To make a change from cycling I have decided to switch to blogging about planes - well only because I had a business trip in the US (California) and was not able to get any cycling in. It was a short-ish trip so I did not check luggage in. The first rule of flying try not to check luggage in if you can help it. It does mean a little ingenuity sometimes and you definitely need a small size laptop (if you plan on taking one with you.)
This trip had been planned for some time and as it is cheaper I got unchangeable tickets with a Saturday night stay so I found myself heading to Heathrow early Saturday morning last week. Given the problems with volcanic ash I did wonder whether the trip would go ahead. I was also worried about returning on time - the return was Thursday -voting for the General Election was on Thursday. Ordinarily I would not have worried - I was flying with BA and whilst delays occur I have never not gotten where I was going. (The only real problem was once flying with Virgin Atlantic from Tokyo, the plane was turned around and we were delayed for 24 hours.)
I did of course take my camera - in the event the journey down to Heathrow was uneventful and progress through the checks at Terminal 5 was also pretty smooth. I did decide to take a few pictures to pass the time whilst at the terminal and later hoped to get a picture as we flew over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Unfortunately the memory card for my camera was still sitting on my desk at home after downloading pictures. Its a good job they have a whole range of stores air-side. I bought myself a 16Gb card - that way I could take pictures and videos.
This was not the plane I flew in - but there is something rather low-tech about the windscreen (windshield) wipers on a 747.
As Terminal 5 is dedicated to British Airways down at Heathrow - you do see a lot of British Airways' planes lined up - before heading off to far-flung destinations.
One thing that did irritate me on the flight - the entertainment system did not work properly. They kept trying to re-boot it and even when it did work there were problems - in my seat it switched off every 10 seconds or so. It amazes me how they can fly a plane with hundreds of people on board halfway around the world - but not show them a few films. I have complained in the past - but without undertaking any rigorous survey I feel that things are getting worse not better. Mind you regardless of the Industrial Issues BA is having - the staff were unfailingly polite and helpful form air crew to the flight crew. In the end I did a lot of work on sorting out my email on my laptop - deleting old messages, filing things and archiving old emails.
I like to take pictures when flying, the windows are not very clear and in my case looked liked it needed a good clean - but there are some interesting sights out there. It is not too unusual to see a Brocken-spectre - a circular rainbow in the clouds with the shadow of the plane in it. This picture is of the rockies, I think an hour of so of flying to go to get to San Francisco (SF). There was still a lot of snow on the mountains.
The snows are melting though and so there is a lot of melt-water making its way into the various waterways. It is a time when the the San Francisco Bay Area looks green unlike the normal brown colour on the hills.
I had checked in over the Internet - there is one great thing about the Internet. When I first started flying I remember queueing for ages sometimes, just to check in. I wanted to get a window seat so that I would be on the "Bridge" side as we flew into SF airport. I was lucky, I was on the right side and we flew by SF and the weather was ok. Here is SF with the bridge to the right. It looks blurry because the window was blurry. The effect rather makes downtown San Francisco look like a toy model.
The pilot arranged to fly at a nice height and angle to allow me to get a closer picture of the bridge. I wonder whether they deliberately fly close by?
San Francisco airport is o the South of the city and our flight path from the North also takes in a view of the city - this is the financial district.
Despite forgetting to bring a memory card the planning had worked well - although I also took a picture of Alcatraz island, and although I did not know it at the time - it was a blurry mess. For some reason I only took one picture of the Island - ah well maybe next time. The weather forecast sounded great - sun, blue skies, although only around 15C - hopefully it would be warmer down in San Jose. I had left warmer temperatures in England.
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