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Trip Report NCL-LHR-IAD-SEA-IAD-LHR-NCL (long)
* Newcastle - London (British Airways) 21st June
Arrived at the airport 2 hours before the flight. I'm led to believe 10 minutes is sufficient if you don't have any baggage. I wanted to give plenty time as I had 2 bags when my ticket said I was only allowed to take one. However the checkin supervisor asked me if I was going onto any other flights, I said yes, that I was flying to Washington on Monday, and would she like to see the ticket for that, to which she replied that she wouldn't. She checked in my bags without any further questions. The situation was that, although my tickets to Washington and Seattle all had an allocation of 2 bags, my domestic flight in the UK only had a 1 bag allocation, as it had been booked on a seperate ticket to save money. I had called BA to ask about this and they said I would be charged excess baggage, charge of £5, assuming the flight wasn't full, in such case my bags may well be off loaded! However this all came to nought. Aircraft was an Airbus A320, typical BA domestic flight, leather seats, no TV or phone or anything like that. Flight boarded approx 30 minutes before departure. It was sheduled to leave at 12.10, and we pushed back at 12.20. This was my first flight for this trip and I was very anxious to get underway, I hate the pre-flight stuff at the best of times, as it just seems you are sitting around doing nothing for no apparent reason! We were airborne around 5 minutes after pushback. The route of the flight was rather interesting. I had expected to pretty much follow the East coast down to London, so I was rather suprised when I looked out of the window to see the coastline! (I was sat on the right side of the plane). I could make out Colwin Bay in the distance, and to my suprise as I looked down I saw the viaduct on the Settle to Carlise railway line.. the one they aways show on news stories. The pilot came over the tannoy a few mintues later and said we had just passed over Manchester and would be now heading south. We eventually flew past what looked like the Bristol Channel and headed off towards London. I was looking to see if I could spot Aylesbury the whole way there, as a very good friend of mine lives there, but missed it, although I'm sure we flew very near. Food on the flight consisted of a Turkey and salad sandwhich and a choice of drink (the usual BA tiny cans). We got close to Heathrow and I saw a place circling outside the window, and the pilot said the ATC had told us to circle before entering the airport for a little while (I think we were early), we did one circle and then headed into the airport. Touched down exactly on time at Terminal 1. Bags arrived in a speedy manner, and I was quickly in my taxi and off to the Holiday Inn, which is very close to the airport. * Holiday Inn (2 nights) I was very impressed by the Holiday Inn, especially for the £41.50 per night amount I was paying, it was as nice as anywhere which charges well over £100 per night and certainly nicer than Heathrow Travelodge which charges nearly twice as much! My room was overlooking the main runways, although you could hear the planes on take off and landing, it wasn't really noticable unless you were listening out for it, and it seemed to cease around 11pm and then start at around 6am. I am thinking Heathrow has some sort of cerfew to allow people to get some sleep! * Hire car (1 day) (National) I hired a car the next day from National Car Hire who are on the North Perimter road. I later discovered it's quite easy, if a little time consuming, to actually walk to their offices from the Holiday Inn, however in this case it was raining, so I look the H4 shuttle bus into terminal 1 (cost £3.00) and got the National Courtesy Shuttle out to the office. Renting the car was actually a good experience compared with at home, which is usually a frought process of trying to avoid being given poor quality cars, as in Newcastle they have very little choice, and often no choice at all! In this case I was told to get a car from the 'B' group, which is what I had booked, I could choose from several Corsas, Skoda Fabia, but I opted for a Fiesta, which was very nice indeed. I only had it for a day and dropped it off again about 8pm at night. Maybe I took a wrong turn but I ended up having to go all the way into the Terminal area (through the tunnel) and then find my way back out again in order to get to the rental car drop off point! I then walked back to my hotel. * London - Washington DC (British Airways) 23rd June Taxi into Terminal 4 the next morning at 7.30 (flight for 11.50), went past the BA service area, saw a total of 3 Concordes on my way in, impressive. Also realised just how huge Heathrow is! Not long to wait to check in, queued for about 5 minutes, and gave my documents to the checkin agent, she fiddled around with her computer for a long time and then set off some sort of beeping buzzer thing, whilst continuing to tap furiously at her computer console. I thought had been flagged as a security risk, or was going to be held there and forced to pay the excess baggage they didn't charge me at Newcastle!. Eventually her phone rang, she listed for a second and