Plane Spotting At BOM -- Part IX

We got back from Delhi this afternoon and now we are set to fly off to Dubai for the next few days. Luckily, today there wasn't any rain, making for an excellent Plane Spotting opportunity for me...

An amazing rotation by a British Airways Boeing 777 Speedbird. Notice the spray behind! This was a magical sight!

Waiting to board the Emirates Boeing 777 and enjoying the sight. No matter whichever I visit, I will always have a soft-corner for my home airport - BOM!

An Air-India evening - three sisters from the fleet - a Boeing 777, Boeing 787-8 Dream)liner and the Boeing 747-400...

The Gulf Air Airbus A320 was so parked that I could not get a clear view. A few years back Gulf Air used to operate Airbus A330s from Bahrain into Mumbai, but ops were downgraded to the A320 family, possibly because of the decline of Bahrain economically...

An El Al Boeing 767 - El Al initially commenced ops into Mumbai with a Boeing 747-400 but frequencies were increased and the old workhorse was put into use between Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport and Mumbai...

The Queen, which used to be mainstay of Air-India's long-haul operations till a few years back now rests. The role is now taken up by the young and agile Dream)liners...

Jet Airways stubbies...

ANA which used to fly in a Boeing 737 BBJ from Narita into Mumbai has now upgraded to the Dream)liner, the link with burgeoning ties with Japan is obvious...

Boarded and we are taxiing towards the runway. Nothing's more stunning than Air-India's livery...

And I hope I will be having a good look at the Star of David emblazoned bird from Israel... 

And there she is...

And the Etihad Airbus A380 superjumbo just taxied in - Etihad is the third A380 operator to fly into Mumbai after Singapore Airlines and Emirates...

Plane Spotting At BOM -- Part VIII

This morning we are heading out to Delhi to meet family. It had been raining cats and dogs since 4 AM this morning and is still continuing. I had prayed for a clear morning for some Plane Spotting here at the swanky new Terminal 2, but the rain gods had other plans...

Curtains of water pouring down my window...

Ahem, well Plane Spotting is a bit interesting in the Monsoon!

The boring old Jet Airways Boeing 737...

There she is - the magnificent queen...

The Air-India livery on the Boeing 747-400 does stand out...

The view gets better as we taxi and I get to ogle the Queen a lot more!

Sadly, the Boeing 747-400 is a dying breed, but now over to Delhi!

Plane Spotting At ICN ... Part 6

My India Trip has come to an end - I have finally landed at Incheon Airport. The disappointment or rather the sense of homesickness was masked quite well by another round of Plane Spotting!

Two birds from Europe - an Alitalia Airbus A330 and a Lufthansa Boeing 747-400...

China Eastern has major operations at Incheon - here you can see a Airbus A320 and an Airbus A330 both from China Eastern and the Air-India Boeing 787 Dream)liner that I had seen earlier today at Hong Kong...

Pushback time for China Eastern Airbus A330...

And she's ready to taxi...

And the Dream)liner from home begins its pushback as well...

And that makes me so homesick. I wish I were on that plane heading back home, again!

Up In The Air .... Part 22

These Up In The Air pics are from the recent trip to Varanasi.

Inbound into Varanasi's Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport at Babatpur, we flew on Air India's Airbus A319 VT-SCU. VT-SCU made her maiden flight on October 2, 2009 at Toulouse, France and was delivered to Air India on October 28, 2009.

The flight was pretty smooth with flawless takeoff and landing, I must admit Air India pilots are certainly a lot more skilled.

When we boarded at Mumbai, a group of Japanese pilgrims boarded with us. There must be about 30 of them, all very elderly but extremely dignified.

Since there were scattered all over the aircraft, a lady from the group requested a politician, presumably a UPite for exchanging seats. The paan-chewing politician much to my surprise smiled and said in English "Madam, you are our guests in India, anything for you!"

I was impressed...

Certainly IndiGo has a lot to learn.... learn especially about attithi devo bhava - अतिथि देवो भवः. 

The shortfinals into Babtpur was a disappointment...

I had hoped to catch a glimpse of the mighty Ganga, but there was so much haze that hardly anything was visible....

