only the $90 I paid for LAX-SEA with a connection in SFO.

A look out the wing

Once I got settled in, I started to check everything out. VX does not supply their own inflight magazine or a SkyMall magazine because quite frankly, they don’t need to! Instead, they have free IFE on PTVs in the seatbacks, that are touchscreen, or you can use the remote that is in the armrest that doubles as a keyboard on the other side of said remote. The seat was quite comfortable, and soft as most leather seats are, but not lacking any cushion. The headrest was also height-adjustable, winged, and could tilt. However, it did not seem to stay tilted. I also got out my new B6 headphones and took them brand new out of the wrapper and plugged in. Boarding music was played, and it was this modern “ambient” music I guess, since it is a little hard to describe for someone not musical like me. It was a much different mood setter than AS playing the Christmas album from Kellie Pickler on the PDX-LAX flight, which was still good.

PTV – has games, TV shows, satellite TV, songs, radio stations, a flight map, a section that you could use to purchase food, and inflight chat, where you can chat either in a chat room, or in a one on one chat with another seat. However, you could only use the keyboard in the remote for typing.

Winglet has an American flag on it, and the theme building is all lit up.

This is the first plane I’ve ever been on that had the Turn Off All Electronics sign in lieu of the No Smoking sign. They still posted a non-lit No Smoking sign every other row.

At this point, the door was now shut and the flight deck was doing final paper work. The guy sitting in the aisle seat came first and got settled in, and a little later, much to both my and the guy in the aisle’s chagrin, someone was now sitting in the middle. He was an annoying guy in his mid-20s who kept talking on his cell phone so that everyone in his immediate vicinity could hear him. It was very easy to overhear the conversation that he was having with someone over some business conflict and that they needed to have a meeting about it. It was pure awkwardness sitting next to him when he was talking about that, since it was a little serious. He didn’t hang up until the exact moment that the F/As came down the aisle one last time to make sure all phones were off and everyone was strapped in so that they could show the safety video, which was quite funny and one of the best I’ve seen. I really recommend it and encourage you to watch it:
[www.youtube.com]

Terminal 2

Another company plane – I didn’t realize how bland their paint scheme is when compared to the interior. However, VX’s white paint is in reality, a pearlescent white instead of just a gloss which I thought was really cool. You can’t tell by seeing it at an airport or anything, so you need to actually board one to see the difference. I tried to take a picture of the paint when I got on board this plane, but I forgot to turn off the flash and it didn’t work. But I tried again in SFO and there will be a picture.

Tried to zoom on the wingfence, but it is getting dark for pictures!

Here’s the flight map!

We pushed back about 5 to 10 minutes later after the door was closed, and the F/As did their final walk-throughs. The F/As were a little like WN’s, in that they were cheerful, casual, and down-to-earth. The head F/A doing all the talking told all of the passengers to wave and yell hi to the lone F/A who was still in the back. They also said that it was a policy at Virgin America that they liked to name all of their planes, and they pointed out the fact that tonight, our plane was named “Dark Horse.” He also talked about the “Turn Off All Electronics” light, which meant that “All iPhones, iPods, iPads, iMacs and anything starting with the letter ‘I’ need to be shut off or turned on airplane mode.” Just like at WN, the majority of our F/As were also younger.

My camera is intermittent sometimes…

The only way I was able to get this to look this clear was through some heavy editing. This Air China 747 had just gotten done unloading pax in Terminal 2 and was now being towed to the remote stand to prep for its flight back to PEK at around 1 AM.

After that, we turned in the opposite direction of the 747 and started our taxi towards the threshold for runway 24L. While we were taxiing, there was really nothing much to see outside, so I looked up songs on the PTV. They had many different artists and bands from all genres and times.

With my B6 headphones, I listened to some Beach Boys during takeoff!

I’ve never been on an A319 before, so I did not know what to expect as far as a takeoff. As it turns out, the A319 was kind of like the 738, if not then only slightly stronger. This plane also had CFM engines, so I didn’t get the cool howling sound that I would have normally had with the IAE engines.

LAX’s lit pillars during our roll

There’s Terminal 2 one last time

This was pretty much your average takeoff, and within 10 seconds after liftoff, we were over the Pacific Ocean. About 5 minutes later, we banked right to start our journey northwest to SFO. During the flight, I mainly played around with the PTV to see what it had to offer. Satellite TV was free as were maybe one or two TV shows and movies on demand. They did however have a good sized list of other TV shows and movies on demand that started for $4 and went up to $7. Games were free and so was music. Also, since it was December, Google Chrome was sponsoring complimentary internet on board Virgin flights for the holidays, so I also read a little Facebook and of course, a.net on my phone ;)

We were now banking north to fly over Oxnard

This is our cruising altitude, FL380 and the temperature around the plane

And our ground speed in MPH, but not knots since the average person doesn’t know anything about measuring speed in knots.

Drink service came from the rear since this was an odd numbered flight. This flight was estimated to be 50 minutes according to the flightdeck, so there was only one service and then they came back for the trash.

Just got a Sprite – VX doesn’t serve any free food. To the left is the inflight guide that had all the information on food service, internet, how to work the PTV, and what channels were offered. Something that was cool was that they offered the CBS affiliate in New York City and a local CW affiliate from LA. I wanted to grab one on board the next flight, but for some weird reason they were not stocked in the seat pocket. Also, the safety card does indeed have pretty pictures as the safety video says. I got an extra one so that I can put it up in my room!

After another 15 minutes or so of a combination of watching the Airshow and watching How I Met Your Mother and The New Adventures of Old Christine on the PTV, we started our initial descent into SFO over Monterrey Bay. Again, the lead announced that “All iPhones, iPods, iPads, iMacs, and anything starting with the letter ‘I’ need to be shutoff and stowed.” This flight had gone by really quickly, especially because I have a PTV and scheduled time was less than an hour! You really do not need IFE on such a short flight. The F/As came through the cabin collecting the trash and they were done. This flight crew was definitely efficient, upbeat, and energetic, since this is also a new, upbeat, and energetic airline. In fact, after flying this airline, I look upon the other airlines like CO, and AS to be an old person’s airline because they are so conservative and bland and focus on customer service which is the most valued thing to an older person, whereas VX is a young persons’ airline since they focus on the technology aspect and keeping everything fresh, liberal, and energetic. You would definitely not see a sweet, old, lady confined to a wheelchair flying this airline.

Banking left over Foster City

Final for runway 28L – the famous bay approach

We slowly and smoothly touched down on runway 28L, and braked moderately. Reverse thrusters didn’t seem to be used, because we seemed to have had a slower speed touching down than usual. After that, we taxied into the International Terminal A, which was the same International terminal as when I visited previously, but in a different wing and was on the opposite side of the UA terminal. SFO is built somewhat like LAX in that you cannot hop to a different terminal on the airside. The only terminal that allows you to do that is Terminal 3 which has UA’s two piers, AA’s pier, and a sterile connection to the International Terminal G where many of UA’s widebody International flights and other Star Alliance International flights leave.

You can definitely tell that this is SFO’s new classy terminal because it has 3 levels: the ground level for the rampers, the second one for the gates, and the third one which is the main walkway, observation areas over every gate, and escalators down to the waiting area for each gate.

Now we’re parked at gate A3.

Once the seatbelt sign was off, the guy next to me wasted no time in getting out his phone again, this time to call his buddy for dinner. He had to tell his buddy that he managed to get on the earlier flight back here to SFO, and asked him if he wanted to go to a particular restaurant. It turns out that his buddy was currently at the gym, which the guy next to me said that was perfect because he was still on the plane, so they agreed to meet around 7:30.

Of course, we decided to stay on the plane for a few more minutes, partially because I had to locate some safety cards. ;)

Here are the beautiful seats

Naturally we needed to grab a picture of the flight deck, so we asked the Captain and we got in. This was his last leg, so he was not in a hurry and we talked for a few minutes. He even told us to sit in the seats and that he would get pictures of us! I have been waiting for that picture forever! Reed asked him how effective deploying the landing gear during descent would slow down the plane. He didn’t know the answer, but that immediately caused him to ask us if we were also pilots. I had the bragging rights to say that I had completed Stage I of my Private rating, whereas Reed hasn’t even done his first solo flight yet, and is therefore nowhere near finishing Stage I yet. In fact, I am only 1 of 5 out of a class of 35 flying students who have finished, because the weather has been uncooperative. (And because I am a good pilot ;))

Where’s the flight yoke?

This flightdeck is so much nicer, bigger, and robust than the cockpit of a C-152. What I fly cannot even be called a flightdeck! Eventually, I’ll have the controls of an airliner and it will be flight levels above flying a Cessna.

As we were talking, the cleaning crew was trying to clean the plane and the only reason why the Captain still was there was to wait for everyone to get off the plane. By now, everyone was gone and the cleaning crew wanted us off, so we quickly thanked him and left.

Here’s “Dark Horse” at gate A3

Here’s another angle – I was reminded that SFO’s International Terminal has dotted windows like at DTW, which is a pain for taking pictures.

After taking those pictures, we went upstairs to the main hallway. Reed wanted to sit down and get reorganized, and I wanted to look at the 737-900 and the 747-400 that were parked further down the terminal, as well as looking for our next flight since we printed our tickets too early for them to assign a gate number. On my way there, I passed by 3 other 747-400s parked on the opposite side of the terminal from where A3 was. I was going to come back and look at those later.

Here’s the International Terminal – Again, this terminal is quite modern and relies on natural light during the day.

Before going to look at the planes, I saw a pretty sizeable souvenir store. It was full of special San Francisco merchandise, so I browsed to see what they had, since I had not yet done my Christmas shopping! Not to my surprise, everything was pretty overpriced, just like the last time I went through here. There were lots of clothes with either pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, or San Francisco typed on it somewhere, key chains, shot glasses, and all your typical souvenir type items. They also had a big section of different boxes of chocolates, and even a toys section that featured those little airport sets that we all used to play with. At this particular store, they had the one with the Air Force One 747 and the Delta 757. Another store closer to gate A10 also had a United 747, a Northwest 747, and a Continental 757. To show you that I really was in San Francisco, they even had a whole section devoted to Obama-themed and peace-themed merchandise, with shirts with his face on them, caps, and all sorts of apparel. It is well-known that San Francisco is one of the most liberal cities in the whole country, and California is definitely one of the most pronounced blue states. But seeing as how things were pretty overpriced, I decided not to buy anything.

AS 737-900 parked in widebody gate A7– this is one of three 737-900s (the others being 302 and 303) that have not and will not receive winglets because they were Boeing’s first three units produced, and thus have a different wing design, which makes them incompatible for winglet installation.