then said "ok". She then told me that I now had a seat on the plane, but it's a good job as I was there so early, as if I was any later then it would have been seriously unlikely I would have actually gotten on the plane "summer transatlatic flights are always SO overbooked" was the reason given. Apparently I'd be mad to be there any less than 3 hours before the flight. (I'm thinking I will arrive 24 hours before on the way back!!). She had given me an isle seat, which is good because thats what I would have asked for. Went straight through security without issues and up to the gate which was on the Terminal 4 extension, so took around 15 minutes to walk the entire distance, there were walkways for some of the way, but around 50% were not functioning. Then sat and waited for 90 minutes. Started boarding the flight around 50 minutes before departure, got on, and took my seat. (Which was 3 from the back, not 3 from the front, I think the checkin agent was confused). To my suprise, since the flight was overbooked, the two seats to the left of me were empty, and remained empty even after everyone had got on the plane, I thought "result!, a row to myself!". However someone, from the row in front which was full decided to move back to get a free seat beside him, which was a sensible move on his part, and no problem for me as I still had a spare seat to my left, and did so for the rest of the flight. (The flight attentant did make a note that he had moved seats). Pushed back on time and then took about 15 minutes to wait in the queue for the runway. Took off, and we were on our way. Films weren't much of a selection, but enough to keep me occupied. After the news I watched "How to lose a guy in 10 days" and "Maid in Manhattan", tried to watch "Catch me if you can" but it was flickering and unwatchable. The rest of the time I was tuned into the "Hits 55 Compilation" they had on Channel 6. Food was a chicken corma, with also with some salad, a chocloate covered bread type thing , bread, and usual choice of mini-cans. They served a sandwhich in the latter 3/4 of the flight. As well as coming around fairly regularly with drinks. I noticed the pitch on the BA seats is quite good but can cause a problem for people behind when someone reclines, the person in front of me was a rather big person (not fat, just big) and he reclied all the way, and when he moved around he pushed the chair so far back I thought it would break, and was about 2 inches from my nose. I had to recline my seat to give myself room. Although I did inform him of the problem and he agreed not to recline so much. On the way in we flew via New York and could see Manhattan out of the window, which was a highlight. We eventually touched down at Dulles 30 mintues early. We waited around a long time at Dulles which the mobile buses positioned themselves at both doors of the aircraft, so we could all get on and be taken to the arrivals area, in all, the process on them docking, us getting on, and being taken to the terminal ate up our 30 minute advantage and more! But I wasn't in a particular hurry. Got to arrivals to be greeted with with what must have been a queue of more than 100 people waiting for immigration control. I very boring hour of queueing (sorry, waiting in line!) followed before I got the desk, handed in my form, they stamped my passport, answered the questions, and I was on my way. By that time of course my bag had already been off the airport and was on the floor waiting for me. I then dragged my bags through customs who asked me the same questions immigration did, and took the form off me. I took my bags around the corner and put them on the conveyor, and off they went to Seattle. * Washington DC - Seattle (United) 23rd June Apart from not having to drag my bags over to the checkin desk, being checked through for each of my flights didn't present me with any particular advantage. As I didn't get a boarding pass for my flight at Heathrow (I guess because United is in a different alliance from BA) I had to go and checkin at the United desk in Dulles, the same as I would if I had started my journey from there. Still, the queue wasn't very long and only had to wait around 10 minutes in order to get my boarding pass. The attendant didn't ask me what seat I wanted, but I ended up with a window seat, which turned out to be fine. Next I had to go through security again, my first experience of the infamous TSA! The only thing different from UK security is that I had to remove my laptop from my bag and put it through the scanner seperately, whereas in the UK they were happy for it to remain inside its bag. Apart from that there were no issues and I went and caught the shuttle bus to terminal D. I had about 90 minutes to kill so basically walked from one end of the terminal from another, bought some pop, and a packet of sweets (and in the process nearly fainted from the price, $2.99 for a small packet of jelly beans, insane!). Boarded the flight and took my seat beside the window. I'd known from posts in newsgroups that United provide ATC radio on the in-flight audio channels, so I tuned into that immediately. I have to say that this is an awesome (as they say out here) feature. It made my flight 100% more interesting than