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Old 10th October 2009, 03:39 PM
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Philip Argy Philip Argy is offline
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Post Trip report SYD-SIN-LHR-GVA-LHR-SIN-SYD

In the First Class Lounge in Sydney, watching OQA being towed to gate 9.



Looking forward to my first A380 flight. Hope the view from seat 17A is not too restricted by that large wing. Will know soon enough!

Boarding delayed 20 mins for cabin servicing and catering. More reports and pics when I get a chance to upload them.
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Last edited by Philip Argy; 10th October 2009 at 03:53 PM. Reason: Add pic & boarding delay
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Old 11th October 2009, 06:43 PM
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Post SYD-SIN-LHR legs

SYD-SIN leg
'Navigator' billboard advertisement on the concourse is still showing 4.04 pm Eastern Standard Time - not too impressive! Boarding of Nancy-Bird Walton is direct to the upper deck via a dedicated ramp - no bottleneck on the stairs as with the 747. Captain for this leg is Gerald Brown.

Seat 17A is over the wing so view obstructed to a fair degree, although the extra height of the upper deck makes it less of an issue than I imagine would be the case on the main deck. The cleaners haven't been too diligent - first thing I find is a boarding pass for this seat for QF11 from SYD to LAX on 7 October! Compared to the upper deck window stowage bins on a 747, the A380's are quite tiny and certainly won't hold my carry-on bag. And the middle of the three bins adjacent my seat has a fixed lid marked 'no stowage' - I wonder what's in there? Other rows don't seem to have one of those!

Pushback at 17.35 is 10 mins late and it's starting to rain. The window sill is deep, which limits lateral vision quite a bit. And the foam seal around my window is dislodged and torn - how would they have done that? Safety briefing is audio only as there are no cabin screens and the personal video displays remain stowed for taxi. Van number 2 picks up the pushback team - I see it is marked 'A380' - is there an A380-specific van?
After 12 minutes we've made it to abeam gate 8. As the engines spool up to taxi to 16R I notice that they're much quieter than on the 747. At 17.49 we're in position and holding awaiting take off clearance. The engines spool up for our takeoff run and we're airborne just after crossing runway 25 and the engines are barely audible. Climbout is effortless without the lumbering sensation you get with the 747. On the long right turn about the only thing I can fix my gaze on is the NO GRAB message marked on the vortex control vane affixed to the outer cover of engine no. 1.

Flight path shows us tracking over Bathurst but the cloud cover makes it impossible to see the V8s that I know must be roaring around down below at Mt Panorama. Exploring the personal entertainment system shows it to be very impressive, with extensive instructions including videos on how to work the various features. Air to ground SMS is available but at $1.19 per message I probably won't be sending many. Seat to seat messaging is free, but I don't know anyone else on board. I'll set mine to 'Accept messages' in case anyone wants to talk to me. You can either use the navigation buttons on the handset or touch the screen to navigate, although the support swivel on screen often does not offer enough resistance to the pressure needed to activate a touch screen function, so the screen starts to swivel. The aluminium surround on the screen is badly scratched - it seems to be from multiple stow/unstow cycles without sufficient clearance to avoid abrasion. I like the many programs with text instead of audio, like news etc, so that you can enjoy them without wearing headphones, or listen to music concurrently.

A couple of discoveries so far: the trash compactors in the galleys presumably save space on disposed items, And the sensor activated taps in the toilets, with temperature control. The latter are excellent although if you're not careful when wiping the basin for the next passenger, you'll activate the water flow.
Dinner is served at 7pm Sydney time. The printed menu is version J31_SYD-SIN-LHR_SEP09. I wonder if there's an October version, or if they're not changed that frequently. The entree of king prawns and green paw paw is tasty enough, and the 'healthy choice' main course of marinated chicken is excellent, although the portion size is surprisingly small. But this is not a flight in which food will be lacking, so it probably helps to pace myself. For dessert some sliced fruit was combined with a lemon sorbet from the self-serve bar, and topped off with a chocolate macadamia nut.

The flight path mode seems goes to sleep every 10 or 15 minutes and needs to be touched to re-activate. I don't see the need for that - it's a bit irritating. And the display sometimes seems to freeze as well. The 'time to destination' has said 5 hours and 59 minutes for quite a while - I hope the flight deck has better quality telemetry! Speed is 915 km/h and the altitude is 38,374 feet (a touch under 11,700 metres). The window next to me has a torn and dislodged foam trim partially obscuring the view. I wonder how that happened. Let's hope it doesn't compromise pressurisation.

