The Hardware

Now its time to tell you about the important part of our recently completed trip to Argentina: the hardware we flew on.

Our trip was booked entirely on LAN. We did this for two (2) reasons:
(1) We had a domestic flight to Iguazu and thought that it would be best to book all the flights together; and
(2) There is always a risk of a work stoppage with Aerolineas Argentinas, and with such tight schedules, we preferred to avoid unnecessary delays in our travel.

We booked flights from JFK - which is where it was easiest for us to catch a LAN flight. From JFK, we flew to Santiago, via Lima, Peru. This leg of the flight was on a B767, sans winglets, much to my disappointment.

For a few years now, LAN has been operating the short hop from Santiago to Mendoza on the A320. This flight across the Andes offers, in the humble opinion of this writer, the most bang for your buck. From gear up to touch down, the flight can't take more than 30 minutes, but each of those 30 minutes are spectacular - if the weather cooperates, that is. On a clear day, you get a stunning view of the high Andes, including close ups of Aconcagua and Tupungato (both of which, I kindly remind you, are in Argentinian territory).On our trip, we were fortunate that the sky was clear enough to offer this spectacular view. However, Aconcagua and Tupungato were not visible due to a white out during the middle portion of the treacherous cross.

We also flew on LAN A320s to Iguazu, via Aeroparque Metrolitano Jorge Newberry in Buenos Aires. Aeroparque is set beautifully in downtown Buenos Aires and offers both a great view of some downtown skyrises as well as the majestic Rio de la Plata (which is the world's widest river). Landing at Aeroparque is always entertaining, and at times terrifying.Our scheduled return trip on LAN had us flying from Iguazu to Aeroparque, transferring in Buenos Aires to the international airport at Ezeiza and then flying (on an A340!!!) to Santiago, where we would then board a nonstop flight to JFK. Yes, quite a roundabout way to get to New York, but on the bright side, I was excited about flying on an A340 for the first time of my life. I was going to lose my A340 virginity!

Well, as it turns out, the A340 which was going to carry us to Santiago was running very late - so late, in fact, that LAN rebooked us on American. Our new trip home would be more direct, but less exciting. We ended up flying from Buenos Aires to New York via Miami. At least the Buenos Aires to Miami leg was on a B777, which provides a greater level of excitement than the B767. Sadly, we were all stuck in middle seats in the 2-5-2 seating plan.

Here are some parting thoughts about the travel and service:
(1) LAN has excellent service. We were given snacks and meals on every flight (even the 30 minute hop from Santiago to Mendoza). The flight attendants offered (and in fact almost insisted on) multiple drinks. The booze was free on the international flight, which is a nice touch since it does make sleeping a bit easier when you have a glass of wine.

(2) ALWAYS check your LAN itinerary for changes. I am one of those people that books a flight and does not keep looking for changes, or confirms the day before, or tracks flight status before heading to the airport. Well, it turns out that LAN likes to change things up quite a bit. And for the most part (actually for the entire part) the changes were negative. For example, they moved our departure time from Mendoza from 10am to 7am. Our flight from Iguazu to Aeroparque was delayed from 10am to 1pm. This particular change was rough since we had scheduled the trip into Buenos Aires with a 6 hour layover to allow for some speed tourism and a relaxing transfer to Ezeiza (which takes a good 1 and a half hours). Instead, we only had 3 hours between flights and were not able to see any of Buenos Aires and instead had to hurry hurry hurry to the next airport.

(3) Less is more in terms of onflight entertainment. Both of the long hauls (one on LAN and the other on American) had seat back entertainment units. The problem is that neither of them worked. AT ALL. I would much rather prefer a working movie to help me fall asleep to nothing. So while the fancy screens with on demand movies seem like a nice touch, they are only worth it if they work. And it was not just my bad luck - none of my fellow travelers had working screens.

New commercial flight at Fort Collins/Loveland beginning on Friday

Beginning this Friday, Allegiant is beginning new jet service from Fort Collins/Loveland to Phoenix. This is the second commercial flight to operate out of FNL, and this is something that I have been harping on for years.
Northeast Colorado is ripe for air service. There are two universities in the area (Colorado State and Northern Colorado), multiple large employers (HP, Budweiser), and trendy travel destinations nearby (Rocky Mountain National Park, multiple ski resorts). Plus, the region has become significantly populated. I have a feeling that adding air service to this would have a Field of Dreams effect - "if you build it they will come."