You can see condensation on the fuselage

China Airlines 747-400 at gate A9

So when I looked at the other 747s on the other side of the terminal (which was the even numbered side too), I found that one belongs to British Airways, one belongs to Philippines Airlines, and one belongs to Qantas.

Philippines 747-400 getting prepped for a red-eye back to Manila

I tried another shot further away from the window because of the dots

This shot came out pretty well – I kind of found it odd that the red-lined box to the right of the 1R door said “Cut here in emergency.”

I walked down to the next gate, and this one had the BA 744:

The first time I saw this plane, I thought the title had said ‘Air Force Scum’ and that struck me as really strange until I read it more carefully.

Departure screen – I learned that out flight would be leaving out of gate A10, which was at the end of the terminal furthest away from our old gate A3.

At this time, I met back up with Reed, who was sitting talking on the phone in one of the sets of tables and chairs in the middle of the terminal. Seeing how he was on the phone, I went to take another picture of this plane:

Another shot of the Philippines 747

Meanwhile, he wrapped up his conversation and we went to take pictures of all of the 747s on the odd numbered side.

Qantas 747-400ER

747 tails in the night – the BA and the PR were parked next to each other, and it happens to be that both gates share the same waiting room (which is still pretty good sized), so that was quite crowded.

Reed now wanted to get some closer shots downstairs, so we went down to where the BA plane was, since the QF gate, which didn’t have a flight leaving soon, didn’t have as good windows as the BA/PR gate did.

I love shots like these!

One more of this 747 – California gets many of these!

And since Reed missed getting shots of the Qantas plane, he wanted to go back upstairs to get some pictures of it, so we went. Afterwards, we decided on dinner since he was hungry. I had a 4x4 for lunch, but I could go for something else to eat. I recommended the pizza place down at the end of the terminal by our gate, which was not surprisingly, the same wood-fired pizza place that I ate at last time in UA’s terminal.

Look familiar? – Again I wanted something that wasn’t extremely salty, since pizza has high sodium.

I would have ordered pepperoni if things like soda didn’t cost $3 for a standard 16 ounce cup!

Since he was still hungry, he bought a parfait. It was just your standard sized cup that you could get at McDonalds, but it costed $5, which was a total rip off in both of our opinions. Meanwhile, I decided to be conservative, and I used a water fountain. We sat for a little bit longer, and then we saw our plane show up on-time to my dismay, as I did not want to go back to Washington, and would not have minded getting stranded here in SFO, since it’s nice. We also watched a flight from SAN arrive at gate A9, and to my surprise, a student with a CWU sweatshirt came out and was going to be on our flight! Neither of us knew her, but I was pretty sure I had seen her around on campus before. CWU is not exactly the largest campus in our state either. Small world!

Here’s our A320 taxiing in to gate A10

Our plane is cleverly named ‘Three if By Air,’ obviously a nod to the Revolutionary War and Paul Revere, where the signal would be “One if by land, two if by sea,” referring to the amount of lanterns that he would put up, depending on which method the British would be invading America. Reed didn’t understand this name and thought it was stupid, but I got the symbolism and rich history to this name! Virgin is definitely trying to show that they are American, even though Sir Richard Branson is British!

Here was one more picture of the Philippines Airlines 747-400 – the BA plane had already left.

We now went downstairs to check out the gate area a little more. This gate area was quite grand, because there were three floors. There was the third floor that we were on, the second floor for the gates, and a first floor, which was more or less half a floor, for narrow body gates at the absolute tip of this terminal.

Here’s another VX plane at the very end of the terminal at gate A12.

Reed decided to hang out down here by the gate, but I wanted another picture from the third floor of our plane.

This was taken with my phone, no joke. My phone did a better job of taking the picture than my actual camera did, since my camera wanted to focus on the dots, so the lights outside were all wrong and the details on the plane weren’t as sharp.

Terminal map – our old gate was A3, and our new gate was A10 and we ate at the Firewood Café that is indicated by the yellow-orange-ish color next to gate A10 and A12.

Here is our grand gate – a lot of money must have been put into this terminal. Right in front of the podium next to the man is the Plexiglas box of headphones on sale for $2. B6 kept them in a similar case. We had dinner more or less right above the gate, but our table was to the right out of this picture.

Escalator up to the 3rd floor to the rest of the gates

Since it was now about 8:25, the time we were supposed to board, the CSAs announced that they were delaying the flight by about 15 minutes, but they expected the plane to still be on-time back to SEA. They still needed to finish cleaning the plane and it came inbound a little late. It turns out that according to flightaware, this flight is constantly late and has had delays sometimes as long as 4 hours.

Waiting area for gate A10 – this one is cool because it was quite large, and there was a hallway that went under the escalators over to the waiting area for gate A9. In that hallway, they had pay phones and vending machines that you could use to purchase phone cards.

By now, there wasn’t much else to see in this terminal, so I decided to just sit, since Reed had had already been sitting and using his iTouch for quite a while. (I guess that I am so much more active than he is)

Virgin America #748
December 15, 2010
Airbus A320 (N623VA, Three If By Air)
8:55PM – 10:55PM
Gate: A10
Seat: 16F
[flightaware.com]

By now, they had started to board the flight, starting again with F and Main Cabin Select. We both decided to go stand out by the podium, since there was a lot of room there, and we waited for a few more minutes as they called Group E, Group D, and Group C, which we were in again. I showed my ticket to the CSA, and then she thanked me and said a number to another CSA, who I suppose was taking down how many people were on this flight.

After going through the door, the PR 747 was parked to the right, and offered a picture that I absolutely could not refuse!

After that, I quickly went the opposite direction to where the door to the jet way was.

This was quite a long jet way and there was nobody in here but me at the time, so I thought a picture was in order just for the hell of it.

This was to make up for the fact that I did not get a shot of the door of my first A320 flight with UA last year. You can definitely see the sparkles of the pearlescent paint from the door.

Up close – I edited this a little so that the sparkles and the shine are more prominent

Here are instructions on how to open the door of an A320

When I got inside, the cabin was more or less the same as the A319, but the reading lights were cool white lights instead of the lights that looked slightly like Xenons. Because of the fact that the cabin lights were all purple and blue, it was a little hard to see the young F/A greet me from a row of seats she was hanging out in. She was a young lady in her 20s, and may be one of the best looking F/As I’ve seen to date. Once I got to row 16 on the right, my seatmate was not yet there. So I quickly put down my stuff and checked everything out, only to realize that none of the seatback pockets in my row had the inflight guide, like I said earlier! I was quite disappointed because I wanted one of these, but they did not have them on the plane. I even got out of my seat, and checked other rows for them, but all other pockets only had the safety card and the throw-up bag. While I was in Reed’s row 17 looking for a guide, a middle-aged Asian guy came to my row and put away his suitcase in the overhead bin and was about to sit in the aisle seat, but I quickly told him I was in the window so he let me in. No inflight guide for me.

Also, Reed wanted to talk to me through the seat-to-seat chat system on the PTV. However, when I went to try to use the keyboard to respond to him, it did not work to my disappointment. I even tried using the middle seat’s system to try to do the chat, but it too did not work. I guess that’s what happens when you have so much cool technology on the plane.

View out the window

The F/As welcomed us on board and said our flight would be about 1 hour and 37 minutes. Again, this was quite a young and hip crew, and the lead again said that “…Here at Virgin America, we like to name our planes, and tonight you are flying on our plane named ‘Three If By Air’.” About a minute later, the door closed and the middle seat next to me thankfully remained empty. I’m estimating that this flight was probably about 75% to 80% full, like the last flight. The Asian guy also had already begun eating a cheeseburger and fries that he bought inside the terminal and the delicious aroma filled the air, even though all I ate on this trip were cheeseburgers. I had eaten 9 burger patties in the length of 48 hours! Luckily for him, he was done eating by the time we started our takeoff roll.

About 10 minutes later, we started to push out of gate A10 for runway 1R. They again showed that funny safety video, and several people giggled at some of the scenes.

Company A320 at the remote stands

We held before the double yellow line at runway 1R for about a minute, and from here I could see the trademark arrow sign of an In N Out! I tried to take a picture, but it came out way too dark and blurry to see what it was. SFO’s In N Out is not good for spotting however, since aircraft do not land on runway 1L and R because of the nearby San Bruno Mountains. After holding for about 2 minutes on the taxiway, and then 1 minute on runway 1R, we started our takeoff roll. It seemed more powerful than the A319, and it was because I looked up the fact that these engines have significantly more thrust than the A319. This takeoff pushed me back into the seat slightly, and the climb was a little steep. It was pretty much your slightly above average takeoff. After we rotated, I also saw two aircraft lined up side by side on final for a simultaneous landing for runway 28L and R. It would have been a great picture if it was light out. I can’t imagine how cool it would be to be seated on the correct side and seeing a plane right next to you land at more or less the same second that yours is. Beyond those two planes, I also saw the lights of several other landing planes in the distance.

Flying right over OAK Airport as we banked left to the north for SEA – the only other time I’ve flown out this routing, taking off of the runway 1s at night, I was listening to Ch. 9 on UA and I could hear what ATC wanted us to do. Now, it seemed a little strange because I was used to listening to where we were going on this route.

Here’s our cool cabin while climbing to 10,000 feet – each seatback is made out of smooth glossy plastic, and it is more or less a shell that houses the PTV, which can also tilt up or down. The tray table was also glossy plastic.

I decided to watch some TV, and also get on Facebook and a.net on my phone. I also did not know that each seat had a power outlet next to the bottom of each seat cushion until they announced that they had free wifi, free power ports, free soft drinks… so I got out my phone charger and charged my phone! Now I could use my phone like a standard computer, since I would not have to rely on the stupid, weak battery that iPhones have! During the flight, I watched either Late Night with Craig Ferguson on the New York affiliate of CBS, (Reed’s recommendation) Larry King’s second to last show interviewing Barbra Streisand and during the last 15 minutes of our flight up until we parked, KTLA 5’s news from LA, since I always love watching the news from my old area. In about 20 minutes, they started the in-flight service, and they said that “…Soft drinks are on the house, but we have lots of booze for sale,” to which some people cheered. What a fun airline for young people!

This is the F/A that greeted me – yes it is a dark cabin, but there will be more slightly better pictures.

These are the types of people VX hires – you’d expect him to work in the Apple Store and know everything there is to know about computers.

