The Anonymous Widower

Liverpool to Gdansk

I’ve flown out of a lot of the UK’s bigger airports in my own aircraft like Stansted, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff, Bristol and Liverpool, several times. But compared to say Edinburgh, where I flew many times, my single visit to Liverpool doesn’t rate high up the number scale.

But it was a memorable trip for one big reason; the weather.

I’d been to collect my eldest son and fly him back to Suffolk. The terminal was then small and you can just see it in this picture I took as my flight left for Gdansk.

The Leaving Of Liverpool

The Leaving Of Liverpool

Then it was a small red and grey steel prefabrication. Now the terminal is many times bigger.

The weather on this trip was good, as the picture shows.

But on that day, we had to wait two or three hours to get a gap in the weather so we could take off.

When we did leave, we had tremendous thunder and lightning and it was a fight to keep the plane straight and level.

But we eventually made it back to Ipswich Airport, which now has been lost to developers and their concrete.  Mainly because Ipswich’s geriatric Labour council at the time seemed to believe that private flying was all about rich mens’ toys. Despite the fact that the airport housed one of the biggest parachute training schools in the south of England.

I sometimes think that my life would be very different if Ipswich Airport hadn’t been closed.

The flight to Gdansk from Liverpool was uneventful, even if the Wizzair A320 was rather hot.  But I made it off the plane with no problem.

April 26, 2014 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | 1 Comment

BA Goes For Landfill Power

Imagine flying in an airliner, that is powered by landfill.

It sounds far-fetched, but according to this report in the Guardian, it could happen. Here’s the introduction.

A delayed project to supply British Airways with jet fuel from converted waste is a step closer after it was announced a location has been found for the GreenSky fuel plant, in Thurrock, Essex.

The GreenSky project will see BA commit to buy all 50,000 tonnes of jet fuel produced at the processing facility for at least 11 years. The plant, operated by Solena Fuels, is to be built by 2017 on the site of the former Coryton oil refinery, creating 150 permanent jobs.

I believe that the key to energy shortages and global warming is technology and that this type of development is something that we should and probably will see more of.

April 16, 2014 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Is Gatwick Reorganisation Good For This Coeliac?

It is reported in The Times that Gatwick Airport is going to move all easyJet flights to the North Terminal.

I like that idea, as the only decent gluten-free restaurant is airside in that terminal.

March 28, 2014 Posted by | Food, Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Turing’s Legacy

Congratulations are in order to those who analysed the satellite data and appear to have shown that the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 has crashed into the Southern Indian Ocean, as reported here on the BBC.

Over sixty years ago, Alan Turing was involved in using one of the first general purpose computers to solve the problems of the Comet airliner. The recent Alan Turing exhibition is reviewed here.

Computing has only shown us the hors d’oeuvre. The main course will be spectacular. Unless of course politicians decide that analysing data should not be allowed or made downright difficult.

March 24, 2014 Posted by | Computing, News | , , | 1 Comment

Let The Theories Circulate!

Like nearly everybody in the world, I’d like to get to the bottom of what happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.

But this page on the BBC’s web site has gone to town with speculation.

So what can I add to the speculation?

According to the /BBC report, the plane flew over the Malay Peninsular.  C and I drove through that area on a military road that goes from one side to the other and there was miles and miles of jungle, where we thought we could hear elephants in the distance. One Malaysian doctor told me that they check cars in and out on that road, as there are accidents, where drivers his elephants sitting on the cool tarmac in the night.

So is it a place, where if the plane came down, could it just be lost in all the trees? I won’t speculate further than to ask the question!

If you read aircraft accident reports, as I used to when I flew a lot, you realise that pilots make quite a few silly mistakes, that you’d think they wouldn’t.  Who’d have thought for example, before the Costa Concordia disaster, such a thing could happen to a cruise liner, in sight of land on a clear day.

So did the crew make some catastrophic mistake?

In most cases pilot suicide can surely be ruled out, as it would have to be almost a double suicide, unless one pilot had locked the other out of the cockpit and then perhaps shot himself.

We’re obviously left things like the plane exploding and breaking up, but things get more and more fanciful.

One of the problems with any of these theories is that the plane was still transmitting information back to London for seven hours.

Only when we find the plane and its black box recorders, will we have any chance of finding the truth!

March 18, 2014 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | 3 Comments

An Amazing Interview

Victoria Derbyshire on BBC Radio 5 Live interviewed Bill Hagan, who is a retired British Airways pilot this morning about an incident that happened on BA Flight 2069 on the way to Kenya on the 29th December, 2000.