The drive to Denver International Airport from the Fort Collins/Loveland areas takes approximately 1:30. There are many examples of airlines currently offering service to cities that are as equidistant to a significant airport as FNL. Delta currently flies to Fort Dodge, Iowa (population 25,000). It is located 1:35 from Des Moines, Iowa. Delta also flies to Jamestown, North Dakota (population 15,000). This bustling metropolis is located 1:31 from Bismarck, ND. United flies to Klamath Falls, Oregon (population 20,000), which is located 1:32 minutes from Medford, Oregon. The Fort Collins/Loveland/Greeley/Windsor area has a population over 200,000.

I am glad that at least Allegiant is developing its FNL service. The jet service to Las Vegas was a no-brainer. The next expansion should be to a Florida resort town, or a midwestern hub, like Chicago. I would imagine that there would be a lot of people in Northeast Colorado who would pay a little more for airplane tickets to avoid the long drive to Denver. Allegiant serves FNL with the MD-80, which seats 130-170 passengers. But there's nothing saying you can't fly in and out of FNL with a CRJ or Embraer, the latter of which only requires you to fill 37 seats.

That's all I got.

JFK Emergency Landing

In case you missed it, a Delta CRJ-900 made an emergency landing at JFK on Sunday night after a malfunction in the back-right landing gear. The plane landed and then skidded on its wing to a rest in a shower of sparks. A passenger captured the final moments on a cell-phone camera. At 0:12 you can hear the plane touch down and it takes until about 0:18 until you start seeing sparks, which means that the pilot was able to keep the wing off the runway for a good 6 seconds.
I like how at the 0:24 mark after the plane has been skidding for a while (and has not yet veered off the runway or otherwise become destroyed) the flight attendant gives out a triumphant "Heads down! Stay down!" You can sense in her voice that they are gonna make it.

And of course, the spontaneous cheers and applause are nice. I smirked at this because on virtually every foreign airline I have flown on (save British Airways, but including LanChile, Austral, Aerolineas Argentinas and EgyptAir) the foreigners always applaud the landing. Even in perfect weather. But then again, in Argentina we always applaud the asador - we are a very grateful people I guess. (<-- By the way, I am always shocked at what you can find on YouTube.) One final item you may have missed, which appeared in the NY Daily News today, is that there have been 5 similar incidents with the CRJ in the last two years. This, of course, is problematic, and the Daily News writer explains why (with tongue firmly in cheek):

"...Landing gear being generally recommended for the landing portion of a flight..."

Although, I would go a step further and say "properly functioning landing gear being generally recommended for the landing portion of a flight..." Right JetBlue?

These are facts.

VIP government visitor at ALB

The Master Cyclist sent me over this picture he took outside Albany International Airport. It looks like some sort of CRJ or ERJ with an Air Force One-type color scheme. I presume that this plane was used to transport a high-level government official - most likely Peter Orszag, who spoke at RPI's graduation.

New traffic at Albany

So there I was entertaining guests at my home on Saturday evening when I look out the window and see a giant plane heading into Albany International's Runway 1. I jumped up and shouted, "What the hell is that?"

After looking at the unusual beast in the air through the binoculars, I identified it as a Boeing 747. What was a Jumbo Jet doing in Albany, I wondered. So I went to Flight Aware to check out Albany's traffic and spotted a whole host of visitors we usually don't get the pleasure of seeing, including many 757's from the West Coast.

The Flight Aware maps of these flights showed that they had all done some circling in the NYC metro area before diverting this way, so I suspected that their visits to Albany were weather related. This assumption was later confirmed by the TU, which identified the B747 as a cargo plane from Brussels.

Let's settle down with the citizen's arrest

Bucky Turco, PI extrodinaire, snapped a picture of a snoozing TSA agent at a gate at LaGuardia Airport. The agent eventually awoke and started her duties. He was so outraged and shocked, that he put the picture up on his blog and it eventually go to the TSA. Now, the agent has been assigned to desk duty pending an investigation.

But Bucky is pretty darn smart: "To be fair, she could have been on a break."

Ohhhh. Right.

