Well as I mentioned last week, I am heading to the UK on the 26th September. I love flying, but that particular trip is going to be long as I am going to be flying via Dubai. I have calculated that it will take me almost 17 hours to get to London from Johannesburg and of those 17 hours, 15 and a half will be in the air.
Anyway I heard at the end of this week, I still need to go to Jeffrey's Bay and do some interviews for a new store we are opening. So I get to fly earlier in the week as well. A hour 40 minutes to PE and a hour 40 minutes back from PE. The PE run is actually a pleasant length of time, except the time I leave- 5h50 take off, which means a 3h30 wake up- ouch!
This means that I will spend almost 19 hours flying during the period 22nd September to 27th September. I also get to see 4 airports during that period. I am not complaining, I am just surprised how much travelling I will be doing. I do not do a heck of a lot of travelling but all of a sudden I am almost in a different airport daily for a week.
As I said earlier I love flying, but I also am not able to afford the luxury of business class, so I have to make do with economy class, or as I refer to cattle class. I am almost 2 metres tall, so leg room is important to me. I am just shuddering at the thought of been coped up for so long in the aircraft. I always plan to get to the airport as early as possible, so I can get an emergency exit, I try and take as much advantage as I can.
My best part about flying is take off and landing. The feeling you get as you thunder across the tarmac is thrilling. Then only landing, once you hit the tarmac, the braking just shows what power the aircraft has.
I have done the Johannesburg Durban flight so many times and in all weather conditions. Some of those landings have even scared me, which is not easily done. However it was not landing at Durban, but George in fact last year that I have felt the most concerned, we had a clear flight all the way from Johannesburg, the sun was out and not a cloud in the sky the whole way. Heading into George, is quite a mission, you go out to sea for a fair way and then they bring you back inland and line up with the runway. This is apparently due to the mountains near the airport. Anyway we had done all the turning and we were in line with the runway, you could feel there was a wind about because we were rocking quite a bit. Anyway we were about to touch down and a gust of wind must of hit us from the side, enough to off balance us for only the one side of the under carriage to touch down. To avoid us flipping the pilot corrected the level of the aircraft with a definite move to the other side. With this, we ended up rocking a bit till the brakes set in motion. The pilot came on the PA system and welcomed us to George and gave the weather as normally, he ended of by saying, I hope you enjoyed the bounce into George.
I am sure I will have a few more airport and aircraft stories to share with you after next week.
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I`m not the greatest of flyers and always get a bit nervous before take-off. I commuted between Jhb and Cape town for a few months last year (left CT on Monday mornings just after 06:00 and flew back on Thursday evenings at 19:00) and we also had a few hairy flights. The normal duration for a Jhb / CT flight (during winter) is about 2h00-2h10. Well, I was on a flight in horrendous weather that lasted 2h45! It was terrible, bumping around the whole time. I hated it. Flying in and out of CT in winter is always gonna be bad, the weather certainly ain`t made for flying!
I have flown in and out of George a few times. The worst was during the Presidents Cup in 2003, when we took off in a packed 747-400. Can you imagine doing that on an extremely short runway like George`s? I was beyond scared.
The worst was probably taking off in Singapore with an electrical storm a few km`s away. That was rough. On that flight a flight attendant came tumbling down the aisle due to turbulence. Not nice.
I have been fortunate enough not to have had any major problems (touch wood), although I have heard enough stories to keep me on my toes. The best being when a Kulula pilot came out the cockpit to address the passengers and tell them that an engine had gone and that they had to turn back to CT.
Anyways, I`m very jealous, you must have a great trip!
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