usual. One of the most annoying things about flying for me is the delays that seem to happen for no reason at all, but in this case I could hear the instructions being given to the aircraft and knew exactly when we were ready to go and when we were climing or decending I knew exactly why and to what height! Throught the majority of the flight it was mostly just ours and various planes reporting into a specific controller, flying through their segment and then being given another frequency upon exiting the segment. Landing was even more interesting than take off. On one occasion the aircraft quickly increased power and climbed, when we had previously been decending, apparently this was because of an automatic mid-air collision detection system kicking in, but it was ok, I could see the aircraft we were avoiding, we were nowhere near. In flight entertainment consisted of a film being shown on the screens which where down the main isle, the main feature for the flight "How to lose a guy in 10 days", which I had seen just a few hours earlier on the British Airways flight! I stayed tuned to the pilot radio channel. Food consisted of a beef and gravey with mashed potato. Perfectly fine, except the portion was very small. However unlike BA , when you ask for a Pepsi you get a full size can, not a mini size can! (plus it's an American size can, they are bigger than the European ones) Landed at Seattle airport and got the underground automatic train to the main terminal building and collected my bags. They seemed to have signs for everywhere except where they have the taxi's. I had to go outside and ask someone, also they don't seem to have any trolleys for bags. My bags are extremely heavy which resulted in me having to walk about 100 metres and then stop for a while to recover. I eventually found the taxi's hiding on an level of the multi-storey car park, never would have found them if I hadn't asked. I also noticed that my bags had "TSA Inspected" stickers on them, so they presumably had been opened, but I didn't find anything out of place. Which is a result considering how much trouble I had closing them in London! Taxi took me to the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Seattle, where my conference is located. I eventually collapsed into bed about 8.30pm Seattle time (4.30am UK time) and caught up on some much needed sleep! Did some touristy stuff the next day, walking around Seattle center, the monorail, Space Needle, etc. * Seattle - Washington DC (United) 28th June Got up early Saturday morning, I think it was about 5am, to get to the airport for my flight departing at 9.30am. Good job I did because the queue at the United checkin desk was the longest I have ever seen! It streched around the usual place where they have barriers which people queue around and then went down the back of the building and around the corner and continued seemingly forever! However it seems at least they recognised the problem and had plenty of people on the checkin desks and people telling pax where to stand etc. Got to the checkin an about an hour. Ususually after I got my boarding pass and tagging my baggage, instead of taking the bags off me they asked me to take them myself and put it in the big pile where they were doing the security screening, which I did and my bags arrived, so no problem. My fears that the flight might be delayed were unfounded and I was pleasantly suprised to find myself in the Economy Plus area of the aircraft, no difference to the rest of it, except there was more legroom. I must confess that this didn't really make much difference to me as I find the economy seats on United to have sufficient room as it is. The only difference was the table was a bit further away! Shanghai Knights played as the film, hadn't seen it before so that was ok. I was bitterly disappointed that there was no channel which let you listen to the radio communication from the cockpit, I enjoyed this on the outward flight and was looking forward to listening in again on the return, but they didn't have it switched on, they stressed in the literature that it was optional at the descretion of the pilot, but disapointing all the same. Arrived in Dulles and it took an hour for my bags to appear. I feared it had got lost in the big pile in Seattle! Had a great week in Washington DC, staying with friends, seeing all the sights, hired a car and drove out to Shenandoah national park, saw black bears! I also drove to New York and spent a night there before returning to DC. * Washington DC - London (British Airways) 6th June Dulles is deceptively far from DC! You think you are there but you've just got onto the access road and theres ages to go yet! Checking in took about the same time as Seattle despite the queue being about 2% of the size, but no particular issues to report. Again I was worried that they would insist on making me collect my bags at Heathrow due to me having two seperate tickets which are not connected in any way. But not a bit of it! My bags were checked through all the way to Newcastle and I was given two boarding passes, one for the London and one for the Newcastle flight, all I had to worry about was transferring from Terminal 4 to 1. And I had a 2 hour window for this. Take off was at 