Barbra Streisand as Larry King’s last regular guest

I’d also frequently go back to the Airshow – right now we were over the absolute northern part of California about to reach Oregon

F/A pouring someone’s drink

Ordered a ginger ale – I guess on the plane, I like to drink apple juice, orange juice, Sprite, or ginger ale. VX also has special cups that are shaped differently on the sides. On the bottom, it read “Was that as refreshing as our airline?”

After about another 40 minutes of Facebook and watching Larry King, and arguing with some of my CWU flight buddies about A320s versus 737s, we were now approaching Portland:

To compare the A320 versus the 737-800 that I flew, the A320 was definitely a much quieter cabin and the seats were much wider. Even though VX’s Y seats are 19.7 inches versus the industry average on the 737 being 17 inches, the A320 still offers 18 inch seats on regular airlines like UA. None of the A320’s windows rattle either, like some do on the 737. Overall, the A320 just seems like a more modern aircraft than the 737, (because the 737NG is based on the original design from the -100 and -200 series, and just have different wings, avionics, engines, and structural upgrades) from the window shades, to reading light setup, to the way it handles in flight compared to the 737. Bottom line is that I now like A320s better than 737s because the A320s are more modern, and thus more comfortable and more enjoyable to fly in.

I kept on watching Barbra Streisand and Larry King, and whenever that switched to commercial I switched to Craig Ferguson and kept doing that for 20 more minutes. That ended once we got over Washington, when the 10:00 news started at KTLA, and I watched that. After about 10 minutes, we started our initial descent. I had not yet finished my drink, so I hurried and drank the last several gulps as I saw the Apple store-looking F/A walk down the aisle. As he came by, I tried to give him my cup, but he didn’t have a trash bag, rather he was just checking to see that all pax had their seatbelts on since the light was just illuminated. So he just put up his finger as sign language to say one minute. A couple minutes later, the two F/As doing the drink service came through collecting the trash, and then I put up my table and kept watching the LA news while flying over the Greater Seattle area. We were flying north over the Puget Sound between the mainland and Vashon and Bainbridge Islands for a downwind leg for SEA. We then banked right for a base turn, and then 5 seconds later, banked right one more time for a final leg into SEA about 10 miles north.

On final for runway 16C SEA about 5 miles north

About 2 minutes later, we landed on runway 16C, which was formerly 16R. Again, it seemed like we came in a little slow, so we only braked. VX is also in Concourse A on the south end of the airport, so there was also no rush to slow down the plane because we would have a longer taxi. There was heavier braking at first, and then the flight deck just let the plane coast down the runway a little, and then braked and turned off. We crossed runway 16L and taxied in between the B and S gates into our gate, A6. The lead F/A came on to welcome us to SEA, and said that he knew that everyone enjoyed their flight and that they loved the airline, and that they would be looking forward to having us on a future flight. At the S gates, I saw several different DL planes, and an AA M80 parked at one of the western most gates of that terminal.

Parked next to 3 different AA 738s and another HA 767 with winglets

Another HA 767 with winglets – I think they have about half of the fleet modified.

DL 737-800 at the S gates

AA 737-800 next to us

We got secured at gate A6 and of course, we decided to stay behind for a few minutes.

My seat

The remote – you could either keep it in the armrest and press the buttons here or you could take out the armrest and use it like your conventional TV remote. Like I said earlier, the other side of this remote was a keyboard for the chat part of the IFE.

Again, Reed wanted a picture of the flightdeck and I wanted a picture of the cabin, so off we went:

They had their refrigerator stocked with stuff in the back – these were the two F/As doing the drink cart.

As Reed was getting his pictures, I asked the FO who was standing in the galley by the 1R door about flying without a yoke. He said that he liked it better on longer flights, because you don’t have to deal with the big bulky thing in front of you for hours. Instead, in its place, was a pullout table that you could use to do paperwork, or to eat. He also said that they really only use the joystick to control the plane for 15 minutes out of each flight, whether it be during a 50 minute hop from LAX to SFO, or a 6 hour flight from SFO to JFK and the rest is autopilot, so it is not too significant of a difference. I asked him where he worked before coming here, and he flew for US Airways, so he has been flying Airbuses for a while. Reed was now done, and I thanked him and he wished me good luck on getting my ratings. So now, we walked through Concourse A to the arrivals level and baggage claim, and they had this wintery fixture:

This was really cool

And here it is on the ground.

After that, we each went our separate ways for good, as both of our dads picked us up.

To close this REALLY long report divided into 3 different threads and taking up over 80 pages on a word document, I had a really fun time, even if it was just for a day trip and an overnight in LAX. QX is a good airline, since it is pretty much just an extension of AS. The Q400 is probably one of the better regional planes to fly on, because it is quieter, it has good windows, and seats are more or less the same size as a 737 when concerning width. Legroom however, is restricted just like on CRJs or ERJs. Another cool thing about the Q400 was that it was such a fuel efficient aircraft, that it was advertised that it uses less fuel per passenger than the average car. PDX was one of the nicest airports that I’ve been to, and it was like a large scale version of ONT, since the terminal was modern and traffic was too low. It is definitely one of my favorite new airports, and I still have a section left of it to visit. Up until now, I have also never flown on a B737-800 (shocking because I’ve flown the 73G and the 739 several times) and it is a gentle plane when takeoffs are concerned, and these planes also have the nicest AS interior, since the seats are comfortable, supportive, and have nicer headrests than on the 737-400s or 737-900s. Spotting at LAX was AMAZING and was a lot more fun than anybody would expect. LAX is also an excellent place to spot, because the In N Out right there is on the threshold of the runways and you have the opportunity to get many widebodies from many diverse, International airlines that you could not get at any other city. Every aviation enthusiast should go there for spotting at least once in their lifetime. Virgin America is a really cool airline, and makes your other regular airlines like UA, CO, and AS look like old people’s airlines. VX is a hip, young, cool airline, while also having many amenities and luxuries in the cabin. I definitely encourage you to fly them if you get a chance, because you’ll never ever want to fly on another airline. I also hope that they expand their route network more throughout the country. If you have read all three parts of this massive trip report, I hoped you enjoyed it.

Spotting at LAX (again, quite long) (4 replies)

bluewhale — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 08:37:29 +0100

Reed and I got down to the ground transportation in front of Terminal 3, and we knew we had to catch the Sepulveda Parking Spot shuttle. We waited for about 10 minutes, when one came. It is important to flag down these shuttles, otherwise they won’t stop.

Ground level in LAX

The shuttle dropped us off in their parking garage, and we cautiously made our way out the door that said ‘In N Out Access’ and we were there! The line was long so we decided to immediately order and then we got a seat outside.

Yes, this is the view from the outside of In N Out!

In N Out!!!

After about 10 minutes of waiting, our food was ready! This In N Out is one of the more crowded ones, as it is next to LAX and therefore gets the clientele that just got off the plane and hasn’t had In N Out for months, as well as flight crews who are either here on a long layover, or here for the rest of the day. I’m glad that they were able to get everyone’s food up quickly, and it still tastes the same way as any other one!

3x3, Animal Style and extra pickles were hiding behind all that extra dressing…

At this point, I didn’t care at all about the planes; I just wanted to eat! I chowed down and I missed a few WN 737s and a KLM 747, but I didn’t care because I was in heaven with my lunch! The food was so good, I finished everything in about 15 minutes, and after cleaning up, it was time to go spotting.

Korean Air 747, I was still eating fries and sitting at our table!

Nothing is better than having a 747 land not more than 1000 feet away from you as you’re eating In N Out. Everyone outside looked up and watched it land, and there was a girl who even wanted to have her picture taken while a plane was landing. This In N Out is indeed its own tourist attraction!

Landing on 24R

We now decided to go across the street to the mini park for some closer shots!

AC E90 from YVR

Air Canada flight 552

2 Boeing wide bodies

This 763 is bound for YYZ as flight 792

I believe this is Alaska flight 569 to PDX

Our base

Arizona One – Boeing 737-300 with winglets

Here it comes

And there it goes

Operating flight 1510 from YYC

Blurry UA CRJ-700 – at this point I was merely practicing so I’d know what to do when a wide body comes.

Another practice shot

This was with my phone

Another spotter was here! Spotters are no strangers to this park, and there was another spotter here the next day having lunch and listening to his receiver.

Here’s what I’ve been waiting for!

It’s a BA 744, and it really is a B-A! (Bad A**) Never been so close to a 744 without riding on it before, but it was a real shame that it seems like we contaminated California with our crappy weather!

747s look really cool in the dirty configuration! Also note the Arizona One taxiing.

EK 772LR from DXB as flight 215

You can definitely see the raked wingtips – it was crooked because I messed up when it was flying over me so I had to act fast to get it before it touched down. But let’s just say it’s for effect.

AM 737-800 as flight 647 to MEX – there’s the other spotter

B6 A320 as flight 673 from JFK

I screwed up on this one as well – don’t worry, I get better!

The thing about wide bodies is that you really don’t need to use any zoom at all! Operating flight 12 from TPE.

But this plane is definitely in the landing, or dirty configuration!

Asiana 777-200ER as flight 204 from ICN

Whole plane in the old colors

I definitely messed up this AF 773

Here’s N583AS operating flight 564 from PDX, where I was standing just a few feet away from its left winglet a few hours ago!

WN 737-300 – N669SW’s wings are a sharp contrast to the 737NGs

WN 737-700 – N455WN

UA 767-300 – N668UA operating flight 934 from HNL

At this point, Reed wanted to move to the area directly under the threshold for runway 24R to see what pictures were like down there, and to also get a St. Maarten-like experience with the noise and the aircraft zooming from right overhead!

US A321 operating as flight 1580 to CLT

Centerline lights on Sepulveda Blvd.

Unfortunately, the plane that flew overhead was a rare Air New Zealand 767-300 with winglets, and I was so pissed that I wasn’t in the park to catch it! I blamed it on Reed, but the noise was cool.
[www.airliners.net]

But since that area was terrible for spotting and only good for the noise which you can get at the park, we quickly decided to go back to where were earlier.

Volaris A319 to Toluca as flight 917

The ‘Arizona One’ is leaving again

And at this point, WN was getting very repetitive and bland, so Reed didn’t care about shooting these. I only shot these for practice.

United Express CR7 – I believe this is N708SK

AS 734 – I think this is flight 562 from SEA, subbing for the 739 that is on this flight.

VX A320 – I’ll be flying in one of these too!

By now, traffic landing on the 24s had dropped off a bit, and we had been waiting at least 15 minutes for each plane to land. Check-in for the hotel started at 3:00, and the hotel was kind of a ways away and we had no mode of transportation, other than to walk. So at 2:50, we decided to call it a day here and go to the Hilton on Century Blvd.