Unlike on a 747 the dining table doesn't swivel to let you out of your seat, although it does fold in half. The window lockers aren't deep enough to put a tray, so basically you're stranded in your seat until the tray is cleared away. The view from the tail-mounted Skycam is a bit fuzzy at the moment - I wonder if it's because the ambient light is fading. I'll check it again when we next get to daylight. The back massager in wave mode is very relaxing with lots of personalisation variables. And there's no draft down the side of the window that I get on other aircraft (the 767 is worst for that). The lie-flat seats are true lie flat and certainly superior to their 747 counterparts. I might even get some sleep on the next leg. Descent into Singapore commences at 1.03am Sunday Sydney time and we landed a minute early at 1.29 am. The 14 minute taxi to gate C26 was longer than I expected, and no-one seemed to be concerned about the large "Maximum Wing Span 65m" warning sign that we ignored approaching the gate.

Lots of construction work going on in Changi Airport - my favourite shops have gone!

SIN-LHR leg

82 minutes late out of Singapore with pushback delayed until 4.21 am Sunday Sydney time, apparently because we couldn't get an earlier slot to transit Afghanistan. I wonder who we have to book that slot with - NATO? Captain Carl Bruce advises a flight time of 13 hours and 15 mins should help us make up some of that lost time. I should be OK getting from Terminal 4 to Terminal 5 for my BA connection to Geneva but we'll see how it's looking by the time we reach the gate at LHR. This seems like a good time to switch my body clock from Sydney to Geneva time so now I'll have dinner at 9pm Saturday Geneva time. I filled in both the breakfast menu and the Dine Later card and nominated "as soon as possible" for the dinner service time. It made no difference since the service cart arrived to serve everyone at the same time and I was asked what I wanted, as if my card had been lost. Garden salad with a pan fried sea bass was nice but again I thought the portion size was quite small. I eat too much anyway so this is probably good for me.
Watched a couple of movies - Charlie and Boots - the new Paul Hogan film - was mediocre. The Proposal with Sandra Bullock was much better. I then reclined the seat and enjoyed some well earned rest - all this finger exercise is tiring! The entertainment system still has bugs in it – I had three instances where the screen just went blank and then after about 15 seconds commenced its ‘loading’ sequence from scratch. Then followed the laborious task of tracking through the menu hierarchy to get back to the chosen title, selecting play, and then using the 64x fast forward to get back to the point at which picture was lost. I don’t know why this hasn’t been fixed by now – the aircraft has been in service long enough for this to have been remedied. Some pax couldn’t get their lost show back at all as it had disappeared off the menu when they went back to find it. So, while generally an excellent system, the bugs still do need a bit of focus to avoid irritating people so much.

A bit scary to watch the flight path display as we track over Afghanistan at just under 39,000 feet. Hopefully the Taliban and other baddies are asleep and won't bother us. It seems a bit surreal that we are flying over the top of one of the world's critical hot spots with most of the passengers blissfully unaware that we're less than 12 km vertically from the action!



At 4.45 am Sunday London time it's already getting quite light outside but all the shutters are down and most people are sleeping. I allow myself the indulgence of reading instead of sleeping since it's 2.45 pm Sunday in Sydney and I can't be expected to adjust to the 9 hour time zone change that quickly (10 hours if I use London time)! Not sure if Europe goes off daylight saving today so I may be an hour out in my calculations.

The cabin lighting intensity is gradually increased to simulate sunrise at 5.15 am London time. Hopefully they didn’t lose my breakfast order as I’m getting peckish. Don’t tell anyone that I’ve had a piece of cheese, an apple and some roasted almonds during the night as well when I went for a walk from the lounge up the front of the top deck to the staircase at the rear. The lounge has seating for about 5 or 6 people and a large screen TV with a handset control but it is not touch-sensitive. Everyone seems content to watch flight path while they have a cup of tea or do a bit of reading. It’s quite a small area – unlike those lounge spaces I’ve seen on other airlines’ A380 configurations. But as a Qantas shareholder I’d rather see the space used for paying pax anyway! Here's the self serve refreshment bar:



OK – it’s 5.40am in London and the precise breakfast I ordered is served so they obviously didn’t lose my menu order.



I have drawn the purser’s attention to the foam trim and the displaced gasket on my window. He’s reported it to the flight deck and returned to say they aren’t fussed about it unless it gets worse, but will have it checked after we land.



Plenty of time to freshen up before we commence our descent into Heathrow at 7.28 am. On descent Captain advises that one runway is blocked and that there will be a further 20 minute delay. Don't know what that was about, unless it was really airspace protection for Hillary Clinton as she arrives in London.

