Strange route - non boaty I'm afriad but still navigation

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tillergirl

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Took off 30 minutes late from Madeira airport at lunch-time after the incoming was slightly late. Usual route across to north-west Spain and then over La Corunna we turned just west of north and headed for Ireland instead of Gatwick! Got to the Chops of the Channel and turned right and flew in along the southern coast of England (in increasing cloud) until we found Gatwick. I see now there is an Air Traffic controllers strike in France. Avoiding it made us a total of an hour late! Knock on effect is that I shall not attempt to do this week's NtM until the morning. Does not look as though there is anything very crucial this week. B'**dy chilly here chaps!:eek:
 
Flew back from Porto this morning, first flight of the day on the Gatwick route but delayed due to the French. Son is delay 115 minutes tonight also on same route. I reckon your flight was dodging the French area.
 
FullCircle said:
Still, better than the 3 days wait you would have had a few years ago!
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'tis true. Mind you just as we got north of Ushant, another aircraft went across our nose heading west at what seemed like much less than 1000 ft below us. Never seen an aircraft so close before while in the cruise. And when we landed all the Portugeuse on board clapped! Perhaps they knew something I didn't?
 
tillergirl said:
And when we landed all the Portugeuse on board clapped!
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They did that when I flew out to the Azores in July. And they probably did know something I didn't. Apparently my bag, with all my sailing gear, was bumped off the flight because the aircraft needed extra fuel in case it could not land at Ponta Delgada because of bad weather. I could not believe my bad luck. The last time I flew to a foreign port to help the same skipper bring his boat home my bag was left behind. And again I only had what I stood up in. Fortunately the bag turned up the next morning and we were able to sail on schedule.

And, thank you for enquiring, though bits of it were horrid and frightening, we generally had a good sail back to Cornwall waving hello to lots of whales and dolphins en route.
 
tillergirl said:
And when we landed all the Portugeuse on board clapped! Perhaps they knew something I didn't?
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I've had that a fair few times, especially when going to and fro Eastern Europe for some reason. What do they do if the pilot crashes? Booooo! Rubbish!
 
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tillergirl said:
And when we landed all the Portugeuse on board clapped! Perhaps they knew something I didn't?
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We had an eventful landing at Madeira a couple of years ago, bad weather initially diverted us to Tenerife, and then after waiting some hours the captain told us there was a weather window he was going to try for.

After 2 last minute go-arounds due to the visibility disappearing he finally got us down, it was not only the Portuguese on board who clapped and cheered.
 
I had one of those at the old Stansted with Air UK F27 on a day of gales. In Paris before leaving, the ladder the refuelling guy was using went cartwheeling across the stand. As we approached the plane was bouncing up and in the air by 6-8' at a time. When we eventually got down, all routes in and out of the airport were shut with trees down...
 
Yeah but Stansted is cushy compared with no vis at Madiera. There is no straight approach at Madeira. Planes approach parallel to the runway, go south past the airport and turn and head in towards the cliff. On nearing the cliff they turn a third right and head for the set back cliff before turning a third right again heading closer to the cliff and then turn a third right again, past over a headland and then have a short distance to drop down to the beginning of the runway which slopes upwards. You really do need good vis. 16 years ago before some EU money, it was a very short runway indeed and they used to announce to the cabin before that 'the breaking - whoops sorry, 'the braking of this aircraft after landing is entirely normal'. Oh yeah, why are you telling us then. It was obviously within limits but it wasn't 'normal'. But they have lengthened the runway so its fine now, provided you don't mind sheer drops on either end of the runway.
 
On this occasion the wind was westerly, so it should have been the straightforward "easy" approach, over the Sao Lorenzo peninsula, approach parallel to the coast in line with the runway, but very low and variable cloud caused the problems.

The crew were happy though, with the delay at Tenerife etc, they were out of hours and had to spend a night at Funchal.
 
tillergirl said:
Yeah but Stansted is cushy compared with no vis at Madiera. There is no straight approach at Madeira. Planes approach parallel to the runway, go south past the airport and turn and head in towards the cliff. On nearing the cliff they turn a third right and head for the set back cliff before turning a third right again heading closer to the cliff and then turn a third right again, past over a headland and then have a short distance to drop down to the beginning of the runway which slopes upwards. You really do need good vis. 16 years ago before some EU money, it was a very short runway indeed and they used to announce to the cabin before that 'the breaking - whoops sorry, 'the braking of this aircraft after landing is entirely normal'. Oh yeah, why are you telling us then. It was obviously within limits but it wasn't 'normal'. But they have lengthened the runway so its fine now, provided you don't mind sheer drops on either end of the runway.
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Pffft...a doddle compared with the old Hong Kong airport.....
 
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