Plane Tales

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.