8.30 arriving into London about 10am the next morning. We boarded but were told about 10 minutes after we were due to take off that there was going to be a delay. There warning lights illuminated in the cockpit apparently. The pilot informed us that he was 100% confident there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, but even so, they could take off with an active warning light, so were working with London to get the matter resolved before we could take off. There was a feeling in the plane after an hour that we wouldn't be taking off tonight and I was starting to think about what could be done with staying in hotels overnight etc. Eventually after a 90 minute delay we took off from Dulles, in the rain. Flight was a night flight so most people wanted to sleep, I tried for about an hour and found I couldn't! So ended up watching the films, Toy Story 2 being the only one of note. We eventually arrived into LHR at 11.15 with the flight to Newcastle departing at 12.00. On getting off the aircraft we were greeted by a BA staff member who was getting all the people off the flight who had short transfers to Terminal 1 (this was me!). We were put onto a coach and taken straight over to the connections centre (very good service I might add, they could have just left us to transfer the normal way and had us miss the flight!). We were told to run and we did! Thankfully there was nobody at secuirty and nobody at immigration, so straight through there, and ran down to where the flight was departing from. Only to be told there was a 15 minute delay, no problem I needed the rest! * London - Newcastle (British Airways) 7th June Totally exhausted when I got to the gate, and very very tired, since I hadn't been alseep since the previous morning and it was now mid-day! Got on the plane and closed my eyes, I didn't sleep but I don't really remember much of the flight until we were coming into land at Newcastle, good views from the plane I have to say! Upon getting to Newcastle I got off the plane and waited for my baggage, until there was an announcement of various people, including myself, should report to the baggage services desk, as I suspected might happen my baggage didn't make the LHR-NCL flight in time, I was told it would be on the flight that evening. I filled in the form to have it delivered to my home. I wasn't concerned, I was too tired to care! The baggage was actually delivered the next morning. All in all a great trip the only problem being the delayed baggage on the return flight but since I was home anyway it didn't matter. |
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Trip Report NCL-LHR-IAD-SEA-IAD-LHR-NCL (long)
"Mark Hewitt" schrieb im Newsbeitrag ... * Newcastle - London (British Airways) 21st June [snip] The route of the flight was rather interesting. I had expected to pretty much follow the East coast down to London, so I was rather suprised when I looked out of the window to see the coastline! (I was sat on the right side of the plane). I could make out Colwin Bay in the distance, and to my suprise as I looked down I saw the viaduct on the Settle to Carlise railway line.. the one they aways show on news stories. Seems to quite normal! I flew between LHR/BHX and EDI several times and the route was allways over the Irish Sea. lg Gernot |
#3
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Trip Report NCL-LHR-IAD-SEA-IAD-LHR-NCL (long)
* Holiday Inn (2 nights) I was very impressed by the Holiday Inn, especially for the £41.50 per night amount I was paying, And you can earn airline miles if you join their club. * London - Washington DC (British Airways) 23rd June Taxi into Terminal 4 the next morning at 7.30 (flight for 11.50), 4 hours ??? or am I missing something ? ( I know they have long checkin queues at times, but not that long...) went past the BA service area, saw a total of 3 Concordes on my way in, impressive. Also realised just how huge Heathrow is! Not long to wait to check in, queued for about 5 minutes, and gave my documents to the checkin agent, she fiddled around with her computer for a long time and then set off some sort of beeping buzzer thing, whilst continuing to tap furiously at her computer console. I thought had been flagged as a security risk, or was going to be held there and forced to pay the excess baggage they didn't charge me at Newcastle!. Eventually her phone rang, she listed for a second and then said "ok". She then told me that I now had a seat on the plane, but it's a good job as I was there so early, as if I was any later then it would have been seriously unlikely I would have actually gotten on the plane "summer transatlatic flights are always SO overbooked" was the reason given. Apparently I'd be mad to be there any less than 3 hours before the flight. (I'm thinking I will arrive 24 hours before on the way back!!). She had given me an isle seat, which is good because thats what I would have asked for. A questions (probably for highflyer) - if you do the interent checkin thing 24 hours before departure are you in any way protected from (or less likely to) being bumped ?? Films weren't much of a selection, but enough to keep me occupied. After the news I watched "How to lose a guy in 10 days" and "Maid in Manhattan", tried