Aviation Appreciation Station

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

WestJet's 100th Boeing 737, in this case a 800 series. I'm disappointed that they did not go with a special livery to celebrate and instead just slapped the decal on the front of it:

I too am disappointed. Westjet seems to be anti-livery. They could do so much with Canadian landscapes and cityscapes as livery. I luv the South West special liveries.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

I luv the South West special liveries.

I see what you did there.

[Bigtime]

Oh wow I totally missed that! Nice.

Here have some 787 porn:


N20904 United Airlines 787-8 by Brandon Farris Photography, on Flickr

[billybob123]

We flew United to Cancun and our seat neighbours had just flown to IAH from LAX on the 787. They said it was a great plane - comfortable seats, big windows, neat lighting. I'll have to give it a try. Seems United is introducing the planes to the fleet with domestic flights to start.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by billybob123

We flew United to Cancun and our seat neighbours had just flown to IAH from LAX on the 787. They said it was a great plane - comfortable seats, big windows, neat lighting. I'll have to give it a try. Seems United is introducing the planes to the fleet with domestic flights to start.

I'm pretty sure they do that for training purposes, to give the staff more cycles on the new plane than they would get if it started on 10 hour flights. IIRC it might also be required for ETOPS certification.

[Bigtime]

Correct that the United 787 domestic legs are for crew familiarization and FAA requirements before they can start operating them on overseas flights.

I've heard frequent fliers are not happy with how many seats United has jammed into the 787, coach seats are only 17 inches wide.

[Acey]

Going down to Port of Spain, Trinidad to visit family at Christmas, originally planned for YYC-DEN-IAH-POS to get the 787 on the DEN-IAH leg, but my dad wanted to visit his brother in DFW, so now we're going YYC-DFW-MIA-POS... get the lovely AA MD-80 and long layovers in MIA.

[Bigtime]

Hey at least you get a Mad Dog from YYC to DFW!

[STeeLy]

I'm flying from ELP to YOW through DEN, ORD and IAD.

I try to get window seats as much as possible, the ONE time on this trip I couldn't get a window seat is the one flight where I would have gotten to seen a United 787 at ORD. If I was at the window seat, I'd snapped pictures for sure.

The one thing I like about flying United... on some flights, you get to listen to live ATC. You know you're an AvGeek when...

[Bigtime]

Is that Channel 9 on United? It's the best, wish more airlines would do it.

[Acey]

Forgot to mention this... saw an all grey A330 at the threshold of 34 departing earlier this week; Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe? No idea what it was. Also was really foggy, could have possibly been an A300, but I'm 95% sure it was an A330.

[STeeLy]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Is that Channel 9 on United? It's the best, wish more airlines would do it.

I don't know what channel it was on, but I just chose the Listen to ATC option in the audio menu... I think the captain mentioned that it was channel 9.

But it's apparently at the captain's discretion, because my DEN-ORD flight had the channel but there was no ATC on it.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Acey

Forgot to mention this... saw an all grey A330 at the threshold of 34 departing earlier this week; Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe? No idea what it was. Also was really foggy, could have possibly been an A300, but I'm 95% sure it was an A330.

Definitely an RAF A330. They have replaced the VC-10's and L1011's.

[billybob123]

Could it also be "Can Force One?"

It's also a grey Airbus but don't remember hearing Harper was in town.

[Bigtime]

Yeah it could be that too, but if Acey is 95% sure he saw an A330 it was probably the RAF bird.

[Bigtime]

Word is a USAF C-5 Galaxy landed at YYC last night. It is apparently parked at the new cargo apron on the NW part of the field. I should have confirmation on if it is here when it gets light out.

[Bigtime]

Nuts, the C-5 left last night at 2200.

[GreatWhiteEbola]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Nuts, the C-5 left last night at 2200.

That would have been an impressive sight, too bad it was missed.

[Bigtime]

Indeed, not sure where it came from yet but it was heading to Tacoma.

[Bigtime]

Air Canada's YYC-Narita flight is going daily for the summer 2013 season. Excellent news, as this was always the plan for the route, I guess the next step will be to achieve year round daily service.

http://aircanada.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=601