The red cowlings - casings for the engine look nice... especially with the sun-rays painted on them...

Much to my surprise, I discovered that Babatpur Airport is an international aiport with flights coming in from Thailand, Sri Lanka and Nepal...

On the return leg, after a disappointing experience with IndiGo's staff at Varanasi airport, a flight a 1000 feet above us flying eastwards caught my attention... Unfortunately, I could only capture the contrails on the zoom... the pic was far too grainy...

The mighty Himalayas of Uttarakhand on the horizon...

At this altitude - 33000 feet, a quick calculation suggested that the mountain ranges were a good 360 kilometers away!

A few more mighty peaks emerge...

A zoom-in on the range...

A clearer view...

The Varanasi - Mumbai flight stopped at Delhi for an hour, and we took off from Delhi, we got an awesome view of the Arravali Hills.... 

Homeward bound, now over Vadodara....

Livin' It Up.... On The Dream)liner

The long Diwali weekend has come, and it was time to head back home to Delhi....

This was a well-planned trip from an aviator's perspective - we were to be flying on the Dream)liner, Air-India's Boeing 787. We had carefully chosen AI348, the flight that heads to Shanghai-Pudong via Delhi - the flight departs Mumbai at 0750 hours, reaching Delhi at 1010 hours.

Being an international flight, with a domestic leg, we were asked to report for checkin at least two and a half hours before the scheduled departure time.

We reached Mumbai's Terminal 2 before dawn.... The terminal was lit up and illuminated for Diwali... It looked awesome...

This left me speechless....

(Thanks to Neeti for grabbing these magical sights on her camera!)

We were flying on VT-ANL - this Dream)liner was fabricated at the Boeing facility at Charleston, South Carolina. It undertook its maiden flight on  October 28, 2012, and was delivered to Air-India on December 29-30, 2012 when it flew on the CHS-FRA-DEL route... 

We had an unusual takeoff from the 09 end of the primary runway 09-27 and took off over Kurla, overflying Vikhroli and the Vashi creek....

The GEnx-1B engines looked massive - there was indeed much lesser noise in the cabin and takeoff was much smoother...

We turned northwards over the Vashi creek overflying Mulund and Thane towards our left....

Once the seatbelt signs were turned off, the cabin crew dimmed the windows from their controls...

The Dream)liner windows are 65% bigger than conventional windows and passengers have a knob that helps in electrically dimming the windows...

The dimming effect is the result of an electrified gel sandwiched between two thin pieces of glass. As the electric current increases, the gel darkens and as it drops, the gel lightens. The system is a technological marvel...

Three stages of dimming.....

Overflying Rajasthan...

Dimmers at work over Rajasthan...

Notice the curvature of the Earth...

Overflying the Aravalis...

Approach into DEL

Landing on DEL's 29-11...

Landing was super smooth like running a knife through butter... wish Jet Airways learns a thing or two about smooth landings...

Winter is setting in with perceptible haze...

Three sisters - Boeing 777s from Emirates, Jet Airways and British Airways on the ramp at Delhi's Terminal 3...

The Dream)liner experience was an awesome one. Not only was flight a very smooth one, service on board was excellent. Air-India's in-flight entertainment was pretty decent - I watched the movie, Godzilla. Breakfast was excellent as well - omelettes and sausages with a flaky croissant... The stewards were kind with endless refills of lemon tea... Leg space is always awesome on Air-India, the Dream)liner was no different.... In all Air-India scores highly over domestic carriers like Jet Airways and IndiGo.

With today's flight on the Boeing 787-8 Dream)liner, I have traveled on all Boeing commercial aircraft from Boeing 707 to the Boeing 787 with the sole exception of the Boeing 757. Chances on traveling on a Boeing 757 are remote today. In India, the aircraft is operated Blue Dart for their cargo operations. A few carriers in the United States still operate the Boeing 757, but they would be taken off service soon.

My track record with Airbus is a lot better - I have flown on all their commercial aircraft - Airbus A300, A310, A320-series, A330, A340 and A380. Now look forward to the Airbus A350 entering commercial service.