It is an amazing interview and it should be listened to, by anyone, who’s ever flown. You can here it here on this page. Just look for Bill Hagan and 17th March 2014.

March 17, 2014 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , | Leave a comment

Why I Avoid Flying Ryanair

This video and story from the Cambridge News, illustrates well, why I avoid flying on Ryanair, if I possibly can.

It’s not the fact that I want to avoid eleven hour delays, as these can happen to any airline, but it does seem that Ryanair don’t have a reasonable Plan-B to look after passengers in such circumstances.

February 24, 2014 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , | 1 Comment

Leaving Marrakech

I got to the airport in a rather scruffy Fiat taxi and then had the problem of buying a ticket.

There appeared to be only one place to buy a ticket and I spent about two hundred pounds getting a ticket to Madrid, where I hoped I could sort the mess of this holiday out. There were no easyJet or British Airways desks, as I suppose everybody buys their tickets over the web these days.  And there were no Internet terminals like you get in most big UK airports.The ticket desk didn’t take credit cards either, but at least the cash machine worked well. I can’t remember when I last paid cash for an airline ticket. If I ever have!

But it all worked and at 14:00 I was on my way in a smart Iberia RCJ-1000 to Madrid. I hadn’t flown in one of these before and it was certainly more comfortable, than the British Airways 737, I’d taken on the way to Marrakech.

I looked at the menu and noted that they had some gluten free snacks, so I thought I’d have some with some water.  But unfortunately, they weren’t carrying any gluten-free snacks and I couldn’t buy any water, as I didn’t have any Euro and they didn’t take any other currency.  They wouldn’t take a credit card for two euros either. However, the stewardess did bring me a free glass of water, with which to take my Warfarin.

I had thought that once in Madrid airport, some sanity would prevail, but the only ticket to London would cost me eight hundred euros.  They did say I could buy one cheaper from an Internet terminal. But the design of the terminal was totally for Spanish and must rate as one of the worst pieces of design, that I’ve ever seen.

So if nothing, I learnt that unlike with trains, don’t ever turn up at an airport without a ticket. I have done this before from Greece. But that was a couple of years ago and I did pay about two hundred odd euros for an easyJet ticket to London.

So I thought the best thing to do, was go to the centre of Madrid and find a hotel. The helpful guy at Spanish Railways advised me to go to Chamartin and sold me a ticket for a couple of euros.

February 11, 2014 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Money Saving Travel Tips

These are from today’s Times.

I thought I’d comment.

1. Restrictions on use of plane tickets

The writer is commenting mainly about trying to get a cheap airline ticket, by buying a return ticket and not using the outward half.

I would never do that, as I prefer to go out by plane and return by train. As the area, I travel is generally in Europe, I tend to use low-cost  airlines, so buying a one-way ticket is easy. On my last leg home, I never have a problem buying a Eurostar ticket for the right time.

2. No refunds for flights

As I’ve usually got a cheap ticket, do I care? ~Not a lot and I suspect, the refund would be covered by my travel insurance.

3. Villa rental confusion

If I needed a villa or an apartment for a few days en route, I’d go to a local company, as I passed through. And of course, I’d get a chance to look it over before I signed! I might check out a local agent before I left, but let’s face it all those in property rental and sales, are dodgy the world over.

4. Booking through third party websites

I do use some hotel booking sites occasionally, but most are just taking a cut for doing nothing.

With trains, it’s always better to book with the train company direct, whether in the UK or Europe. I once booked with a highly-advertised UK train web site, and it was a full time job fighting the spam, they kept sending me. I never used them since and I think I get my trains cheaper.

5. Changes to ports of call on a cruise.

It won’t affect me any more, as I won’t take another cruise, unless say it was to see something special, like an eclipse of the sun.

However the great thing about coming across Europe by train, is that if a disaster like atrocious weather strikes, you can change your itinerary.

You have all the control.

6. Car rental ruses

Who needs that.  I might hire a car and driver.

December 28, 2013 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Security Is Sometimes Entertaining

There was a bit of delay at security, as the staff kept getting beeps from this rather obese couple, who had to go through the detector several times.

In the end the staff said the beeps were caused by the passengers’ fat or something like that!

It did mean though, that I was some minutes longer getting to the gate.

It all added more meaning to that old phrase. “Time to spare, go by air!”

December 8, 2013 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , | Leave a comment

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