An hour out from Sydney, and I finally located the in-flight information progress map.
I was a little surprised to find that we were cruising at FL410. The bloke sitting next to me was quite impressed with my rapid maths calculation of metres to feet. I later told him I was a student pilot, which he must have found a little puzzling, considering it took me a few minutes earlier on to get my touch-screen working.
Our flight path and progress with just under an hour to go.
Although it was dark outside, I still tried to video and commentate the landing. It was a Cat I ILS for RWY34L with an arrival from the south over Wollongong (I’m not too well rehearsed with IFR flying yet so I couldn’t tell if it was a Marlin1 or Deena4 arrival). Once established on the ILS, it was then independent visual approaches when visual. Like the takeoff, the landing was a touch rough, and we seemed to apply virtually full reverse thrust and most likely full autobraking as well. However, it appears the poor lighting got the better of me, and you can barely see anything apart from some of the runway and taxiway lighting. So sorry for not uploading the video.
Arriving at the gate 9.
Once everyone disembarked, I took the opportunity to visit the flight deck and have a quick chat with the pilots. Both were very friendly and not in any great hurry even though they and the rest of the crew would be flying the plane back to its Melbourne base at Tullamarine in an hour’s time (hence the extra fuelling at Perth). It was nice to get some feedback on how to go about my training as well as some tips to improve my flying.
It was particularly interesting for me to find out that the FO Dave whateverhislastnamewas had initially studied medicine in university before realising his real passion was for flying and switching careers mid-way through his medical degree. As a medical student myself, it is nice to know that it is possible to change careers and still be successful.
A very blurry pic of the instruments. The low light meant my camera automatically kept extending the exposure time, which meant even the slightest shake of my camera and the result was as seen above.
Instead, I switched to video mode which yielded better results. I had deliberately turned off the sound in order to have a proper conversation with the pilots about the industry and training. P.S. The labels of all the instruments are mainly intended for some of my non-aviation friends, so it was really to help them understand what they were looking at.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na24hKupILs
Once again enormous thanks to all the crew on a great flight and for letting me visit the best office in the world. Hope you enjoyed reading, and yes, I will definitely work on my commentary for next time.
I know it was a very long report, but I hope you enjoyed the reading.
Cheers