to watch "Catch me if you can" but it was flickering and unwatchable. The rest of the time I was tuned into the "Hits 55 Compilation" they had on Channel 6. Food was a chicken corma, with also with some salad, a chocloate covered bread type thing , bread, and usual choice of mini-cans. They served a sandwhich in the latter 3/4 of the flight. As well as coming around fairly regularly with drinks. Did you get a menu card ?, or anything to wipe your hands with ? I noticed the pitch on the BA seats is quite good but can cause a problem for people behind when someone reclines, the person in front of me was a rather big person (not fat, just big) and he reclied all the way, and when he moved around he pushed the chair so far back I thought it would break, and was about 2 inches from my nose. I had to recline my seat to give myself room. Although I did inform him of the problem and he agreed not to recline so much. and also on many airlines you cant see your own TV screen properly if the person in front reclines. Got to arrivals to be greeted with with what must have been a queue of more than 100 people waiting for immigration control. I very boring hour of queueing (sorry, waiting in line!) followed before I got the desk, handed in my form, they stamped my passport, answered the questions, and I was on my way. Has anyone here tried that ipass thing ? (I've propably got the name wrong) Next I had to go through security again, my first experience of the infamous TSA! The only thing different from UK security is that I had to remove my laptop from my bag and put it through the scanner seperately, whereas in the UK they were happy for it to remain inside its bag. They also seem to strongly suggest you remove your shoes and belt at most airports in the US. Boarded the flight and took my seat beside the window. I'd known from posts in newsgroups that United provide ATC radio on the in-flight audio channels, so I tuned into that immediately. I have to say that this is an awesome (as they say out here) feature. It made my flight 100% more interesting than usual. Definately agree with that - but can be 'interesting' when they loose contact with the plane in front of yours for (what seems like) 10 minutes on the approach to land when you are both in cloud. However unlike BA , when you ask for a Pepsi you get a full size can, not a mini size can! (plus it's an American size can, they are bigger than the European ones) Good job you didnt go Delta - they pour your drink from a can into your glass which is already full of ice, so you end up with about a quater of a can. We boarded but were told about 10 minutes after we were due to take off that there was going to be a delay. There warning lights illuminated in the cockpit apparently. The pilot informed us that he was 100% confident there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, Does that mean he doesnt believe his own warning lights ? |
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Trip Report NCL-LHR-IAD-SEA-IAD-LHR-NCL (long)
"Miss L. Toe" wrote in message ... * Holiday Inn (2 nights) I was very impressed by the Holiday Inn, especially for the £41.50 per night amount I was paying, And you can earn airline miles if you join their club. * London - Washington DC (British Airways) 23rd June Taxi into Terminal 4 the next morning at 7.30 (flight for 11.50), 4 hours ??? or am I missing something ? ( I know they have long checkin queues at times, but not that long...) went past the BA service area, saw a total of 3 Concordes on my way in, impressive. Also realised just how huge Heathrow is! Not long to wait to check in, queued for about 5 minutes, and gave my documents to the checkin agent, she fiddled around with her computer for a long time and then set off some sort of beeping buzzer thing, whilst continuing to tap furiously at her computer console. I thought had been flagged as a security risk, or was going to be held there and forced to pay the excess baggage they didn't charge me at Newcastle!. Eventually her phone rang, she listed for a second and then said "ok". She then told me that I now had a seat on the plane, but it's a good job as I was there so early, as if I was any later then it would have been seriously unlikely I would have actually gotten on the plane "summer transatlatic flights are always SO overbooked" was the reason given. Apparently I'd be mad to be there any less than 3 hours before the flight. (I'm thinking I will arrive 24 hours before on the way back!!). She had given me an isle seat, which is good because thats what I would have asked for. A questions (probably for highflyer) - if you do the interent checkin thing 24 hours before departure are you in any way protected from (or less likely to) being bumped ?? YES! Films weren't much of a selection, but enough to keep me occupied. After the news I watched "How to lose a guy in 10 days" and "Maid in Manhattan", tried to watch "Catch me if you can" but it was flickering and unwatchable. The rest of the time I was tuned into the "Hits 55 Compilation" they had on Channel 6. Food was a chicken corma, with also with some salad, a chocloate covered bread type thing , bread, and usual choice of mini-cans. They served a sandwhich in the latter 3/4 of the flight. As well as coming around fairly regularly with drinks. Did you get a menu card ?, or anything to wipe your hands with ? I noticed the pitch on the BA seats is quite good but can cause a problem for people behind when someone reclines, the person in front of me was a rather big person (not fat, just big) and he reclied all the way, and when he moved around he pushed the chair so far back I thought it would break, and was about 2 inches from my nose. I had to recline my seat to give myself room. Although I did inform him of the problem and he agreed not to recline so much. and also on many airlines you cant see your own TV screen properly if the person in front reclines. 