There was a car parked next to the park that had this bumper sticker.

As we were walking down Sepulveda, this plane came in:

Here are the famous pillars all around the airport that LAX is known for – they light up and they change color.

And the various LAX signs around the airport – taken on Century Blvd.

So after about 20 minutes of walking, we got to the hotel. As we were walking on Century, we went past various airlines’ freight buildings, and we could see planes parked behind these buildings, and we knew we were definitely close to the airport. This would be even more realized when we got our room:

Yes, we could see all aircraft on approach for runway 25L and all aircraft departing runway 25R!

Allegiant MD-80 at a remote stand

Runway 25s

Century Blvd, looking west to the theme building

This took several tries to get to look even remotely clear, and it’s still quite grainy.

DL 757-300 landing on 25R

This was a 777-200LR, and it later parked at a remote stand right behind the US Airways Cargo building in the picture above I took of the threshold for runway 25L and R. But at that point, it was way too dark to grab a picture.

UA 757

Again, this took several tries to get even remotely clear, with full optical and digital zoom. Reed on the other hand, had all this special camera equipment and the photo came out clear for him!

LH 744 taxiing to runway 25R

A little clearer with less digital zoom

Beginning of the evening rush – an AA MD-80 and a DL 737-800 are in line for takeoff

Here is a particularly special AA 767-200 – N320AA, the “Flagship Independence” operating as flight 180 to JFK.

AA 767-200s are special, since you can only find them here, JFK, and SFO.

Look at the lineup later – a UA 777, EK 777, and an AA 757, and that’s an Asiana 747 parked next to the Allegiant MD-80.

At this point, it totally got way too dark to take any more pictures. So we just sat, talked, and watched the traffic depart for about an hour. We were tired and didn’t want to do much more, so we just went to the Carl’s Jr. next door to the hotel for dinner. Their burgers are good too, but nowhere as good as In N Out!

Our hotel room that faces runways 25L and R. This room is kind of loud as well, since you can definitely hear all the planes taking off. In fact, it seemed like some of the AA MD-80s that were departing were almost as loud as some of the 747-400s! Noise was not an issue for us though, as we slept right through it and we of course enjoy it. However, as I was getting out of the shower, I could still hear a 747-400 taking off, even though I was in an enclosed bathroom.

Can you guess what this is?

It’s the roof of this gigantic gingerbread house!

Front of said house.

When we got back, we decided to walk around the hotel and see what was there. Internet was at a premium, as it costs $12.95 for 24 hours, or $5.95 for an hour of use, so that was definitely not an option. Even the business center has those same rates. And these prices did not stop there, because if you ordered a 1 liter bottle of water, it costed $6. This was a real fancy hotel, and it showed! So having nothing else to do, we just decided to go back to our room, talk, and keep watching the traffic, and ‘guess’ what airline and what aircraft since it was dark. We think there were a lot of American Eagle ERJs departing, and I also saw what I believed to be a CO 777, which was unusual since they do not come to LAX. It was not departing, but rather it parked in one of the remote stands beyond Terminal 8, and from there I saw it was a UA 777 in the ‘new’ paint scheme. This 777 was an imposter, and is a big reason why I hate the new merger livery!

The next day, we woke up around 10:30 since we had been doing a lot yesterday. We needed to checkout, but we didn’t want to leave because of our really nice room. In fact, housekeeping already tried to come twice. But first, we watched the traffic from our really sweet room!

AA 757

China Eastern Cargo MD-11

Other angle of our room

A look down Century Blvd towards LAX to the west

Looking northwest – this is also the approach pattern for runways 24L and R

This is a Continental 757-200 followed by a United A320 right?

Wrong! It’s an imposter 757!

You would not think that these two planes belong to the same operating brand!

Big 777-300ER, operating flight 218 to DXB

The DL 777-200LR was parked in the remote stand in the lower left hand corner, but it left before I woke up.

Departing for another 16 hour or so flight!

Notice the difference in size between the 773 and the 738

A look west to LAX

After the EK 777 left, we decided that it was now time to get going and we checked out of the hotel. We had planned to go to Imperial Hill, but without a convenient mode of transportation, we figured going there would not be worth it because we also did not know what kind of spotting we could do. In contrast, In N Out was closer, and was a tried and true spotting point that was really close to the airport, so we decided to go there again. Reed did not want to walk the whole way again, as it took at least 20 minutes and he had a heavy backpack. So we instead went to the airport to print our tickets, and take the shuttle back to In N Out. We waited in the front of the hotel for about 5 minutes, and the shuttle picked us up and took us to Terminal 3 for Virgin America.

Even the ticket counter is cool! There were kiosks where you printed your own ticket, and that was the area that you went to check-in a bag.

After that, we went to the arrivals level and took the Sepulveda Parking Spot shuttle back to In N Out!

LAX theme building taken from the shuttle

The theme building is also home to the Encounter Restaurant, which is space-era themed.

And they just got done remodeling it for structural updates.

Once we were at the garage, we went out the ‘In N Out Access’ door and we were there! Since it was about 11:00 or so, we decided to do some spotting first at the park across the street from In N Out, then have lunch later.

Special – Shanghai Airlines Cargo MD-11

I’m actually pleased to say that I’ve seen quite a few trijets on this trip: several MD-10s and MD-11s from FedEx, an MD-11 from China Eastern, and now this MD-11.

That’s what’s going on at Terminal 3 right now.

There’s plenty of WN to go around…

Had the zoom in a little too much… China Airlines 747-400 as flight 6 from TPE.

In the dirty configuration for landing on runway 24R

With the “Free Bags Fly Here” titles

I was real mad that I messed this one up – I had the zoom in too much (I was thinking full zoom for regionals, ¾ for 737s and A320s, ½ for 757s, and ¼ or less for wide bodies, depending on the model) and my camera was slow, but what can you do? This A330 was subbing for the usual 767-300 from YYZ as flight 791.

Another special LAX plane – Air Pacific 747 over at the Tom Bradley terminal

United Express CRJ-700 – I later decided to move to the In N Out side of the street and away from the park to get a better angle since you can’t very easily see the reg. – you’ll see this soon.

This one came out well – N549UA. While editing this picture, I realized that zooming in perfectly at the time the picture is taken is not important, because you can crop out the picture and edit it, and you’ll get a higher quality plane without the risk of chopping out part of the plane.

This one is also special, since these won’t be around anymore. N712HQ is operating as Frontier flight 1737 from MCI operated by Republic. At this point, I now had a new spotting location, and it was standing on one of the stone seats of an In N Out table outside, across the street from the park.

This may be the last time I see a plane in the Midwest livery.

Eagle ERJ

One of WN’s earlier 737-700s that used to be in the beige livery and used to be without winglets

Another Air New Zealand 747-400 – I like this livery too. NZ is a very common visitor here, but this plane is quite uncommon in other places.

A newer WN 73G – WN’s blue paint scheme makes photographing these planes in this type of weather hard, since they become backlit much easier than a white plane.

A321s were also hard for me to photograph because whenever I looked to see what was coming, I thought these were A320s, since you can’t really tell the difference from a half a mile away. I would set up my camera with the appropriate amount of zoom, then get onto table, only to realize that it was a much longer A321 and by then it’s too late.

Eagle ERJ—these are easy to shoot because you can’t screw up with the zoom since they’re so small!

Terminal 1 is full of WN

Operating as flight 797 from YUL

I’m not going to lie; I have no idea what kind of plane this is.

Fellow spotter from CWU across the street

Yet another WN 73G – N746SW

United Express EM2

Here’s N754AS again, just it saw before my QX flight. I think it is operating flight 712 from YVR.

This picture is so good compared to the other one that you can actually see the tail number on this EM2.

At this point, there was another China Eastern A340-600 taxiing for takeoff, so I ran over to the far west side of the park by the road to shoot it and watch it leave. But while I was there, the “Arizona One” 737 was on approach so I had to run out to the sidewalk to catch it.

At least I got other shots of this plane.

Here’s the A340 in line for no. 2 behind the WN 737

Another plane landed while I was waiting for the A340 – VX A320 operating as flight 89 from IAD

This is indeed a long plane – B-6053

Taken with only full optical zoom

Holding in position on runway 24L – this was a great plane to watch, complete with noise from 4 engines!

Nevada One

LH 747-400 D-ABVE operating as flight 456 from FRA

CX 777-300ER operating as flight 882 from HKG, arriving almost an hour early

After shooting that CX wide body, we were now satisfied enough to have lunch as we had now been spotting for almost 2 hours. So we both put away our cameras and walked over to In N Out, which was by now quite crowded. While waiting in between landings, we have seen many people come and go at In N Out, and a lot of the usual California driving as a result; people gunning it to get to the stop sign, and people taking the turns quickly. It is a deep contrast to all of the Washington state drivers who all drive like old people. Drivers in California don’t mess around and they get the job done! Once we were inside, the line was almost to the door, but it moved pretty quickly, because this restaurant has very good service as I had saw earlier.

Behind the counter at In N Out – those French fry fryers all have timers to cook for 5 minutes

Orders awaiting delivery

This restaurant was still kind of hectic, just getting over to the soda machines, especially because I had my backpack on, so I met Reed outside. About 10 minutes later, they called my number. If you thought the burger I had before was big, then you ain’t seen nothing yet:

It was delicious! A 4x4 animal style with in theory, extra pickles hiding behind the tomatoes. Biggest In N Out burger I’ve had to date, and it was so large that I could not get the whole thing in my mouth at first.

After 15 minutes of pure heaven eating my last In N Out for a while, it was a quick trip to the bathroom to wash all of the burger fluids off my hands, and back to spotting down the street. Reed now joined me on my side of the street, instead of hanging out at the park.

Another WN 73G… the only reason why I kept shooting these was because I wanted to practice.

Something a little more exciting – an AM 73G in their old, but really cool paint scheme. No idea why they had to change it because I, as well as many others on a.net, think it’s a great livery. Operating as flight 647 to MEX.

Taxiing to 24L for takeoff

KLM 747-400

C-FMYV operating as flight 552 from YVR

United Express EMB-120 departing on 24L

US Airways Express CRJ-900 departing on 24L

Volaris A320 operating as flight 912 from GDL – my camera was late on this one

The only negative about spotting at In N Out is that you get a lot of WN 737s, which get very repetitive after a while.

2 AS 737-800s departing

But this was definitely a real treat! N782UA is coming in from LHR as flight 935. It is somewhat rare to have a UA plane land on 24R, since the UA terminal is on the 25 side.