She. Could. Have. Been. On. A. Break.

I guess in Bucky's America people are guilty until proven innocent. So Bucky thought, "Sure, she could have been on break, but I'm going to post her picture anyway." And now he might cost this young lady her job. Granted - it was a probably not the best place for this agent to take a break. Had I found myself in the same situation, I probably would have noticed the event unfolding before me and thought, "Hmm. To be fair she could have been on a break." And I would have left it at that. It is no worth somebody's job to be taking a picture of the young, probably tired out of her mind TSA agent. Would you rather have a sleepy agent, or an alert agent screening your bag, Bucky?

Well done Bucky, well done, indeed. In case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic. To be fair, you are an ass.

Delays at JFK caused by...turtles?!?!

On Wednesday, air traffic at JFK was delayed for over an hour due to "runway contamination." Turtles in search of breeding grounds overran the tarmac and a runway causing flights, which required Port Authority workers to scoop them up in a truck and transport them away.
JFK is of course surrounded by the ocean and all other sorts of marshy grounds, so it's not entirely surprising that this occurred. New York City's other airport, located on the north side of Queens County, also had a man v. nature event earlier this year, as I'm sure you all remember. A US Airways Airbus struck two geese on takeoff and ended up in the Hudson River. Consequently, the City recently began taking out these dangerous beasts.

This follows another nature-related delay at Petco Park in San Diego. Last week, a game there was delayed due to an influx of bees.

Mother nature is pissed.

Foggy McFoggerton

My mom and sister flew in for the holidays. They were supposed to arrive on Saturday, December 20, to which Mark said, "That's good, all the bad weather is supposed to come in on Friday."

That was wishful thinking. They were laid over in Baltimore overnight, had to fly backwards to Cincy International, which is actually in Northern Kentucky, and finally made it in on Sunday in this...

That is the view of the Runway 1/19 area from Albany-Shaker Road. I could barely see the road - what must it have looked like from the cockpit? We are all pretty good fliers in my family - that is, we never become scared or freaked out. But when the plane touched down and seemed to take a bit longer than usual to slow down, my mom reportedly said, "We're going to end up on Central Avenue."

On the way over, Diane and I discussed the possibility of potentially investing in some sort of warm bevies. I insisted on stopping before we got to the airport, thinking that there was nowhere to buy said products at ALB unless you were travelling. Diane resisted, and bet that there was a coffee shop accessible to non-travelers. I had forgotted about this little hole in the wall...

Fail. But at least the lost bet went to a good cause.

Bad start to the holidays in Denver

In case you had not already immersed yourself in this story, here is a passenger's account of the Continental Boeing 737 that skidded off the runway in Denver this weekend. Pretty scary stuff.

What struck me about the passenger's account is that it seemed like the whole event lasted so long, when in reality from the moment that the plane started heading down the runway to the moment when they stopped skidding, it could not have been more than a minute.

I have been fortunate to never, ever be involved in anything nearly as scary or imminently dangerous aboard an airplane. And that's just fine with me, thank you very much.

The worst I can remember are a couple of violent landings, a few instances of especially bumpy turbulence, and watching Cast Away. Actually, some of the scariest parts of flights for me have been the people I have had to sit next to. (Relax, you were a pleasure to sit next to.)

St. Maarten who?

Last night was another glorious installment of Hockey Night in Colonie. The Black Team was once again victorious, this time by a 4-1 margin. Yours truly once again found his way into the scoresheet, with 1 goal and 1 assist, and an impressive +3 on the night. I should add that I think the +/- statistic is bogus. The White Team scored right as I was coming off the ice on a line change. For those of you interested, I was also +3 on the number of falls last night.

Then, after retreating to the countryside to recuperate, we headed back to the city by way of Albany-Shaker Road, which at one point winds beneath the short finals zone for Runway 1 at Albany International.

And wouldn't you know it, right as we were driving by the end of the runway, a US Airways 737, which I later learned was arriving from Reagan, was on short finals and passed directly overhead of my Subaru. I suspected something was up when I saw another US Airways airplane (this one an E190) holding short of the runway.

I do not have pictoral evidence of this event, but would I make something like that up? I think not.