99% of the screens will put out from underneath to keep the sceen vertical. Got to arrivals to be greeted with with what must have been a queue of more than 100 people waiting for immigration control. I very boring hour of queueing (sorry, waiting in line!) followed before I got the desk, handed in my form, they stamped my passport, answered the questions, and I was on my way. Has anyone here tried that ipass thing ? (I've propably got the name wrong) Next I had to go through security again, my first experience of the infamous TSA! The only thing different from UK security is that I had to remove my laptop from my bag and put it through the scanner seperately, whereas in the UK they were happy for it to remain inside its bag. They also seem to strongly suggest you remove your shoes and belt at most airports in the US. Boarded the flight and took my seat beside the window. I'd known from posts in newsgroups that United provide ATC radio on the in-flight audio channels, so I tuned into that immediately. I have to say that this is an awesome (as they say out here) feature. It made my flight 100% more interesting than usual. Definately agree with that - but can be 'interesting' when they loose contact with the plane in front of yours for (what seems like) 10 minutes on the approach to land when you are both in cloud. However unlike BA , when you ask for a Pepsi you get a full size can, not a mini size can! (plus it's an American size can, they are bigger than the European ones) Good job you didnt go Delta - they pour your drink from a can into your glass which is already full of ice, so you end up with about a quater of a can. We boarded but were told about 10 minutes after we were due to take off that there was going to be a delay. There warning lights illuminated in the cockpit apparently. The pilot informed us that he was 100% confident there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, Does that mean he doesnt believe his own warning lights ? |
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Trip Report NCL-LHR-IAD-SEA-IAD-LHR-NCL (long)
and also on many airlines you cant see your own TV screen properly if the person in front reclines. 99% of the screens will put out from underneath to keep the sceen vertical. But not usually far enough, if you are tall. |
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Trip Report NCL-LHR-IAD-SEA-IAD-LHR-NCL (long)
On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 10:00:00 +0100, "Miss L. Toe"
wrote: [ Snip ] Got to arrivals to be greeted with with what must have been a queue of more than 100 people waiting for immigration control. I very boring hour of queueing (sorry, waiting in line!) followed before I got the desk, handed in my form, they stamped my passport, answered the questions, and I was on my way. Has anyone here tried that ipass thing ? (I've propably got the name wrong) INSPASS. I have one; It's expired (although you wouldn't know it to look at it) and it has the wrong passport on it. It worked fine, but only saved a few minutes. Next I had to go through security again, my first experience of the infamous TSA! The only thing different from UK security is that I had to remove my laptop from my bag and put it through the scanner seperately, whereas in the UK they were happy for it to remain inside its bag. They also seem to strongly suggest you remove your shoes and belt at most airports in the US. http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?theme=1&content=583 It strongly suggests that you will be subject to secondary screening *if* you alert (gosh! what a concept!) but also *if* your footware is "suspicious" -- which as far as I can tell means that you refrained from removing it! [ Snip ] Good job you didnt go Delta - they pour your drink from a can into your glass which is already full of ice, so you end up with about a quater of a can. And the problem with that is...? We boarded but were told about 10 minutes after we were due to take off that there was going to be a delay. There warning lights illuminated in the cockpit apparently. The pilot informed us that he was 100% confident there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, Does that mean he doesnt believe his own warning lights ? How *do* you come up with this stuff? Warning lights are just that, warnings. You want the warning system to fail safe, so if a sensor fails you get a warning, rather than a lack of warning when whatever the sensor is for triggers. Pilots, being not very stupid, know which sensors are most likely to fail (thus triggering the warning light), even when there's nothing wrong... and moreover (again, being not very stupid) they know how to read the rest of the instruments to see if the warning looks plausible. So if the pilot stated he was 100% confident, the instruments were saying everything is OK, but the warning light was saying something was out of range. Conclusion: the warning sensor is faulty. Malc. |
