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.