The most glorious part of all this was the fog trail left behind by the wings which was being illuminated by the runway lights. This all led me to ponder that if the end of Runway 1 was about 70 degrees warmer and more plane-watcher friendly (i.e. not transversed by a four-lane road and instead led into the Caribbean), it wouldn't be all that different from the famous Runway 10 in St. Maarten.

Did I just really propose Albany = St. Maarten? Oh, New England late fall, your eternal cloudiness has already gotten to me.

I got the call

In high school, I never really knew what it was like to wait by the phone for that special girl to call. Let's face it - I was on the debate team, you don't get over that sort of stigma too easily. But at least it's not like I expected the call, you know?

Last night was different, though. I was waiting for my mistress to call, that lady they call "Hockey."

Since I am not yet a full-time member of the Night Owls Hockey League, I am forced to wait for open spots before I can lace up for the game. And last night, right as I was losing hope and thinking that Lady Hockey was taking a pass on this Argentinean, she called.

And what a night it was. I played on the left wing.

Not this one. This one. It was, by all measures, another very close game. Close in chances. Close in shots. Close in falls. And, most importantly perhaps, close in score. The first period ended 3-2 in favor of the other guys. We came out roaring out of the gates in the second, tying it at 3-all in the first shift, and then going ahead 4-3 on a goal by Brian, assisted by yours truly. After 2, the score was 5-4.

And then came my moment of glory. With about 10 minutes remaining in the game, I came in on a line change, picked up a loose puck at their blue line, darted in untouched and put in a glorious shot over the goalie's glove. I probably could not do that again in a thousand tries. But that was the only try that mattered. That gave us a 6-4 lead, which was a margin that we needed, since they grinded out a goal with 5 minutes to go.

So the line after two games: 1 goal, 2 assists (3 points); 1 GW goal, 1 GW assist. Not too shabby.

I did not have to wait until the last minute for my next date with this icy mistress. She came calling again this morning. Next Sunday, 7pm, Albany County Hockey Facility. Be there.

For those of you worried that this post does not deal tangentially enough with "Airplanes I Have Known," then consider that:
1. Alex Tanguay, pictured above, is a left winger, formerly of the Colorado Avalanche, who scored the game-winning, series-clinching goal in the Game 7 of the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals, which...

2. Allowed the legendary Ray Bourque, pictured below, to finally lift the Cup after 20+ years in the National Hockey League, and whose autograph graces the back of my copy of "Crime and Punishment" because...
3. He was waiting for his daughter at Denver International after she flew in the seat next to me on a flight from Boston to Denver, a moment which...

4. I consider to be my first date.

Airplanes.

Being on stand-by at work

Have you ever flown stand-by? You know, when you go to the airport hoping to get on a flight because for one reason or another you had to suddenly change your plans.

Well, I had to do it once. I was flying to Argentina for the holidays one December and my scheduled flight from LaGuardia to Miami was so delayed that I feared I was going to miss my Miami-Santiago connection. I ended up flying stand-by to Miami on an earlier flight out of LaGuardia and barely made my next connection.

It was gut-wrenching. It was nerve-wracking. I was literally the last person called onto the plane. I would not want to do it again.

Except for that my whole job is like flying stand-by. Allow me to explain. So, you may have heard on the news that there is, shall we say, an economic crisis happening. The Governor called a special session to make some budget cuts in light of said economic crisis. Turns out that this very hyped and anticipated special session...well, it basically did not happen. Instead, we got a full hour of some of the best reality TV I have ever seen (another clip here) in the form of a televised 5-way leader's meeting.

So, this last week at work, for all intents and purposes, was like flushing money down the toilet. All the work. All the analysis. All the meetings. All the memos. All the charts. Yeah, they are not looking all that worthwhile right now.

Don't get me wrong. I still enjoy my job very much. I just happen to work for an institution that thrives on last-minute action (or inaction, if you will).
And today as I sat at my desk at the Alfred E Smith Office Building, all that inaction made it feel like I was flying stand-by all over again because all we did was wait. And we waited some more. And we waited for session to be called. And we waited for the education team to be summoned. And we waited for something, anything to happen. And in the end, the flight (i.e. the special session) was cancelled.

The so-called experts have various tips for flying stand-by. I condensed their suggestions into these four main ideas:
1. Don't check luggage.
2. Get to the airport as early as possible.
3. Call the airline ahead of time.
4. Stay at the gate until the doors close.