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Trip Report NCL-LHR-IAD-SEA-IAD-LHR-NCL (long)
"Malcolm Weir" wrote in message ... On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 10:00:00 +0100, "Miss L. Toe" wrote: [ Snip ] Got to arrivals to be greeted with with what must have been a queue of more than 100 people waiting for immigration control. I very boring hour of queueing (sorry, waiting in line!) followed before I got the desk, handed in my form, they stamped my passport, answered the questions, and I was on my way. Has anyone here tried that ipass thing ? (I've propably got the name wrong) INSPASS. I have one; It's expired (although you wouldn't know it to look at it) and it has the wrong passport on it. It worked fine, but only saved a few minutes. So do you still have to wait in the main line (queue) until you get to a desk, I got the impression that you can bypass the whole queue (which obviously varies in length/time). Good job you didnt go Delta - they pour your drink from a can into your glass which is already full of ice, so you end up with about a quater of a can. And the problem with that is...? I refer the right honorable gentleman to the answer given earlier (by Pam). We boarded but were told about 10 minutes after we were due to take off that there was going to be a delay. There warning lights illuminated in the cockpit apparently. The pilot informed us that he was 100% confident there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, Does that mean he doesnt believe his own warning lights ? How *do* you come up with this stuff? Warning lights are just that, warnings. You want the warning system to fail safe, so if a sensor fails you get a warning, rather than a lack of warning when whatever the sensor is for triggers. Pilots, being not very stupid, know which sensors are most likely to fail (thus triggering the warning light), even when there's nothing wrong... and moreover (again, being not very stupid) they know how to read the rest of the instruments to see if the warning looks plausible. So if the pilot stated he was 100% confident, the instruments were saying everything is OK, but the warning light was saying something was out of range. Conclusion: the warning sensor is faulty. Malc. I might agree with your comments had the pilot said he was 99% confident there was nothing wrong with the aircraft. |
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Trip Report NCL-LHR-IAD-SEA-IAD-LHR-NCL (long)
On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 09:58:22 +0100, "Miss L. Toe"
wrote: [ Snip ] INSPASS. I have one; It's expired (although you wouldn't know it to look at it) and it has the wrong passport on it. It worked fine, but only saved a few minutes. So do you still have to wait in the main line (queue) until you get to a desk, I got the impression that you can bypass the whole queue (which obviously varies in length/time). Sure, you got to go to the machines for the immigration inspection, but sometimes it would decide you needed to talk to a real inspector (either because the machine wouldn't recognize your hand, or just as a random check). [ Snip ] Does that mean he doesnt believe his own warning lights ? How *do* you come up with this stuff? Warning lights are just that, warnings. You want the warning system to fail safe, so if a sensor fails you get a warning, rather than a lack of warning when whatever the sensor is for triggers. Pilots, being not very stupid, know which sensors are most likely to fail (thus triggering the warning light), even when there's nothing wrong... and moreover (again, being not very stupid) they know how to read the rest of the instruments to see if the warning looks plausible. So if the pilot stated he was 100% confident, the instruments were saying everything is OK, but the warning light was saying something was out of range. Conclusion: the warning sensor is faulty. I might agree with your comments had the pilot said he was 99% confident there was nothing wrong with the aircraft. Your arrogance at presuming you know better than an experienced pilot is, umm, interesting. The *fact* is that there are some warning lights whose validity you can determine by other means. For example, consider the "ice!" warnings that are built into some cars. Now, if you see an "Ice!" warning light at noon in Death Valley during August, you can *honestly* state that you are 100% certain that there's no problem. And there are sensors on aircraft that you can double check by other means; take a temperature sensor: if you get an "overtemp" warning and the guage says the temperature is (a) fine and (b) moves when you increase and decrease the throttle, you can authoritively state that there's nothing wrong with the aircraft. That's the facts. Your dumb attempts to second guess someone notwithstanding. Malc. |
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