We landed at 8.16 am and then were chased by a fire engine to inspect a brake that the captain had reported was ‘sticky’. We were then surrounded by security cars as we were inadvertently stopped next to Hillary Clinton’s aircraft. They also checked that we hadn't left any debris on runway 27L:




Disembarkation was smooth and the purple Flight Connections signs and transfer shuttle bus all worked very well. Once inside Terminal 5 the security screening is a big deal with everyone having to remove shoes and belts and get photographed. Then at the end of the conveyor a system designed to whisk the bins back to the beginning doesn’t wait long enough for people to collect their items, so the manual intervention causes chaos there too! It needs a bit of fine tuning from the looks of it. No gate has yet been assigned to my departing flight to Geneva so I go to a BA lounge where I’m sending this.

Hopefully the gate lounge will be advised in time for me to get to it – some gates are up to a 20 minute shuttle train away!

To be continued ...
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Last edited by Philip Argy; 12th October 2009 at 03:07 AM. Reason: Added pics
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Old 12th October 2009, 03:48 AM
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Post LHR-GVA leg

LHR-GVA leg
Boarding of QF3661/BA728 commenced on time at Gate A7 – quite a way from the First Class lounge in Terminal 5! But I walk quickly and I’m on board 15 mins before scheduled departure time. Aircraft is G-EUPM, an Airbus A319-100. Pushback was four minutes early at 10.11 am but that time was quickly lost as we were 7th in the queue for our runway 27R takeoff. Wheels up at 10.33 with a break in the clouds giving a good view around Heathrow as we climb out:

A 109 km/h tailwind helped us get from LHR to GVA 13 minutes early, as the flight crew and then the cabin crew reminded us twice before we disembarked!



Great views of Lake Geneva and the iconic water jet on approach too:

Typical Swiss efficiency – a display counting down the time until our luggage starts to pile out of the conveyor, and of course it was spot on too!

And so, after about 30 hours of travel door to door, I reach my hotel and can get to work, withut having to think too much about the return trip next weekend. I'll try to do better with the picture quality - wife wanted the good camera so I got the old standby which doesn't have shake correction - it really shows I'm afraid.
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Old 12th October 2009, 06:53 PM
Jarrad Phillips Jarrad Phillips is offline
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Nice one Philip, looking forward to part two of your report.
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Old 13th October 2009, 01:40 AM
Rhys Xanthis Rhys Xanthis is offline
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Yep great read, look forward to the return journey!
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Old 13th October 2009, 11:22 PM
Oliver A Oliver A is offline
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Hi Philip,

Re your comments on Afghanistan, my understanding is that overflights require prior approval from the Afghanistan Ministry of Trabsport and Civil Aviation. However the actual air traffic control is done by the US Air Force on invitation of the Afghanistan Government.

Because there is no radar coverage, only a very basic service is provided with little flexibility. For example, they require 10 minute spacing between aircraft on the same route at the same level. If there was another aircraft ahead at the same level, you aircraft would be denied access until ten minutes after that aircraft had entered Afghanistan airspace. You can see that if there was more than one aircraft ahead the delay would blow out very quickly!

Out of interest, if the flight display you posted is accurate, it looks like you took route L750 as displayed on the attached chart.
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Old 14th October 2009, 12:02 AM
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Thumbs up Trans-Afghanistan airspace

Most interesting, Oliver. I agree that it looks as though we used what is called L750 on your map, although your map has arrows suggesting that the route is unidirectional eastbound whereas we were westbound.

I'll see if I can get a clearer picture on the return leg next Sunday.
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Old 14th October 2009, 12:17 AM
Oliver A Oliver A is offline
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It's a bit hard to see, I agree, but the little triangles I think you're interpreting as arrows are just the standard international symbol used to mark waypoints on the route. All the triangles on the chart are the same way up if you look closely.
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Old 14th October 2009, 01:57 AM
Lee G Lee G is offline
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Phil,

Your posted information on L750 is correct.
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Old 14th October 2009, 07:04 AM
Mick B Mick B is offline
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Quote:
Because there is no radar coverage, only a very basic service is provided with little flexibility. For example, they require 10 minute spacing between aircraft on the same route at the same level. If there was another aircraft ahead at the same level, you aircraft would be denied access until ten minutes after that aircraft had entered Afghanistan airspace. You can see that if there was more than one aircraft ahead the delay would blow out very quickly!
To facilitate this, a system called BOBCAT (Bay of Bengal Co-operative ATFM) has been set up. If anyone is interested, you can read a bit more about it here - BOBCAT

They are the ones who control the departures from SIN,BKK,KUL and other airports in the area, which is what would have delayed Philip's flight in this case. Each flight that is going to transit Kabul's airspace is given a "Wheels Up time" which is based on their planned flight time from the departure airport to the Afghanistan airspace boundary.

Because the aircraft are accurately controlled from the time they taxi, there is generally a 10 min separation between aircraft by the time they get to Afghanistan. The system actually works pretty well, but does result in occasional delays on the ground in places like Singapore.

Hope this answers everything guys!
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