For the aviation fans

[Long Wheel Base]

On 10/27/2021 at 7:38 AM, johnson said:

 luckily not but the seat covers do look a little dodgy. We flew both fights with the same plane. I Checked out the planes history while waiting at OR Tambo. Its a Boeing 737-800 registration number ZS-ZWE. Its first flight was in 2015.

Pretty much all the B737s came with those sheep skin seat covers. You can take them off. Mango also used them. 

[Long Wheel Base]

On 10/27/2021 at 9:17 AM, Robbie Stewart said:

Kulula purchased a couple of new B737-800NG to replace their ageing fleet of older 737-400.
 

 

Correct. Some were brand new and some were used NGs but they still had lowish hours. They came from air Austral. 

[Bonus]

I think the "sheepskin" option is pretty std across the industry isn't it? I know I've seen it with lots of different carriers whenever I've popped into a cockpit on a flight.

[johnson]

On 10/29/2021 at 10:58 AM, Long Wheel Base said:

Pretty much all the B737s came with those sheep skin seat covers. You can take them off. Mango also used them. 

 

On 10/31/2021 at 10:58 AM, Bonus said:

I think the "sheepskin" option is pretty std across the industry isn't it? I know I've seen it with lots of different carriers whenever I've popped into a cockpit on a flight.

I'm not a frequent flyer but I've also seen them in pretty much all the cockpits I have checked out.

[Cois]

So the coming weekend will be the 3rd time I will be in a plane.  So excited as we will be using Lift.  So I am excited to get to see an Airbus on the inside.  We will be sitting at the tail end due to the wheelchair access so will be weird not to be at the front end of the craft.  But as FAIK I will be first on and last off.  One of the drawbacks of having to use a mobility device.

[Bonus]

22 hours ago, Cois said:

So the coming weekend will be the 3rd time I will be in a plane.  So excited as we will be using Lift.  So I am excited to get to see an Airbus on the inside.  We will be sitting at the tail end due to the wheelchair access so will be weird not to be at the front end of the craft.  But as FAIK I will be first on and last off.  One of the drawbacks of having to use a mobility device.

Safe travels man! 

[Spokey]

On 11/2/2021 at 9:01 AM, Cois said:

So the coming weekend will be the 3rd time I will be in a plane.  So excited as we will be using Lift.  So I am excited to get to see an Airbus on the inside.  We will be sitting at the tail end due to the wheelchair access so will be weird not to be at the front end of the craft.  But as FAIK I will be first on and last off.  One of the drawbacks of having to use a mobility device.

Enjoy your flight. You may or may not know through my (infrequent ) posts, I fly for a living. I am surprised when I hear of people who fly so little if at all, yet I should not be. There are many people who do not have opportunity or even need to fly. I am so jaded with the airlines as I travel to and from the Mid East to go to work. I have swapped out as crew in places as diverse as Phuket in Thailand and St Maarten in the Caribbean. And as tired as I am of paxing in the back I get a kick out of the excitement of  people who do not fly very often. To be true, I am still in awe of the physics of it all and how it works…….buggar, magical science!

Anyways, hope you have a great flight!

Edited November 6, 2021 by Spokey
Sentence construction!

[Spokey]

A little of my past two weeks. Left Riyadh on a non stop flight to Florida. 15 hours 28 mins  block time. Still landed with in excess of 4000lbs of fuel. Crossed Oceanic at FL470  climbing to non standard FL490 with 5 hours to go. Long Range Cruise of M.85. A pic or two of leaving Miami for the Bahamas. Landed Nassau, Piper Aztec territory. I love it, fond memories of poling an Aztec all around southern Africa out of Wonderboom last century! Tomorrow to New York.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Spokey
Sort my flight levels ha ha!

[Bonus]

8 hours ago, Spokey said:

 

 

You flew over my house! :-)

 

[Spokey]

45 minutes ago, Bonus said:

 

I did not wave as it was dark!

[SwissVan]

18 hours ago, Spokey said:

A little of my past two weeks. Left Riyadh on a non stop flight to Florida. 15 hours 28 mins  block time. Still landed with in excess of 4000lbs of fuel. Crossed Oceanic at FL470  climbing to non standard FL490 with 5 hours to go. Long Range Cruise of M.85. A pic or two of leaving Miami for the Bahamas. Landed Nassau, Piper Aztec territory. I love it, fond memories of poling an Aztec all around southern Africa out of Wonderboom last century! Tomorrow to New York.