WN 737-300

I tried a little experiment with this WN – I tried to get it over the numbers with the line-up and the parked Porsche in the same shot.

I tried again with this FL 737 operating as flight 887 from MKE

Asiana 777 operating as flight 214 from ICN

Here’s the AC A330 operating as flight 792 back to YYZ subbing for the usual 767.

I wanted good shots of this plane since I messed it up when it landed.

Here is quite a special visitor – 9V-SPP, the Star Alliance 747

I was glad that I caught another special livery – SQ 747-400 operating as flight 11 to NRT, then SIN. Look at how big this is compared to the EM2 to the left.

I love shots like this that compare two planes from the opposite ends of the spectrum.

And while I was at the park watching this special 747, an EK 772LR was landing! So I sprinted out towards the sidewalk, but I still got quite an undershot from this cool beast:

Operating as flight 215 from DXB

Turning to runway 24L

I really wanted shots of this plane.

While this plane was roaring down 24L, I missed an AA MD-80 landing on runway 24R, which is also uncommon since AA’s terminal is again, on the 25 side. After that, I went back to my spot on the In N Out table across the street.

Cool shot of it landing nonetheless – operating as flight 2431 from DFW.

I was real happy with this shot! This 77W is operating as flight 12 from TPE.

N525AS operating flight 562 from PDX

N767AS – an AS 737-400… this picture and the one above really allows you to compare the two’s different wings!

United Express CRJ-200 in the old colors, reg. N939SW

AF 77W operating flight 66 from CDG

Here’s the same plane taxiing to Terminal 2 – traffic was really starting to die down, so I went back to the park to watch this plane.

FedEx MD-11 taking off of 25R

N268WN back on the In N Out side of the road

I was also very happy with this shot – N323AS and I have a history together. I’ve spotted this plane two other times already, once here at LAX, and the other last time in ONT.

Arrivals again were dropping off so I took this shot of our base:

Y4 A319 to TLC as flight 917

Y4 likes to name their planes with Spanish names, Pedro, Rafael, Christian, Melisa…

Arizona One departing for runway 24L

DL 757 – could be headed to SLC, LIH, JFK, or DTW, since all those flights are scheduled to leave within a 30 minute block and they are all on 757-200s.

Terminal 1 with plenty of WN as usual

United Express CR2

VX A320 operating as flight 928 from SFO

N434QX operating as flight 2187 from Mammoth Lakes

N229WN – I would later see this plane as we walked back to LAX

My last Air Canada E90 for this trip

Landing on runway 24R

At this point, arrivals really dropped off a lot. There was another spotter who had come just for lunch and he had a scanner to listen to the traffic, but no camera. He sat in one of the tables near where I was, so I could hear his scanner, and it was a little quiet, and most action was on the 25 side. We had been waiting at least 15 minutes between flights, whereas earlier we had been waiting 5 minutes at the max. Reed now wanted to get going for our flight, since we had to walk back to Terminal 3 instead of taking the shuttle. On the other hand, I was having such a great time that I didn’t want to leave. I used my phone to check flightaware, and there was a F9 A319 coming in from DEN, so I told him that we will leave after that plane comes. Fortunately, right after I said that, we saw the A319’s lights far out to the east. About 2 minutes later, it was here:

A good picture to end on a high note

And there it goes…

Now we started leaving In N Out for Terminal 3 after spotting from about 11:00 to 3:30. I really did not want to go back to Washington! SO I had to get some last pictures:

This sign was in the park

And this was on the other side

And also while we were leaving, this plane flew overhead, but it was just another WN 737:

Cool shot, would have been nicer if I got the left winglet in it too

Over the runway centerline lights

A KE 772 from ICN as flight 61

Too bad we weren’t still at In N Out, but after this plane, arrivals were pretty much now non-existent on this side of the airport.

I wanted a picture of the signs

…And that concludes my spotting at In N Out! With the way we went from spotting at In N Out to immediately leaving for, and then arriving at the airport, I really don’t know a good place to break it except here. I had never really been spotting like this before, and it was really fun! I could compare it to the same thrills and enjoyment as going to Disneyland, or Six Flags, or any other place non-aviation enthusiasts would consider fun. After all, when I told everyone who was not in the aviation program about this trip, they definitely thought it sounded boring. However, if you are an aviation enthusiast, you’d likely love it too. LAX is also definitely one of the best places in America to go spotting, because you have such diversity, many wide bodies, and a great place to take pictures where the runway threshold is less than 1,000 feet away. Best of all, that place is In N Out, and you have great food across a small street whenever you’re hungry. This makes this a great California experience. We’ve had so much fun, that we have decided to make this an annual trip, provided that airfare is at a good price like it was when we booked it.

SEA-PDX on QX, PDX-LAX on AS, 150+ Pics! (6 replies)

bluewhale — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 16:33:44 +0100

Background:
Being an aviation student in college, I was in a dorm with people who also love aviation. It is very cool being with people who share a special interest like I do, and it is also very cool to study aviation, instead of just your general school subjects. One day, I was playing pool with one of my buddies, who is also a big aviation knowledge person like me and also likes to spot, and he said that he really wanted to go take pictures of planes. I replied that we should go to LAX because of the diversity, to which he excitedly agreed. So right after we finished with our game, we went shopping for fares and found a great special: $69 base one-way to LAX and the total would be $180 if we also decided to stop in PDX and SFO. It was perfect! So a week later, the tickets were booked and the routing was SEA-PDX on QX, PDX-LAX on AS, LAX-SFO on VX, and SFO-SEA on VX. We both were so excited and we could not wait at all! We talked about this trip almost every day, and once break started, we kept chatting on Facebook trying to plan it all out.

The day started early at 5:00 AM on Tuesday, December 14th. My dad woke me up and to my surprise, I did not still feel drowsy, despite the fact that I had gone to bed around 12:30! Maybe it was because I had a lot of vivid dreams so my body felt like it had been asleep longer. But anyways, I did the morning routine and got my stuff into the car and my dad drove me to SEA at about 5:30. 15 minutes later, my dad told me to have fun and that he’d see me tomorrow. I went inside and walked by AS’s ‘Airport of the Future’ which didn’t seem that busy. I thought that this was great because it meant security would be fine. Wrong! The line for the N gates and D gates was longer than I’ve seen in a while, so I figured I would walk down the terminal to a different line. As it turns out, all the security lines going all the way down to the A and S gates, were long and overflowing. I then just decided to go back to the D gate line, but then I saw that the line going to the Pacific Marketplace was shorter so I grabbed that one. That took 20 minutes of waiting, and then I was finally next. There was a cheerful, older TSA lady checking boarding passes, so I gave her my home printed ticket and my ID after struggling to get it out. The lady then told me that it was a rule that they actually had to hold it, so that’s why they need it out of the wallet. All the lines here in SEA now have the blue closets known as the full-body scanners, but none of them were in use, thankfully. I did my thing with the bins, but I forgot about the toothpaste! It was 8 oz instead of 3 oz, and I was really kicking myself for forgetting about that! So the guy took out my toothpaste, put it through the conveyor belt in one of the trays that they put coins in, and then threw it away because I had nobody to give it to on the landside. So, it’s obviously a felony to carry a tube of toothpaste into the cabin with you!

After that, I went to my gate area, but there was still about an hour to go so I decided to keep walking around. My buddy had called me just before I was at the bins, so he was now going through security. I walked all the way down to the end of the C gates, and I found AS’s first ever B737-400:

N754AS

And this next to it:

Winglet and tail

I walked back down to the gate area, which is all of QX’s gates, C2A through C2K. On my way, I found an all-white Q400 from QX:

Wasn’t able to get the reg. of this plane, but I knew it didn’t have QX at the end of the number

Nice gate area

Gates for the PDX shuttle – MVP and MVP Golds could have a copy of the Wall Street Journal from the podium and there was a free coffee station against the wall.

Horizon Air #2121
December 14, 2010
De Havilland Canada Q400 (N410QX)
7:30AM-8:15AM
Gate: C2C
Seat: 16A
[flightaware.com]

By now, my buddy Reed had already made it through security and was now sitting and waiting. I really didn’t feel like walking the airport this morning since I walked almost the whole place last time. So I decided to just sit and talk. One funny thing to mention was an older lady came and sat down next to me (which was in the handicap section) and then one of the wheelchair guys came and asked her if she needed one. She got really offended and she retorted, “Not on your life!” She then looked at me, as I could only stare at her speechless since she was in the handicap section and the guy was just doing his job so she then thanked him for offering. Another thing worth noting was that I overheard the gate agents talking about the merger between WN and FL, saying that she heard about it, but she didn’t remember it. By now, Reed and I stood in front of the podium waiting to board, but our time to board got pushed back from 7:00 to 7:15, then from 7:15 to 7:45. The gate agent kept us updated saying first that the plane has just landed and was still taxiing due to ground traffic here in SEA, and she also made an announcement to people connecting to ONT that their plane would be held because this delay would have made them miss their connection. I think the plane came in late and they were also taking a while to clean it. By now, the 8:00 PDX flight after ours was already boarding and getting ready to leave, and we boarded around 7:50. I gave the agent my ticket and she told me that once I was in the outside hallway, that the flight was in door 5. So I walked through the Plexiglas door to the right of the above picture and followed that hallway to the right, which led to an open door out to the tarmac. Then, there were stairs which led directly down to the outside, open-air, glass hallway that had access to several different stalls for different flights.

Really bad pic of the hallway – had to keep moving since there were people behind me and lighting was poor

Door 5 was at the very end and here we were:

One of the two ‘Comfortably greener’ planes that I always see on approach to SEA when I’m golfing, and the Boise State University Q400, plus one lone CRJ-700.

N410QX – no special paint scheme today!

I really like this shot of the propeller, the Green Q400, and the rain.

I got on-board and the plane was unsurprisingly small inside. The aisle was narrow and cramped and Reed could barely stand up straight because he’s a much taller guy than me. The plane was already crowded with people sitting, and this flight would be completely full, which was a sharp contrast to when the plane only had about 20 people maximum when we booked it 3 weeks ago. I got to my seat in row 16, and my seatmate had not yet arrived. Reed was sitting in 15A, and he complained that the engine was in his way for spotting, but he wanted engine noise! I got settled in and this was the view out my window:

Big engine in the way

Since this was a Q400 and not a CRJ, I was rewarded with two good-sized windows instead of one. They were placed at a somewhat tall height, which was perfect for adults, but a little high for kids. The windows also didn’t have shades. Right now, the Q400 felt like a pretty okay plane, but I could tell that seat pitch was a mere 30 inches compared to a Boeing, and the seatback was shorter. When my seatmate came, I felt a little cramped, especially because the armrest was up when I got to my seat and I forgot to put it down, so it remained up for the whole flight. My seatmate was a business traveler, (this route caters mainly to the business traveler and made up the majority of pax) kind of a stocky guy, but he luckily put on his noise-cancelling headset right after we pushed and he fell asleep for the whole flight, so I was free to take lots of pictures and do what I wanted.