These are great ideas, but they do not do anything for me at work. So, if you find yourself on stand-by at work, follow these simple tips:
1. Pack four hearty meals. (Preferably in your Green Bag).
2. Make sure your cellphone is fully charged the night before the magically disappearing special session.
3. Park your car in a spot that won't require you to move it for at least three days. (Albany readers, you know what I mean.)
4. Think that you'll be home by midnight, that way getting home earlier than that will seem like a blessing in comparison.
5. Make sure to take plenty of bathroom breaks, otherwise you could get uromisotisis poisoning and die.
6. Get a job with the minority party so that nobody really cares if you are there or not. (Yes, that was mean, but it's true.)
7. Use your extra time at work to send President Bush a thank you card for his wonderful stewardship of the US economy.
8. Learn a foreign language - or in my case, try to finally get a good grasp of English.
9. Start a hunting expedition to kill the office mouse. Behead it and display the severed head as an example to all the other mice.
10. Blog about it.New York State Government: Because somebody has to make Congress look good.

ALB-DEN-ALB, Part III: A pro-aviation enthusiast airport

We all know the importance of first impressions, and by all accounts, Denver International Airport did not make a good one. It was late, overbudget, had an inoperative baggage handling system, and was perhaps the home base of a shadown government.But I'm a believer in second chances, and boy did DIA ever make it up. If you arrive at the C Concourse, make sure you look up so that you don't miss this:This Learjet, owned by a local businessman and philanthropist, was the first plane to officially (?) land at DIA in 1995, as memorialized by this stamp underneath the wing.
After the historic landing, the plane was donated to the airport and ceremoniously placed in the C Concourse for all aviation enthusiasts to admire. I asked around and learned that the plane was disassembled and came into the Concourse through the windows.

Now that's what I call decorating. They should put that on one of those design shows.

ALB-DEN-ALB, Part II: A mosaic of flight

Here are some images from my flights. I sat on an exit row window seat for each leg of the flight, so the images are wing-heavy. Each leg was operated by an A319.

Here are some shots from the flight from the flight out west. This is the aircraft that took me the whole way to Denver. The sun tries to catch up to us as we head west to Detroit.The foliage around Detroit, which is no match for the foliage in Albany.

And the arrival in an overcast Denver.

And here are some shots of the flight back east. She was a sweet ride. Here she is pulling into the gate at Denver International.

This time, I'm leaving the sun in the west (and probably will not see it until April - jk).

A rainy approach into Detroit.

And a rainy Albany, just like I remember it!

Green Bag it - at 35,000 feet

Check out this article on MSN called "The death of the airline meal." Here's the Cliff Notes Version: When the airline industry was still heavily regulated in the US, meals were a way for airlines to distinguish themselves. Prices were uniform, so it was service that mattered. With deregulation, airlines were free to set their prices and their services adjusted accordingly. After the webfares craze in the 1990's, the industry has had to squeeze out inefficiencies to compete with lower prices, and every $3.50 that they saved per passenger by not offering a meal added up.

Today when you travel, you can choose to (1) buy food onboard, (2) buy food at the terminal, or (3) go hungry. I would suggest an often overlooked option: pack food from home --- and carry it in a Green Bag, one of the many handmade crafts available at Unspeakable Visions.
Here's the reasoning: travelers are allowed to carry food from home through security - only drinks are prohibited. Instead of purchasing a soggy $12 dollar tuna sandwich at the airport terminal, why not do as these travelers (cited in the MSN article) have done:

Kerry Neville, registered dietitian: packs the inexpensive, indestructible and inevitably superfilling peanut-butter sandwich.

Candy Wallace, personal chef: packs as if on a light picnic: a nice salad, hard cheeses, grapes, nuts and perhaps a little meat in a separate bag.

Bob Cowen, travel guru and the founder of Internet Travel Tips: carries granola bars and water on every trip, even quick Detroit-to-Chicago hops.

Guess what? Each of those meals would fit in a Green Bag. And you could even stow it in the seat pocket in front of you until you are ready to eat. Better yet, when you have finished your meal, your Green Bag folds neatly into your carry-on bag.

