Plane Tales

With the influx of new Airbus airframes, Virgin needed more pilots and not just to occupy the right hand seat… there were opportunities for promotion to Captain much earlier than had been the norm.  When I joined the time to command was about 8 years. Looking back I did my first sector with Virgin in July 1994 and it was now November 96, 2 years 4 months later and I was already starting my pre-command training.

A typical month of Tornado flying might accru 25 hours in 15 sorties. As an airline pilot I could easily do that in 2 sectors!

Who wouldn’t want an expenses paid trip to a tropical island?

We were headed to the fabled island home of the extinct Dodo

The result of a Flight Management computer issue was commonly the PLEASE WAIT message

When the Kai Tak IGS approach wasn’t available, we would usually get a VOR approach over Chung Chau and Stonecutters island

Roy and Curly certainly pulled my leg!

The pre command Sim was certainly a challenge

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Jeppesen Charts.

And my heart went!  Thump, thump, thump; thump, thump!

I was lying in the King Edward the 7th hospital imagining Phil Collins playing drums on my heart while watching the monitor and wondering how I was going to support my family after I’d been permanently grounded with this condition that had come right out of the blue.  The specialist had confirmed my GP’s diagnosis of…

Digoxin was a plant extract from Foxgloves used as far back as Roman times!

Good old Cookie.

The brilliant Professional Pilot’s Rumour Network

JFK in the snow

The fleet of snow ploughs

Getting airborne in a blizzard

Finally emerging from a line of thunder storms

The Master Warning activates

Images used under the Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Royal Air Force, the Civil Aviation Authority, The Roman 13th Legion, and the PPRUNE website.

We last spoke to Basam when he was doing his Jet Upset Training but now that he has his dream job it was appropriate that we should chat again on one of his London layovers.  In particular, he is flying around a war zone which presents additional challenges to a civil airline pilot.

Basam in London near St Paul’s Cathedral

Post interview

A flock of seagulls had chosen that moment to break ground from the grass beside the runway and fly across our path. They disappeared under the nose as we climbed away and cleaned the aircraft up… no noise of an impact but then we noticed the No 2 engine’s N1 vibration number was pulsing and reading a bit high.  So starts another Tale from my flying logbook.

Marauding seagulls at Shannon

The A340 Cockpit

Setting the landing flaps to Config 3

JFK VOR to 22L

The route LHR to HKG

Landing at Kai Tak

Trying to maintain landing recency

Images published under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Nick Anderson, Google Maps and the FAA.

The next tale from my RAF Logbook, albeit now being filled with civilian flights for Virgin Atlantic Airways…

A Virgin A340-300 going round the checkerboard at Kai TAk airport, Hong Kong.

The checkerboard approach from the flight deck.

The treasured Hong Kong landing authorisation card.

The A340 fuel tank layout.

The result of the Air France ground fire.

Iqaluit Airport

The beautiful and historic town of Narita

Flight over Russia

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the author, the BEA, Airbus, Iqaluit Airport historic society, BruceBlaus and Peterhcharlton.

The second part of an interview with Alan Munro, retired RAF pilot and Cold War warrior, where we talk about his book… Fast Jets on the Front Line.

A 19 Sqn F4 Phantom

A 228 OCU F4 Phantom

An RAF Chinook helicopter

The back seat of a Phantom

Berlin’s infamous Checkpoint Charlie

The RAF’s Winter Survival Course

Images published under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Rob Schleiffert, Gerard van der Schaaf, The RAF/MOD, the US Army,

In this tale we listen to part of an interview with author Alan Munro who talks about his recent book, Fast Jets on the Front Line.

Interviewing Alan

The Gloster Javelin

A 29 Sqn F4 Phantom

The RAF’s Harrier GR1

Images are shown under the Creative Commons licence with thanks to the RAF, Alan Munro, Hawker Siddeley and Nick Anderson.

A tale that might have been forgotten but here it is from APG670!

This tale isn’t about me operating into the massive aviation hub of Chicago O’Hare Airport but of how it got its name. For that, I’m going to take you back into Chicago’s seedy past to the days of Prohibition and the notorious gangster, Al Capone.

Enjoying a beer in Chicago!

Destroying beer during Prohibition.

Al Capone and Easy Eddie

Capone’s mug shot

The murder of Easy Eddie

VF3

The Thatch Weave

O’Hare and his Wildcat

O’Hare is presented with the Medal of Honor

A tribute to Edward O’Hare at the airport that bears his name

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the Library of Congress, the US Gov, the FBI, the USN, the Cradle of Aviation Museum, the Newberry Library, Raysonho and the National Archives.

Delving into my log book yet again I recall thatI had flown a couple of supernumerary trips to John F Kennedy airport in New York, sitting in the back of the cockpit watching how it was done but now it was my turn to clamber into the hot seat to start my line training with Virgin Atlantic.  I was also flying with the Chief Pilot so absolutely no pressure!

Compared with the Airbus A340, the old Boeings were beginning to look a bit like dinosaurs!

The confusion of aircraft flying over the Atlantic only really became apparent when they were all leaving contrails!

With the early MCDUs it was possible to outpace the processor that was trying to keep pace with your key presses.

Despite the plethora of satellites whizzing around the world, the world of aviation still often relied on old fashioned HF radios for communication.

The data we used to plot our position on maps came from the same source as that that guided the aircraft!

I was surprised to see that this famous airport still regularly used approach aids common in much less developed countries.

Images used under a creative commons licence with thanks to Nick Anderson, NATS, Airbus and the UK Gov.

From the French word saboter, sabotage refers to the act of bungling, botching or wrecking something, particularly for political or military aims.  It is derived from the French word for a wooden shoe, a sabot and likely refers to clumsy work carried out by those peasants who clattered about in such simple footwear. The world of aviation escaped known acts of sabotage until 1933 when a sleek and streamlined Boeing 247 of United Air Lines Flight 23 taxied to the departure gate at Newark Airport to allow it’s passengers to embark.  At a time when most airlines were flying flimsy wood and cloth biplanes that looked like old World War One bombers, and indeed many were, Boeing were ahead of the game.

The Boeing 247

An early 247 with the forward sloping windshield flying for the Royal Air Force

Passengers embarking on a United 247 NC13345 which later crashed into a hill in dense fog and burned.

J Edgar Hoover’s letter closing down the sabotage investigation

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Boeing, the SDASM, the RAF, United Airlines, the Library of Congress, the Chicago Tribune and the FBI.