Landing gear

Flaps – from my Aircraft Systems class, I’ve learned that there are 4 different types of flaps, standard, slotted, split, and fowler, and these were fowler flaps.

At this point we started to push and the flight crew came on to apologize for the delay. The flight deck forecasted a bumpy, 35 minute flight to PDX, so it was announced that the seatbelt sign would remain on for the whole flight, there would be no inflight service, and the F/As had to stay seated for their own safety. Cruising altitude was at 15,000 feet, and I learned in ground school that altitude isn’t notated in flight levels until 18,000 feet. That’s the kind of flight this was.

CO at the B gates

Since there was so much rain, there was a lot of standing water on the tarmac, so it was a really cool experience to watch the turboprop start and spool up, blowing the water on the ground in all different directions, nearly creating a vortex on the ground.

Taxiing to runway 16L – with a lot of water on the ground

Water

Q400s are cool because you can really see how good of a job the flight deck is doing at maintaining centerline on the taxiway

This would’ve been a good shot, but I forgot to turn off the flash! But you’ll be seeing more AC E190s later ;)

The lineup behind us – after the AC E190 left, we were #2 for takeoff behind a CO 737.

Company Q400 – these things are actually quite low to the ground

N408QX

After holding for about 10 seconds or so, we powered down runway 16L and rotated in about 3500 feet. This takeoff was quite strong for a turboprop regional and I could definitely feel the G-forces push me back in the seat. It was stronger than the 737-800, and you can hear the dull, gentle, roar of the props.

I always see either this plane, or its sister ship, 439 on approach to SEA

Takeoff roll – luckily all the rainwater on my window blew away

Liftoff

Here are the N gates, which used to be UA’s domain with lots of 727s, 737s, 757s, A319s, A320s, and even DC-10s in the past. Now service has shrunk down to only 4 CRJ flights to LAX, mainline flights to DEN, SFO, ORD, IAD, 1 flight to NRT, and a barely surviving Express operation to PDX and GEG as opposed to their old service to Pasco, Yakima, Moses Lake, and Eugene.

One lone UA 757 with a bunch of AS 734s and 73Gs and 2 738s. There’s also an EMB-120 there as well as an AC E-190, reminiscent of the days that US was also there before the merger and this was SEA’s Star Alliance terminal.

The C and D gates – you can see a few theme planes here, including the Disneyland plane I flew last time on SEA-ONT, the Salmon-Thirty-Salmon, the alaskaair.com plane at the uppermost gate and the 50th Anniversary Disneyland 737-400 pushing from the N gates to the left of the picture.

The S, A, and B gates – DL now runs the majority of the S gates with the merger of NW and has thankfully added even more service than NW had before the merger. In the A gates there are 2 US A320s, 1 F9 A318, 1 AA MD-80, 1 AA 737-800, 2 HA 767s, and 1 FL 73G parked at the end. In the B gates, there is 1 WN 737-300, 1 WN 737-700, 2 CO 737s, and a QX Dash-8.

Bad pic – 2 DL A330s, 1 DL 757, and an A320

Really bad – only took this to show that this HA 767 had winglets and it was my first time ever seeing one in person. But little did I know that I’d be seeing much better stuff from HA later…

Engine during climb through this huge storm

Exhaust valve of the engine – view out of my rearmost window

Here’s comes the sun

Clouds

This was cool

A little bit of clearing

Cabin inflight

Apart from these shots 10 minutes after takeoff, this flight was kind of uneventful, except for turbulence here and there, sometimes getting heavy enough to make me think I was in a C-152, since C-152s are very sensitive to even the slightest turbulence and winds. Like announced earlier, there was no inflight service and we just kept flying through the high clouds for a few more minutes, until they cut the engines and we started our initial descent into PDX. At that point, the F/As asked the ONT people to raise their hand so that the cabin knew to let them get off the plane first. The ONT people were also an older couple, much like the main clientele on the SEA-ONT flight I took, apart from all the families.

McNary Lake still over southern Washington

Further south, nearing Vancouver, WA

We kept following these lakes and the Columbia River down Southern Washington and we banked left over the Columbia, which separates Washington and Oregon. We kept following it until we touched down on runway 10R.

Port of Vancouver –lots of imported cars awaiting delivery

Gear over the Columbia River and the Port of Vancouver

The 5 freeway and that runway belongs to Pearson Field in Vancouver, WA

Houses on the Washington side

Boats on the Oregon side

Slightly firm touchdown on runway 10R

We turned left off of 10R and started our way to the A gates where all of QX is. On the way there, they apologized for the delay again as we were 30 to 45 minutes late and again asked that everyone stay seated so that the ONT people could make it to their plane.

Flaps extended—learned that when a plane has flaps extended and gear down, the plane is considered ‘dirty’ but when the flaps and gear are up, the plane is considered ‘clean’.

N593AS

N592AS – this would be my ride to LAX

N523AS – the newest 737-800 of these 3

We now parked at the stand… people in front of the ONT people (mainly the business travelers) still got up and got their things before the ONT people even had a chance to stand up! But luckily, the ONT people still made it off first, but only after having to squeeze alongside all the others who were standing in the aisle, since I think the F/A in the front had to remind them and scold them.

The cool thing about traveling with a fellow aviation enthusiast is that he wanted to wait onboard the plane so that he could get a picture of the flight deck, as well as raid the other seatback pockets for loot! I happily agreed to stay on board for an extra few minutes, as I felt a little out of place doing it by myself last time. So we waited for all the other pax to leave, and they also used the aft door in addition to the front. We elected to exit out the front so that we could get the flight deck pictures, as he had never really ever been up there before. He didn’t know that they will let you in to take pictures if you asked.

This is the paint scheme that was designed by an Alaskan girl in AS’s contest for Alaskan school children to design the plane.

Flight deck of the Q400

We stayed on for a bit since he wanted to talk to the FO a little about the Q400. QX actually has a direct-hire program at CWU and 2 of 4 of our flight professors are trained on the Dash-8 with QX.

Here’s our plane – N410QX

One of several northwest college paint schemes – this one is appropriate because it’s the University of Oregon Ducks here in PDX.

So we went in the door where there was a small boarding area, and to the left were escalators that took us up to the mainline part of the airport. Here, I decided that I wanted a nose shot of the special plane N705AS.

Finally I’ve gotten close to the ‘Dog Plane’ after seeing it parked in the hanger on my last trip and seeing it briefly at the gate other times I’ve gone to SEA for non-flying reasons

I decided to walk around PDX and see what was here. I got excited when I saw this:

HA 767-300 with winglets!

And a pretty nice AS 737-800 -- I would actually see this plane later when spotting in LAX

On the other side of the concourse, was our plane parked at gate C3, N592AS which is also an ETOPS plane for flights to Hawaii

After going to the bathroom, it was now time to get a better picture of that 767! PDX has a very good observation area corridor between the C gates where AS, QX, US, and WN are, to the D gates where HA, DL and CO are. Unfortunately, PDX was a ghost town at this hour since we just missed the morning rush and it was now around 9:00.

This plane is parked close, like in PHX!

Hawaiian Chester – these leis were only supposed to be promotional, but AS has decided to just leave them since they’ve been on for at least 3 years now.

Giant tarmac

Very nice corridor that also serves as an observation area, complete with comfy benches in the middle of the area behind this photo

HA 767-300 with winglets, they’re huge in person! In other trip reports I’ve read with PDX, I’ve always wondered where the pictures like this one were taken, and now I know!

Tail and the winglet

Since we had a really limited amount of time in PDX no thanks to that stupid delay in SEA, I didn’t have time to comfortably make it to the other side of this hallway and explore the other side of the airport, so I decided to go back to the C gates and walk all the way down and back.

Mini mall in the middle of the C gates – PDX is very light, airy, has huge vaulted ceilings, and relies heavily on natural light during the day. Personally, it looked kind of like ORD, from what I have seen on a.net. The terminal felt really peaceful, modern, clean, well-designed, and heavily underutilized. I can now see why J.D. Power rated PDX as one of the best airports to connect through, and I definitely agree. It’s kind of disappointing that such a great airport has such little traffic and I hope PDX gets more traffic in the future.

The end of the C gates

Such a cool food court

By now, Reed had already sat down at a table and was eating a muffin, as he didn’t want to walk. I met him walking back to the gate, where he finished his muffin and we talked. While we were seated, we could hear fighter jets taking off and flying overhead as they went to do practices and exercises. PDX was a really cool airport, and is everything an aviation enthusiast could want now! Afterwards, we walked a few feet down to our gate and the flight was already in general boarding, which was perfect timing.

Alaska Airlines #562
December 14, 2010
Boeing 737-800 (N592AS)
9:50AM-12:07PM
Gate: C3
Seat: 22A
[flightaware.com]

Reed went first, as I had to fish out my home-printed boarding pass from my backpack. I gave it to the gate agent, and she scanned me through and told me to have a good day. I then walked down the jet way and into my first 737-800 ever, where the F/A greeted me. As I was walking back, I saw that there were a few first class seats empty, and that the Y section was not yet full. Also, unlike other AS planes, these Y seats had height-adjustable, winged headrests, but there were still two different colored seats, the taupe, and the black. I walked all the way down to row 22, where my seatmate was already in the aisle, getting the stuff she needed for the flight from her carry-on. She was a Chinese lady, and again, all throughout the flight, she slept as she listened to music from her iPhone. It was also a bright flight so she wore sunglasses for the duration, and several other rows had put down their shades so they could sleep.

View from the window

About 10 or 15 minutes later, the door was closed and we started to push. This was a real empty flight, probably about 75% full in the Y cabin. The middle seat next to me and next to Reed were both empty too. I knew that this was going to be a nice, quiet flight, and there were no little kids. The flight deck said that the weather in LAX is overcast and that it would be a short 1 hour and 55 minute flight, and that’d we’d be getting in about 10 minutes ahead of schedule.