Forget the funky pillows and the earmuffs (those people look ridiculous anyway). The Green Bag is the must have accessory for today's air traveler.

A very cuddly co-pilot

Tonight I am cat sitting for a very industrious environmental lobbyist who is away exploring ways to keep the Adirondacks pristine. My feline companion, Misty - aka Misty Misdemeanor Elliot- is already looking forward to our evening together. She told me so.
I stopped by this morning on my way to work and told her that tonight we would be playing Microsoft Flight Simulator all night. She licked herself and left the room.

I have a set routine for my Flight Simulator game nights. My aircraft of choice is a Learjet 45. I have the option of a B737, but I have only been able to land it successfully once, so there is very little point of flying with it at this point.
When choosing my destinations, I have two general rules:

1. I like to keep the flights relatively short, about 45 minutes max, and
b. only go to airports that I am certain I will locate with landmark cues.

My version of Flight Simulator does not have the advanced radar and maps of the deluxe editions so I have to rely on visual landmarks to fly. You can imagine how annoying it is to fly for 45 minutes and then not be able to complete the flight because you can't find the airport.

To meet those two general rules, I generally stay around the Chicago/Great Lakes region. I cannot think of an easier airport to find than Merril C. Meigs (at least in computer world, thank you very much Mayor Daley). It's right on Lake Michigan with Chicago's majestic downtown as a backdrop.

My destination of choice is Gerald Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, MI. It is about a 30 minute hop across the lake from Chicago. From there, I either do a quick turnaround back to Meigs Field, or operate a quick flight to South Bend, IN - which usually takes about 25 minutes from Grand Rapids.
I used to run a flight to Detroit, MI but I have stopped primarily because there are no distinguishing landmarks in "cyber Detroit" to guide me to the major airports. With better visual cues, that would be a great flight, because I used to do it in around 45 minutes and Wayne County Airport is a lot of fun to land on.

Toronto has a nice airport right on the lakefront as well. The appeal of Toronto City Center Airport is that it is easy to find and I have been generally successful with the landings there. The only catch is that a flight to Toronto is a longer flight than I am usually interested in making.
Maybe my cuddly co-pilot will convince me to visit our other neighboring country: Afghanistan.

World's scariest runways

I ran into this article on CNN which linked to a compilation of the ten scariest runways in the world. I went to the list and saw that I have landed at two of the airports on the list: St. Maarten and JKF. Coincidentally, I flew from JFK to St. Maarten, so two birds one stone as they say.

For the record, I did not think that either one of those airports was scary. But, that got me thinking about which airport I would consider the scariest that I've ever landed at. Hands down, it would be Aeroparque Jorge Newberry in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Aeroparque, as it is colloquially known in Argentina, handles all domestic and Uruguayan air traffic in Buenos Aires. It is downtown, adjacent to the Rio de la Plata, which, coincidentally, is the widest river in the world.

Although I am technically no longer afraid of Aeroparque, it was nonetheless the site of my most terrifying landing experience. During our immigration to America in 1990, my family traveled from Mendoza to Aeroparque on the first leg of our trip. Although I had flown before, that was the first flight that I was really aware of what was happening.

The final approach into Aeroparque from the south takes you over the river prior to touching down. Although it is by no means a St. Maartin-like approach, at the time that was still a little too much for me to handle.

I was sitting by the window and my dad was sitting next to me. I had the window open, and we were both looking outside as we approached BA. When the river below us got to be too much for me, I panicked, slammed the window shade down, and clutched on to my dad for dear life.

It was terrifying.

What made this worse was that the next leg of the trip was Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro. I assumed that the word Rio in the name of the city meant that we were flying to another place with a river. As we approached Rio at night and I could not make out anything on the ground, I deduced that we were flying over the city's huge river and proceeded to panic once again.

What about you? What airports would you add to the list? By the way, my honorable mentions went to Denver International (where the altitude always makes landings interesting) and Mendoza (where you never know if they have a working radar).

Aeroparque has now become one of my favorite airports because of its great setting in downtown BA.
You also get a great view of the city known as the "Paris of South America" on the ascent. Last time I was there, I had the pleasure of showing off the aerial view of my country's capital city to a first time visitor and I think she appreciated Aeroparque's charm as well.

Stalking 101

Have you ever seen an airplane and wondered where it's going to or where it's coming from?

