I had hoped this post would read: Got on the aircraft in Sydney, got off in L.A., flew to Vegas, checked in to Luxor, Hello Autodesk University!
Alas it never seems to be that simple.
The fortunate timing of the The Amaz!ng Meeting Australia means I’m travelling to Autodesk University via Sydney. It also meant I had a choice of QANTAS, QANTAS or QANTAS which wasn’t so bad when I booked back in September. I was disappointed it wasn’t an A380 flight but since the little problem of their Rolls Royce engines falling apart midflight I got over that.
The flight to Sydney was painless although I’m glad I am not tall. A three hour flight on a 737-800 with narrow seats & tight pitch can’t be much fun if you are. After an amazing weekend at The Amaz!ng Meeting I headed out to Kingsford Smith Airport. I quite like Sydney but gloomy damp weather meant I wasn’t sad to be leaving.
Goodbye Sydney!
Check in was slow but I got through security with time to spare. After some brunch and a coffee I headed for Gate 8, per the boarding pass, to find a flight to Hong Kong? Scuttle back to the nearest screen to find the flight had been moved (in 30 minutes?) to Gate 10. It was hidden behind some temporary screens which is why didn’t notice the crowd already waiting. After the post check in, security, get into the screened area security check check came the first announcement which raised my concern:
“Due to late delivery of the aircraft to the gate boarding at 11:05 for 11:50 departure will be delayed. We are currently servicing the interior and expect to begin boarding at 11:45, thank you…”
Ok, I have some time to spare in LAX but only an hour between my Vegas arrival and first session. Still, no worries they might make that up in flight. So we get on the plane and push back at 12:30, forty minutes late but never mind. There was a short taxi but then it seemed we were waiting to takeoff for quite a while. Still it’s Monday at a busy airport so maybe that’s normal and it seemed aircraft were taking off & landing on the runway we were heading for.
Hello Sydney?!
Then came an announcement from the Captain:
“Apologies Ladies & Gentlemen… …due to warning indicator relating to a Fuel Pump we have to return to the terminal so engineers can inspect it”
So by 13:00 we are back where we started more than an hour after we should have departed. First thought was I’m glad the problem happened here & not halfway over the Pacific but I’m beginning to wonder about QANTAS fleet quality. Last year I sat in Auckland for 8 hours after check in while they found a replacement aircraft (ironic it came from Sydney) and it seems headed that way again!
We didn’t get off the aircraft and couldn’t use electronics so I had time to inspect the media programme card and decide what to watch. They announced the entertainment system would be fired up while we waited and I found only about half the items in the print programme ,and few I had selected, were loaded. This wouldn’t be an old plane pushed out the of the hanger to fill A380 gaps would it?
After a wait, for the inspection, it seems things were go again. They loaded another thee tonnes fuel and said a new flight plan will recover 20 minutes but we eventually took off at 13:50, nearly two hours behind schedule. I’m writing this somewhere southwest of Hawaii, about seven hours out of LAX, and it seems that pump is still pumping.
Look outside, it’s a Paraglider!?
I didn’t see one over the Pacific but it was rather strange to watch a documentary about German Paraglider Eva Wisnierska while cruising at 11,000m. She was participating in a World Cup cross country race - near Manilla, Australia – when a thunderstorm rapidly developed. The resulting severe updraft transported her to an amazing GPS verified 9,946m before, when she was unconscious and frozen, her iced up wing collapsed. A 200km/h+ freefall (due to thin air up there) resulted and the wing self recovered at about 6900m. By this time she was barely conscious and able to fly down to a safe landing some 45 minutes and 7km from where she was caught by the storm cell. The altitude, cold and lack of oxygen should have been fatal but it seems her body to shut down enough to protect vital organs. She had some frostbite and bruising from hail but was back flying within a week, even using the same wing!
Sadly, Chinese paraglider He Zhongpin was caught in the same system and killed by a lightning strike. At times they were just 500m apart showing just how lucky Eva was. Sobering to see the documentary then gaze out the window thinking she was at the same height with just a light flight suit, harness and 6kg of fabric paraglider wing to rely on. Makes a fuel pump light problem and missing videos seem rather trivial.
LAX to Vegas, in time for?
I missed my 9:30 Vegas flight and the next available was 11:45. It was actually about 16:30 by the time I got to Autodesk University Hotel, freshened up and registered. Apologies to Autodesk for missing, from what I heard, interesting media sessions. Even more annoying, after getting the Autodesk invite I had paid a premium to move to an earlier flight to be sure to get there on time and actually arrived several hours later! I now figure QANTAS stands for:
Quality Airline? Not To Autodesk Seminars?
Oh well, at least I made the Blogger Social & AEC mixer, which is where I’m heading now!