Hey Spokey, I’m in Punta Cana (Dominican republic), how about a lift home next Saturday ????

[Spokey]

10 hours ago, SwissVan said:

Hey Spokey, I’m in Punta Cana (Dominican republic), how about a lift home next Saturday ????

Buggar, I am now in New York!

[Bonus]

10 hours ago, Spokey said:

Buggar, I am now in New York!

Mrs Bonus will be in New York tomorrow on her way to Denver, Colorado :-)

[Spokey]

Was very tight parking In Teterboro. The tug driver expertly positioned us after shut down.

[RoddieJ]

16 minutes ago, Spokey said:

Was very tight parking In Teterboro. The tug driver expertly positioned us after shut down.

Geez!! That’s packed like sardines ????

[Spokey]

A bit of a read…….if you have the endurance!

And so…..I am sitting in my hotel in Dubai, just arrived a while ago from LA via Seattle ( pic is lining up in Van Nuys)  and it dawns on me that I am terrible at posting about bicycles, the reason for the Hub in the first place. I have some bikes I really l like and I treasure them, keep them clean and ready to rock and roll and just do not ride enough. I miss them.

Anyway, a little of what I do for those who may be interested. ( and bloody keep it up if you are learning to fly or establishing a career)

We left LA yesterday (Friday) at 1400 local time for the quick 2 hour jaunt to Seattle. Boss had a quick meeting on board while we gassed up for Dubai. Our Hostie Angie was busy with a fine spread of Canapés and Dom for the Boss, the CEO and the guest while we busied ourselves prepping the flight. The flight plan chose to not work on the Datalink upload which was a bit of a schlep as with limited time on the ground I was only able to load about 40% of the trip before we departed. Sure the destination was in but the lack of waypoints meant the current datalink winds ended up a little discouraging! However we had run though the pre flight brief enough to know that it would all work when finally installed in the FMS.  Fortunately we had a third pilot on board who was doing the fuel while my co Captain was sorting the bill in the FBO. We loaded fuel to within 1000 lbs of Max Take Off Weight. (Max fuel, 51750 lbs, 100 short of the book maximum)  The aerie was beautiful on the take off run and climb just after sunset in Seattle, (one of the pics over the fuel truck) though we could only get to FL390 initially. The forecast winds allowed a high speed cruise of M.88 for the entire trip. We ended up being 01:30 faster than the trip in June when the winds determined a Long Range Cruise of M.85. We entered Canadian airspace quite quickly and received a 1200nm (2223km) direct routing to our NAT Oceanic entry point. All good, continued loading the Flight Plan, logged on to the CPDLC and life was peachy. Dinner was stellar, the Boss retired to his bedroom and the CEO was catching a movie in the forward cabin. 
Climbed quite quickly to FL410 and the entered Oceanic at a non standard FL430. Was entertaining  we had to obtain the Clearance the old fashioned way via HF radio as the Datalink continued its stubborn resistance to actually do its job. I had a chuckle as my colleague was a little unprepared for that. CPDLC and Datalink have proven to be easy and great when working but at least my many years on the old DC8 came to the fore last night!

Anyways, just over northern Canada we had the good fortune to see the Aurora Borealis, my first time in a lot of Atlantic crossings, was awesome!! We  crossed the Pond way north, up to 74 degress North which was a bit more than the 71 degrees achieved on our bicycles when the Missus and I left Noordkaap Norway heading south in June 1992. Had a marvellous dinner, ( pork medallions seeing as we were heading to the Mid East) just missing a fine bottle of red ha ha, then headed to the bunk for a few hours kip as the sun was poking above the horizon ahead of us, a little west of Bodo in Norway (one of the pics).  I rejoined the crew over Russia, we climbed to FL470 and settled into the last 4 hours 30 of the flight. Was gorgeous passing Georgia and Yerevan ( pics of the mountains) eventually crossing Iran for the final run in to UAE airspace and Dubai. Around mid Iran the sun set again so I ended up with a night take off and night landing on our 13 hour 30 flight. Anyways, if you manage to read this far, I hope you enjoyed it. A very small insight into my life flying corporate for an aircraft owner on the latest and in my humble opinion best Bizz Jet out there. Sorry, an older pic of the machine.