N593AS is also another ETOPS plane; I don’t remember where this plane was headed

737 Tails

Another QX DH4 taxiing in

Flaps extended for takeoff – this was a really short taxi to runway 10L. Right after the F/As completed the safety briefing, the flight deck called for the F/As to be seated and we took off not more than a minute later.

The whole wing – that runway is 21 and I first thought we’d be using that one, since I’m not familiar with the traffic patterns here in PDX.

We turned left as if to get on runway 21

And we taxied past runway 21 – I just learned from google maps that 10L was recently extended and the way to get to the new threshold is to taxi by the threshold for 21.

Taking off onto runway 10L – takeoff was powerful enough, pushing me back only slightly. The 738 is actually a really gentle plane and is no 73G or 752.

Liftoff wasn’t rocket steep either

Gotta love the winglet!

Washington is in the upper part and Oregon is the lower part and the two are connected with Interstate 205

Giant bridge

For about 5 minutes after this bridge, it seems like we were maintaining the same altitude of about 3000 feet above surface. And then, we resumed our climb above the clouds, so I’m guessing that we were maintaining that altitude to wait for a clearing in the sky.

Above the clouds now

About 30 minutes after takeoff, the flight was quite uneventful, and I was starting to feel tired again. I made use of the winged headrests of my seat, which make excellent pillows and keep you out of the other seat and the window. These were excellent headrests because they were kind of like AA’s M80 headrests and they were big and support your head when you’re awake, and they support your head when you fall asleep. I took about 30 minute power nap, waking up just as the service cart was two rows ahead.

The lady asked me if I wanted to buy a meal, and I declined. I don’t know what they were serving, but the smell of the food did not fill the cabin like on my last AS flight, so it was not the breakfast skillets. I also heard a guy behind me reply that he did not want to buy a meal because he was going to In N Out when we landed! Those were our plans exactly! When the drink cart came, I ordered a Ginger Ale in hopes of getting the whole can automatically like on my last flight, but it didn’t happen. However, I did get a refill when they came back down the cabin.

Party mix like on my last AS flight – pretzels, Cheez-it like crackers, and corn crackers with Barbeque sauce flavor – since I only had a granola bar during our delay in SEA, and another one in PDX, this really hit the spot.

This is what’s going on outside

Another winglet shot

Cabin inflight: you can see the slightly different seats that the 737-800 has – they are much better seats than what are on the 734 and 739. The seat cushion is much more firm, less slippery, and I also feel like the cushion was larger than on the 739s. That’s Reed’s seat to the lower left hand corner and he had his headrest up all the way.

Took this with the iPhone

Ice and stratus clouds

About an hour after I got my second refill, we started our initial descent into LAX, and the F/As came and took the trash for the last time. After that, they were seated and the flight deck told us that we’d be on the ground in about 15 or 20 minutes.

San Bernardino Mountains – first indication of Southern California

Clouds and mountains

My camera likes to focus on the ice!

There go the mountains

These are cool because they have striations

More striations – it’s almost like the Grand Canyon

118 freeway in Simi Valley

Mall

Speed brakes

Over LA, North Hills area

Burbank

LA

Hollywood area

Real low quality shot of the Hollywood sign

Hollywood and LA and the sign

Downtown LA – too bad it’s cloudy

Downtown LA with clouds blocking the US bank building

Dodgers stadium

Whole wing on descent

We then kept going east for a couple more minutes then turned about 90 degrees to the right for a base leg to LAX going south. Then about 5 seconds after that, we banked another 90 degrees to the right for the final leg going to the west for landing on runway 24R.

Base leg is overcast

IFR conditions now with flaps fully extended, the flight deck was extending them quickly, one after another while in the clouds

And we gained VFR conditions right over the 405 freeway 5 miles east of LAX

Massive rental car area

More cars

There’s our hotel, the Hilton!

LAX is the only airport that I know of that has buildings and whatnot in between opposite runways

Sepulveda Blvd.

We touched down on runway 24R and reversed somewhat heavily, and we were able to slow down in a little over 3000 feet and turned off the runway at the 4000 foot marker. After we turned off, we held for another AS 734, a WN 73G, and an AA M80 to takeoff on runway 24L. A DL A330 and an AC A319 landed on 24R behind us as we were holding.

Company 737-400 holding in position on runway 24L with Terminal 1 in the background and plenty of WN!

NZ 744 and the theme building in the background

B6 is now in LAX, operating out of Terminal 3. If you carefully look in this blurry pic, you can see the very top of the Disneyland plane that I flew last time towards the left of the terminal, in between the two light posts. It had beaten us to LAX! I wanted to get a better picture of it once we were inside, but it had already left.

Full flaps and speed brakes, and QF 747s in the background – no A380s since they broke and now QF doesn’t want to send them here until 2011 even though they fixed them

Another company 734 taxiing and V Australia parked at the remote stands

Turning off the runway by the ‘4’ signs which indicate 4000 feet from the beginning of 24R

The 737-400 starting its takeoff roll flying back to SEA

Here it comes

DL A330 flaring and rounding out for touch down

It touched down about 2500 feet from the threshold – the rule of thumb is to try to touchdown within the first third of the runway, otherwise it’s better to not take any chances and do a go-around.

Operating as flight 1655 from ATL

WN 73G to SMF

We’re now in the clean configuration while waiting for the AA MD-80 to depart to DFW

Starting its roll

AC A319 from YYZ

Much better picture

Close-up

By now, the AA MD-80 had rotated and we were safe to cross 24L for gate 31B as in Bravo, as the flight deck had announced while we were in descent. The F/As came on to welcome us to LA and that the weather was about 60 degrees outside, which was way colder than what I was hoping for, and they thanked us for flying on AS, with the usual after landing speech.

NZ 744 at Terminal 2 and there’s an AM 737 behind the jet way

Virgin America A320s

FL 73G – I had thought that FL was operating in Terminal 6, but they have since moved back to Terminal 3 with the new Allegiant service.

OZ 747-400 in the new colors taxiing out of the TBIT bound for ICN -- we had to wait for this plane to leave because it was blocking

NH 773ER to NRT

QX Q400 in the Washington State University Cougars colors – WSU lost the Apple Cup to UW!

Company 737-800 and another DH4

This 73G was getting ready to push

Cougs. In Washington, there is a huge rivalry between WSU and the UW Huskies! The Cougar logo is clever, in that the back of the cougar is the W, the head is the S, and the mouth is the U.

China Eastern A340-600 in the Expo 2010 colors—these gates used to belong to Mexicana, and they were able to park 2 or 3 Airbuses in these spots

Since I go to CWU, which isn’t in the Pac-10 and doesn’t compete with UW or WSU, I’m kind of indifferent to this staunch rivalry

Another shot of this special A340-600

I hate Menzies with a passion, since AS outsourced all ground ops to them in SEA and also here in LAX. This company has caused AS’s ground incidents to skyrocket, notably with the MD-80 from SEA-BUR having a gaping hole that went unreported and caused the cabin to depressurize, to a more recent incident where a 737-900’s winglet clipped the tail of another 737 because the wing walkers weren’t doing their job. Today was no exception because this truck had just rushed underneath our fuselage, right under my row with very little ground clearance, which I thought was quite reckless.

This 73G is starting up and taxiing to runway 24L for a departure to MKE

Another B6 plane has arrived – every time I see B6 here, I instantly think of the incident when the A320 landing gear was stuck perpendicular to the plane and the news had total coverage of the plane as it burned fuel and landed.
[www.airliners.net]

At that point, we were now parked and secured at gate 31B and people were leaving. Again, Reed wanted to stay behind for a few minutes, so he could get a picture of the flight deck. How could I refuse? I never ever travel with anybody this cool! But since I got a picture of the 737NG at WN this summer, I didn’t want a picture of this flight deck, so I waited out in the jet way, which was legitimately cold, even though I was in below 0 degree weather in Ellensburg 2 weeks ago. 8-)

Head-on with N592AS

I wanted one last shot of this A340-600.

After that, I showed Reed around Terminal 3 since I’ve been in this terminal twice already. I have also been delayed significantly during those two times as, so I knew this terminal like the back of my hand, but he hasn’t been to LAX since he was about 5. But when I got to the gate where N318AS was, it had already left to my dismay, on an 11:30 flight to Puerto Vallarta.

To reflect on the QX flight, the Q400 is a really cool regional aircraft, especially if you have has never ever been on a turboprop airliner. The fact that it is a high wing aircraft and that you could see the landing gear retract and extend was very different than what I am used to. The sound of this plane onboard is also much different than a 737, and it reminded me of the turboprop plane based off the Otter in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. I like that it has big windows and that it has two windows to every row like other planes, versus the CRJs that only have one misaligned window to every row. Again this plane does not have window shades, nor does it have reclining seats. It was very apparent that this plane only had 30 inches of pitch, and flying on of these aircraft can be unsuitable for tall people as a result. There was nothing wrong with Horizon as an airline either. However, since the Q400 was so small and I was sitting next to a larger guy without an armrest, the plane felt smaller than it actually was. This has kind of made me never ever want to board another regional aircraft as long as I live, unless I actually happen to be flying it. Since QX is part of AS, service on the ground was pretty much the same quality and I’d expect the inflight service to be the same if it the air was smooth enough for it to be done. I would happily fly QX again, especially to experience their inflight service, but only on a shorter flight like SEA-PDX.

So after that, it was on to In N Out!

MS paint font has changed on its own why? (no replies)

Designer — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 13:27:51 +0100

Arial Black on the basic paint that comes with every PC has changed into italic font exactly like the previous Asia Airlines one seen here [www.airliners.net] the italic button is off so why has this happened and why has it become thinner, and how to correct it?

Trip Report: My First Solo! ELN-ELN w/pics (3 replies)

bluewhale — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 22:44:16 +0100

A major milestone of being in private pilot ground school is doing your first solo flight. Some of us students dread it because you are flying completely by yourself for the first time, which means that you have to watch other traffic and make sure that you have a general idea of where everyone is in the traffic pattern through the radio. Other students like me greatly look forward to the solo, because it is a really unique experience and is a step closer to become a pilot of an airliner. Personally, I was especially excited because I had the opportunity to become the second private pilot student in the class of 2014 to do their solo, which means bragging rights!

In the week before November 4th, I was very busy trying to get ready for my pre-solo evaluation, which determines whether or not I am proficient enough to operate an aircraft as the pilot in command. This evaluation is conducted by one of the chief flight instructors and not the instructor I had already, so this is something that I really had to be prepared for. During that week, I was flying every day to make sure that I could still land smoothly and on the rear wheels instead of the nose gear. It was also a lot of work because I had to study landing errors, for instance, I had to know what to do if I was too low and too high on approach, as well as more complicated errors like late or rapid round outs on landing. Talk about a stressful and busy week!

