I’ll try to keep things relatively brief.
At 2:45am my alarm went off in the quiet town of Bishop’s Stortford, and I got up and ready quickly so as to leave my house by 3:15am. I drove to Stansted airport and the staff car park. I then walked to the bus station, where my National Express service to Gatwick was waiting. I boarded, and fell into a light sleep.
At 6:10am we arrived at Gatwick, 30 minutes ahead of schedule. This meant one thing….find somewhere to start taking photos! I caught these few aircraft just as the first rays of light came through.
At 6:45am, I headed off to check-in for my Jet2 flight to Manchester. I was second to check in, and was assigned seat 2A. I then proceeded through security, and wandered over to the Metro cafe which offers a nice view over the apron. Here you can see why LGW is the busiest single0runway airpot in the World.
As predicted, G-FLTC landed and so I headed off to the gate. 2A was actually the first row on the left hand-side (row 1 only had seats D, E and F). We boarded on time but spent a good half hour waiting around before taxi, then another 10 minutes or so at the runway. The seats were very comfy, nice real leather. And beaing at the front, I could stretch right out. Here’s a shot in-flight. Sat next to 2 APU’s 😉
After a relatively slow and boring flight upto MAN with little to see, we made our descent into some very wet clouds. As I should have known, MAN would be p!ssing it down. I headed towards the car park, and bumped into Lance (Grey Area) in the lift. We had planned to meet people on level 13, but that just wasn’t happening (the car park may as well have been a swimming pool). We had to resort to level 11, where we took these shots. Paul (PMN) met us half hour later. I continued to freeze in the Siberian temperatures, and so we had to go down for some food half way through so that I could thaw out!
Danny and two of his friends appeared an hour or so later, but then went off to the AVP. A bit later, we proceeded to the AVP but didn’t see them there. Here’s the shots from the AVP.
By: wannabe pilot - 4th August 2006 at 21:42
Cheers you two! 😀
By: cheesebag - 4th August 2006 at 09:48
Very good
By: wannabe pilot - 3rd August 2006 at 23:38
Thank you all for your kind responses!
By: FlyMonarch - 3rd August 2006 at 21:18
I wish I’d known that bmi were using the 145 on MAN LHR when I had some guy giving me grief that our A320 was ‘too small for a key business route’.
Great pictures and report by the way.
1L.
i know what you mean, i remember when our LGW was on the 737 and so many would say, god this is small, felt like saying, what where you after a 777!!! LOL
even funnier now its on the BAe146 😛
By: OneLeft - 3rd August 2006 at 20:12
I wish I’d known that bmi were using the 145 on MAN LHR when I had some guy giving me grief that our A320 was ‘too small for a key business route’.
Great pictures and report by the way.
1L.
By: A330-300 - 3rd August 2006 at 20:01
Just brilliant photos, mate. Love the tiny cabin of the bmi ERJ!
By: RIPConcorde - 3rd August 2006 at 18:32
Nice shots, glad you enjoyed the day! Once the rain cleared up. 😉
By: wannabe pilot - 3rd August 2006 at 14:44
Thanks Luke, glad you liked ’em!
By: lukeylad - 3rd August 2006 at 09:58
Nice report there mate, flyjet looking oddly graceful in your picture.
By: wannabe pilot - 3rd August 2006 at 05:17
Cheers for all your kind comments!
It was good to meet you again too Lance.
And yes, the Barbiejet was just fine Paul 🙂
By: PMN - 3rd August 2006 at 03:54
Ha! And you say I embarrassed you Dan?!
Superb shots Sir, and I’m glad you enjoyed your flight on the Barbie Jet. It really is quite an impressive little plane!
Paul
By: FlyMonarch - 2nd August 2006 at 22:04
wow such fantastic shots, and great report too,
By: Jon Taylor - 2nd August 2006 at 21:44
Fantastic shots there!
😀 Jon
By: bmi-star - 2nd August 2006 at 21:31
My god, that pic of Lance could give you nightmares!!! 😀
By: Grey Area - 2nd August 2006 at 21:23
Siberian temperatures, eh? I wish you could all have seen his face when Paul (PMN) and I took our jackets off because we were too warm. 😉
You’ll have to come up here in Winter sometime……. :diablo:
Nice to see you again, and nice pictures. 🙂
By: wannabe pilot - 2nd August 2006 at 21:01
Thanks for the comments everyone!
Fantastic photo report. Do BMI often use the ERJ145 on the LHR?
I asked the flight crew, they are only using it once or twice a day at the moment on the LHR run to free up the A320’s/A321’s for charter flights.
By: tomfellows - 2nd August 2006 at 20:45
Wow, awesome photos! Shame to see G-OOOK at Gatwick – desperately hoping to avoid her tomorrow :).
By: LBARULES - 2nd August 2006 at 20:44
great shots there dan where you flying in a emb 145
regards
peter
as I was already checked-in online for my flight back to Heathrow. G-RJXI turned up, the one in the old Star Alliance livery. This was to be my first time on an ERJ.
The above gives a pretty big clue…. :rolleyes:
By: pilotwannabe - 2nd August 2006 at 20:38
Great pics and I enjoyed the report 🙂
By: 007peter - 2nd August 2006 at 20:36
great shots there dan where you flying in a emb 145
regards
peter
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August 2, 2006 at 8:12 pm