Me too.

And now, with the assistance of the internet (thank you very much) I can have the answers to those very questions.

I bring you:
FlightAware - a website that tracks flights into, out of, and around airports.

My new digs have a great view of flights arriving from the South at Albany International Airport. Now when I see a plane coming in, I quickly mozy on over to my trusty laptop, jump onto this website and figure out which of my winged friends I have the pleasure to be stalking...err watching.

Neat-o, right?

So now I think I need a Blackberry (and thank you very much for that) so that I can track every plane I see. Last night on my jog, I found myself at the Joseph L. Bruno State Plaza watching a descent into ALB that I had no information about. Preposterous.

By the way, I have reached out to FlightAware to consider a joint venture called "JuliaAware."

As promised, St. Maarten pictures

A significant portion of blogosphere space here at Airplanes I Have Known has been dedicated to St. Maarten. That may be a turn-off to some. Then again, since this blog is dedicated to airplanes and aviation in general, I suspect that my readership approves of my choice of topics. St. Maarten, after all, is "Airplane Mecca." And how could airplane lovers ever tire of sights such as this:As you may recall, two lovely friends of the family treated me and the gf to a week in St. Maarten in June. We stayed here:...right on Maho Bay and walking distance to the approach site for Princess Juliana Airport. Consequently, I spent a great deal of time running from the hotel to the airport as such:By far, the visitor I got to enjoy the most was the B757, operated by several US carriers:
I saw one B767 come in, but it was early on in the trip, and as you can see I was not very good at capturing the pictures yet:Also got a very pleasant visit from this unmarked Fokker. (Not to be confused with this Focker.) I do not know if it was an airliner or a charter, but we did get to see this machine on a couple of occasions:A couple other memorable moments...

A fun shot at this well known spot:And, it was not just airplanes that provided the flight-related excitement. We went to a Butterfly Farm on the French side. At one point, I was caught offguard by one of their killer specimens:

The Payoffs of Microsoft Flight Simulator

Pretty much all the way through high school, my Sunday evening activity was playing Microsoft Flight Simulator on my home computer. I would spend hours on it. My hub was Merrill C. Meigs Field (pictured below), the legendary airfield on Lake Michigan in Chicago, which sadly was destroyed very suddenly by Mayor Daley.
I started out slowly - computer games have never been a forte of mine. Most of the flights I ran were between Meigs and O'Hare. But, as I slowly improved, I started running flights to Grand Rapids, MI, Detroit, MI and Toronto. I was happy as a clam.

Sure, I could have spent all that time studying or dating or improving my baseball swing or doing a whole assortment of other activities. Maybe all those other activities would have been more productive, but there is no way anybody could have changed my mind at the time.

By my senior year I was working at the District Attorney's Office and I had saved up a little money. I saw an ad in the Fort Collins Coloradoan for a $49 introductory flight at a flight school based at the Fort Collins/Loveland Airport. I decided to drive down to the airport and sign up for the flight.

The introductory flight was going to be conducted on a Cessna 152 - like this one:
It is the same plane that I had spent so much time with on Microsoft Flight Simulator. I got to talking with the pilot who was going to take me up, and I started babbling about all I knew about the Cessna 152, and once I got into the cockpit I kept going on about all the instruments that I recognized. The pilot seemed impressed and said he would let me taxi the plane out to the runway and play around in the air more than the others he had taken up.

True to his word, he let me taxi the plane to the runway, which was very challenging because on the computer you do that with the arrows, and in the real thing you do it with pedals. Admittedly, I did not do too well with the taxiing.

Once in the air, though, I was a superstar. The pilot let me fly, take turns ... he even made me take it out of a stall!!! A lot of times when I am a baseball game I think what it must be like for the batter to step in to bat for the first time as a professional and think, "This is what my dream looks like." And then they get their first hit, and they feel the ball fly off their bat, and they must think, "This is what my dream feels like." The crowd cheers them on, and they know, "This is what my dream sounds like."

Well, that's what that flight was for me. I just kept looking at the control panel, out the windows, and even over at "my" co-pilot, and thinking, "This is what it looks, feels and sounds like to fly a plane." And, in many ways, I owed that moment to all to those Sunday evenings playing Flight Simulator in my room.