Aviation Appreciation Station

[Buzzard]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

Obama and Nieto are in Ottawa to meet with the PM. I didn't know the Mexican President flew in a Dreamliner. I hope Justin doesn't get any ideas.

http://mashable.com/2016/01/15/mexic.../#vtJweY7kvOqh

The plane will be able to fly for 20 hours straight — or over 9,000 miles

That's just ridiculous. Let's put that into perspective.

You take off with some friends at 18:00, fly for an hr and say have dinner at 19:00. Start drinking hard at maybe 20:00 until 2:00...then pass out. Have the best 10 hr sleep of your life and wake up at noon. Shower, have a big breakfast and be totally refreshed for landing at 14:00!

Or you could be old and boring like me. Settle yourself down in front of that swank fireplace, turn on the tube, watch a season of The Walking Dead and then sleep for 10 hrs.

[KelVarnsen]

Originally Posted by Acey

Tom Hanks thoooo

Which makes the movie a no go.

[Lubicon]

Did our annual pilgrimage to Regina over the weekend to visit my wife's family. Never at the top of my list for favorite trips but we almost always go around July 1. This year the B17 that was just in Springbank spent the long weekend doing the same thing in Regina. The in laws live just off the extended centreline of Rwy 13 so we got to watch the beast doing many, many flights over the city. What an awesome sight and even better sound. Also, being that Regina is only about a 15 minute flight from 15 Wing in Moose Jaw you are treated to frequent visits from the Hawk trainers. Being July 1 they spent a little more time than usual beating up the airport and generally putting on a pretty decent impromptu airshow in between the civil traffic. Watched them doing multiple low level high speed passes along the runway, formation flying, etc. etc. Pretty much having fun. They opened the first Sunset Ceremony of the season (July 1) at the RCMP Depot by doing a high speed pass over the parade square. Notable here is the Depot is literally immediately north of the airport so they were flying opposite direction to the traffic pattern and pretty much right over the airport too so some nice coordination with ATC to make it happen. And when they say the ceromony starts with a fly past at 6:45 they mean 6:45 to the minute.


So not a bad way to make an otherwise hum drum trip much better.

Side note, if you ever spend time in Regina during summer make a point of going to the RCMP museum and attend the Sunset Ceromony if you get a chance. Both are well worth the time.

[Cube Inmate]

A pair of (what I think were) F-18s just blasted off north from 35L. Definitely twin tails, but other than that I wasn't close enough to verify.

Does anybody know of any good resources for finding out about non-commercial visitors like this? I.e. last week there were a pair of C-17s down at Shell and an A400M at the NW cargo ramp, but unless someone posts it here, I'm missing a lot of good stuff....

[stazzy33]

I could hear that from my office, had no idea what they were though. Checked flight radar right away and no sign of anything. Thanks for posting that, I was super curious what they were

[polak]

Flew on a the 787 to London. The auto tinting windows BLEW. MY. F***ING. MIND.

[Lubicon]

IF they were F18s they may have been here to kick off the parade?

[Bigtime]

As a general rule almost all military traffic won't show up on flight trackers like Flightaware and Flightradar24. Exceptions to this that I have noticed are:

-Royal Air Force A330's (call sign Voyager)
-RCAF A310's (sometimes)
-RAAF 737 (has actually visited YYC a few times)
-French Air Force A343

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

IF they were F18s they may have been here to kick off the parade?

There hasn't been a parade flyover in a few years.

[Lubicon]

Seriously? It's been a few years since I worked DT but I didn't realize that. Huge shame, it used to be a great way to start.

Booo!!

[FLAME ENVY]

Two 4 Wing F-18's did indeed do a flyover of the Stampede Grounds today after departing YYC en-route to Cold Lake.

[Acey]

This WestJet flight attendant's Instagram post captioned "When you look exactly like the tail of your plane..."

[FireGilbert]

I saw the R2D2 plane while driving by the airport the other day. It was the most excited I have ever been while on my way to work.

[Nyah]

Sounds like WestJet's service to London Gatwick isn't going too smoothly.

WestJet flights to London prompting a wave of complaints and compensation
Delays and cancellations are plaguing the airline's routes to London, England

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/west...ghts-1.3670418

[polak]

Originally Posted by Acey

This WestJet flight attendant's Instagram post captioned "When you look exactly like the tail of your plane..."

When you look like my future wife.........

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by Nyah

Sounds like WestJet's service to London Gatwick isn't going too smoothly.



http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/west...ghts-1.3670418

I took this flight back in June. Flight out to Gatwick was fine, flight back was delayed by 6 hours and was serviced by Omni.

This past week I got an email from Westjet offering the 600 Euro compensation or 3x that value in Westjet dollars, expiring in one year but transferable.

$2800 CAD are in my Westjet account as of this morning

[Bigtime]

My youngest sister and her husband were delayed flying LGW-YYC, they too were contacted by WS and the compensation for their delays works out to $430 each.

These four 767's are giving them quite the headache. However my hunch is that the company that sold these ex-Qantas birds to them (Boeing Capital Corporation) may be paying some or even all of these bills (including chartering the Omni birds for standby). WS has been an incredibly loyal Boeing customer, so they are probably going to take care of them as best they can.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

My youngest sister and her husband were delayed flying LGW-YYC, they too were contacted by WS and the compensation for their delays works out to $430 each.

These four 767's are giving them quite the headache. However my hunch is that the company that sold these ex-Qantas birds to them (Boeing Capital Corporation) may be paying some or even all of these bills (including chartering the Omni birds for standby). WS has been an incredibly loyal Boeing customer, so they are probably going to take care of them as best they can.

Boeing is paying for the Omni charters from what I have been told. I'm not sure who is on the hook for the compensation WS is having to pay.

[brocoli]

I also took the YYC-LGW flight in June. Flight returning was delayed by 4 hours which they informed me of a week in advance. I got nervous as the 4 days leading up to it all of the flights were either delayed by 8 hours or cancelled all together. The flight was fine, however I might stick with AC or someone who has done this trip for a while before I give WJ a shot at TransAtlantic again.

On a side note, i'm going for a my discovery flight this weekend to see if I want to take my private pilots license. Does any one have some questions that I should be asking the flight school about the planes they use, flight time or random things that they have learned in getting their license? Any help would be appreciated.

[polak]

My AC flight to Heathrow in June was cancelled a few days after booking and I had to replan everything.

I don't think any service is safe.