Finally, the morning of November 4th arrived and my pre-solo evaluation was at 7 AM. I woke up at 6:20, and got dressed in nice clothes for this evaluation. Since Ellensburg is a lot colder than home, I had to scrape all of the ice off my windows on the car and then I was on my way. I was a bit early, as I wanted to talk to my CFI before. I gave her my weight and balance sheet and she said it was good. Next, I met the flight instructor who would be doing my evaluation. His name is Peter Dzubak, and he looks a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger and also talks like him. He told me to preflight the plane, so I went outside into the cold and checked the antennas, fuselage, lights, tires, brakes, fuel, and oil. Afterwards, he gave me a briefing in which he told me that he would be giving me scenarios such as a simulated engine failure, and he would also modify my approaches to see how I correct them. He also asked me a few questions, asking me what I believe to be a good takeoff, what I believe to be a good landing, and what I would do if I had a rapid or late round out. I told him that a good takeoff is that the pilot is on center line, and climbs at 67 knots which is the most efficient way to takeoff, combining airspeed and vertical speed. A good landing is one that has a smooth and steady round out and that is also on center line. To correct for the rapid or late round out, keep a steady attitude and increase power a little to ease the plane onto the ground.

After that, it was time for my flying portion, and today I would be flying the Cessna 152 reg. N5366M which is their oldest plane, but also their fastest C-152 since it has a brand new engine. I did all the usual checklists on the ground and we took off of runway 29 after waiting for several planes to do touch-and-goes. The first two touch-and-goes that we did were normal and were good, as he seemed pretty content with them. After the second one, he took control of the throttle on takeoff and reduced it fully, simulating an engine failure, and he asked what I would do. I told him I would first pitch for the best glide speed of 60 knots and look for a nearby field to land on since turning back to the runway takes way too long. He was happy with my answer and told me to recover. We then attempted 2 more touch-and-goes, the first time he told me to go around, which I performed well. In the second touch-and-go, he set me up too high and asked me how I would recover it. I responded by doing a forward slip, in which I do full right rudder and left aileron to counteract the rudder, and pushed down the yoke slightly which allows the plane to easily lose altitude in no time. He was satisfied and told me to do another go-around and he was again content with how I did that as I did the controls in order. Finally, we did one more landing and made a full-stop. After taxing back to the fuel pumps and powering off the plane, we had went to debrief. Once back in the office, he told me good job and that I passed and advised me on a few things to work on. After that, I met with my own CFI, who was real nervous since my roommate was also doing a pre-solo evaluation and solo today. At first, I made it sound like I didn’t pass, and then she saw my logbook which showed that I had indeed passed and she was pissed! But it was all in good nature and she told me to come back at 11 o’clock for my solo.

Coming back to the airport later, I checked in and preflighted my plane, which was a different C-152 reg. N95606. Once done, my CFI took me up and we did two touch-and-goes off runway 7 as a warm up. On the second touch-and-go, we made a full stop and taxied back to the stands where I quickly went to the bathroom and she got out and got a walkie-talkie so that she could communicate with me on the ground if she needed to, and she would be standing on the side of the runway. I got in the plane, and my CFI walked to the runway to watch me as I did my start-up checklist. After that, I began my taxi to runway 7.

Taxing to runway 7 – the propeller looks really weird because it is rotating at 1000 rpm… and you can also see my CFI walking on the taxiway.

Proof that I was alone – the right seat is filled with my instructor’s stuff

There goes my CFI – yes she is a woman (kind of rare in the aviation biz)

I got to the end of runway 7, where there was a Piper in first place for takeoff. I did my prior to takeoff checklist and waited, as the Piper was taking a while.

Instrument panel while holding short – my CFI says that I stare at this too much and not enough out the windshield because I played Flight Simulator so much

Probably 3 minutes after I finished my checklist, the Piper announced it was departing on runway 7 straight out, meaning that it would be leaving the traffic pattern which was good. Currently, everyone flying during this block of time was in a practice area away from the airport so I had the traffic pattern all to myself. I waited for the Piper to rotate, and then I started my takeoff roll and took off in about 1,000 feet since it was only me!

Ellensburg on crosswind (after takeoff, I climb to 2300 feet and turn left)

By now, I started to think about how I was all alone in this plane – how serene and peaceful it was with nobody around me, as I flew the plane by myself and enjoyed the view.

On downwind (parallel) to runway 7 – you can also see the airport from here.

I could not stop thinking about how I was all alone flying a plane! Most people have never physically flown a plane, never had the opportunity to, and will never get to; some people have never seen an airliner up close in real life, but here I was in the pilot in command of a Cessna! It was incredible to think that one of my dreams has come true, that I was now a pilot and that I was flying the plane, taking off, landing, banking, and talking on the radio, all without direct supervision!

Wing on downwind taken from approximately 2,600 feet

Propeller spinning at approximately 2,300 RPM on downwind

After that, I reduced my power to 1,500 RPM, turned on the carburetor heat and retracted flaps to 10 degrees for decent. I then banked left and retracted flaps to 20 degrees for the base leg. I banked left once more for the final leg and retracted flaps to 30 degrees and got ready for my first landing on my own! I was easing in to it, slowly, and I passed the piano keys and I rounded out, and then THUD!!! I bounced on the runway so hard that I was probably 10 feet airborne again so I decided to go around rather than try to correct the landing. I was so ticked off at myself but oh well; I got to do another touch-and-go because I have to do it three times.

This time around, I did the crosswind and downwind legs again just fine, until I turned base. At this point, I got a little nervous and thought to myself why I was doing this. I just thought that I need to get through it and be careful. This time, I touched down softly and remained on the ground, keeping the nose in the air to slow down aerodynamically. I did it! Okay this was really fun now! With that, I retracted my flaps, turned off my carburetor heat and powered down the runway. I got airborne again, flew the crosswind, downwind, base, and final legs again and did another flawless touch-and-go. On the last one, I decided to take a few more pictures in places where I might have missed.

Picture on crosswind

The river by ELN on base

Short final for runway 7 and cows are grazing at the base. The department head of the aviation department says that renting out the fields around the runway base and threshold for runway 7 for cow grazing is Ellensburg airport’s number one source of revenue! That is, aviation revenues are not as high as the revenue fees they collect for renting out land to local farmers for their cows. You can definitely tell that this airport is in the middle of nowhere and Ellensburg is a REALLY small town!

Slowing down on runway 7 – you can tell that this runway needs repairs

Ramp and fuel pumps here at ELN

Yep I did three touch-and-goes and I’m taxing to the fuel pumps, yet my CFI is still not here…

This plane may be small compared to airliners, but it is giant compared to the little tin can I fly…

I taxied in and parked by the fuel pumps and gathered my things. The lineman and my CFI came over to congratulate me on my first solo and that I was the second in my class to do it! That must mean that I'm a pretty okay pilot. And as of this writing, only 5 people have soloed including me.

Here is the plane that I did my first solo in – N95606, a Cessna 152.

So, my CFI and I went back into the FBO office where all of the lady dispatchers/receptionists were inside waiting for me with a green souvenir t-shirt and a certificate authenticating my first solo. They were really taking this seriously and congratulating me, which made this already fun and extraordinary experience even better! The feeling I felt now was like no other, and I had never felt happier, more qualified, or more proud than I did at that moment. It was way better than getting an A on a super hard test, getting done with school for the year, or even graduating high school itself! It is definitely a feeling that I will remember forever and that I will always look back on. Just writing this and thinking about it now brings back those feelings and memories and make me relive that extraordinary moment. One of my aviation professors even says that the feeling is better than getting married or having a child! I’ll have to wait and see about that though. I got my green shirt and they took me outside to N95606 and took pictures of me to put up on their wall in the office. Every time I come in for a flight, I love looking at that picture on the wall. And no, they did not cut out the back of the shirt that I was presently wearing, even though it is a major tradition at other FBO’s. I’m not sure what the reason is behind my FBO not doing it.

Afterwards, we went back into my CFI’s office and she debriefed with me and said everything was good. She even filmed my 3 landings! So I sat there watching in awe as I landed my plane three different times. (The videos are on my facebook I’ll have to see if I’m able to upload those vids) After that, she congratulated me again and I was on my way back to the dorm!

Lesson 9 is the lesson in which you do your solo in, and only I and one other guy have completed in this picture. I was officially the second!

Throughout the day that day, everyone congratulated me and asked me about it, making me feel great for the rest of the day. It is definitely a huge milestone to solo for the first time. The feeling is so great and is better than any other feeling. That day is definitely one that I will always remember!

Chengdu Airlines ARJ21 (no replies)

chornedsnorkack — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 19:15:34 +0100

I can find no ARJ21 images, either called real or fake. It is flying, so probably real.

Can someone do ARJ21 in the livery of its launch customer Chengdu Airlines? It is due to be certified next September, and enter into service at the end of 2011:
[www.flightglobal.com]

Skymark A380 (no replies)

chornedsnorkack — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 14:02:05 +0100

Who expected it? There is only a Skymark 787 in database. But they ordered!
[airlineindustryreview.com]
Who can make it?

Introducing Raydon.tk (no replies)

raydon — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 12:52:54 +0100

Some of you may have already realized but for those that haven't: I have launched a new website for Raydon Designs. I realized that there is a need for a livery website (other than this one of course!). It is in the form of a weblog.

It will focus primarily (if not only) on airline liveries and aviation design. I will take a slight humoured approach to the wonderful colours of our sky.

Features include:

I also have a links section so if you have any worthwhile sites, I'll gladly advertise. Free. Also, if you can link me, that would be great!

Please pay a visit if you have time, I try and make it one of those *not so typical aviation blogs*. Thanks for all your support. Your participation will be much appreciated!

Raydon Designs

Why photo removed from database? (1 reply)

Designer — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 15:15:52 +0100

I had uploaded a modified PIA 747-8 image, and it was in database for a few days, now its vanished, I have not recieved any notification as to why its been removed, sent Patrick PM couple of times I dont know if he's checked his messages or not..

Site Stats (1 reply)

raydon — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:41:30 +0200

Not to overload the admins with more work but i thought it would be interesting to know some of the site stats that we aren't already visible. Here are some I would like know, feel free to add more:

Most uploaded Airline
Most uploaded aircraft
Most/Highest average views airline
Most/Highest average views aircraft
Most uploaded in one day
Most rejected in one day (probably impossible to find out)
Average visits per day