More Touring Fun! Portugal, Ireland, Denmark and Norway. LOTS of photos!

Thursday 2nd March

Well, here we go again with yet another ridiculously long PMN trip report! Again, mostly touring with the band, with another hop over to Dublin just for fun. On the first stage of the journey we fly to Lisbon for a gig at the Atlantic Arena.

Our flights were with KLM via AMS, but when we arrived at LBA in the morning for a 6am flight we were told it was cancelled. The inbound aircraft the night before didn’t arrive, and hence we were plane-less! After queuing for a short while at the Servisair desk, we were re-booked on an alternative route that only put our day back by an hour.

Flight 1

Airline: bmi
Aircraft: Embraer ERJ-145
Registration: G-RJXA
Route: LBA-CDG

I was very happy with this change of flight, as I’ve never flown the 145 before, and I was trying to plan a trip where I could try it out. I have to say, I knew they were a small aircraft, but not that small. It’s tiny! Up until now the smallest aircraft I’d flown was a BAe ATP. That would have felt like a cavern after the ERJ! Still, a very nice aircraft with what seemed to be B752-like climb performance.

Unfortunately the window iced up very quickly into the flight, which I can only guess was because of the airflow into the engine, so my shots through the window didn’t turn out to be all that clear

The sky was awesomely clear, and I spent most of the flight trying to identify the various airports and airfields we over-flew. Almost as soon as we entered French airspace, my view turned cloudy, but it was still equally spectacular.

Despite all the negative comments I’ve heard directed towards bmi recently, I again found them to be excellent, with very efficient and polite staff.

I’m writing bits of this report ’on the move’ on my laptop. The only problem with that being I end up being even more random than I am usually (as if that weren’t random enough). I’m currently sat off to the side of the arena, and here’s what I’m looking at now. I’m really glad my job never involves leaving the ground, except to fly that is!

Anyway, back to the important stuff…

Flight 2

Airline: Air France
Aircraft: Airbus A318
Registration: F-GUGJ
Route: CDG-LIS

Again, I was very happy we were given this flight. We were scheduled to be on an A319, but as luck would have it, an A318 turned up to the gate, although I didn’t realise it was actually an A318 until we boarded and I thought “hmm… The back of the plane seems a little close to the front!” I always thought my chances of flying the Microbus were quite slim, but I was happy to have my first A318 experience as my first flight with Air France.

I’m beginning to think the A32X series are a little more comfortable than the 737’s for some reason. They seem to feel a little more open and bright (the cabin on the Airbus is slightly wider than their Boeing counterparts, so maybe that has something to do with it).

My first impressions of Air France were very good (although being bumped up into business class or whatever it’s called on AF did help). Again, as with bmi, the cabin crew were very efficient and polite. Our flight is smooth and comfortable, with the typical slightly bumpy approach into Lisbon.

One unfortunate aspect of travelling with the band is there isn’t usually much time to wander off with my camera and get plane photos, but hopefully I’ll try find time later in the trip!

Anyway, the gig we’re doing in Lisbon is a reasonably big one. The Pavilion Atlantico is a major venue here, so after checking in at our hotel we go to the venue and quickly see if the setup is going as planned, then proceed to get rather drunk on that wonderful Portuguese beverage known as Sagres!

Friday 3rd March

Today is gig day. We head to the venue at around 10:30 to see if everything‘s going according to plan. In a word, it’s going slowly, which gives me a chance to wander round the venue getting a few snaps

And just to prove I do actually do some work occasionally…

It’s a good gig, and there were… Well… A few people in

I quite like the view I get from my office sometimes!

After the gig it was back to the hotel for me to enjoy some well earned red wine before trying to get some sleep for our flights back.

Saturday 4th March

Today we head back home, leaving the hotel at 11:30 for our first flight up at AMS. I was hoping to continue my little run of new aircraft and get a 739 on this sector, but it turned out to be a 738.

Flight 3

Airline: KLM
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800
Registration: PH-BXN
Route: LIS-AMS

Nothing much to say about this flight really! It was a pleasant flight with some quite spectacular views

There’s something I find very peaceful about this shot. I just wish the window had been a little clearer

About 5 minutes after I dis-assembled my camera after the first few shots were taken, a twin jet, probably a 737, flew right underneath us. It just appeared in my window flying at 90 degrees to our plane, and it can’t have been much more that 1000 feet below us. I missed it and I was not amused, but it was an awesome sight.

There was an interesting moment on approach to AMS. During the descent while we were still at a good few thousand feet, the left wing hit an air pocket and momentarily dropped very abruptly, then levelled out again. Moments like that make a flight more interesting for me (as long as I‘ve slept in the last 30 hours), but there were a few gasps from people in the cabin! A smooth-ish landing and relatively short taxi bring us to our stand and bring me one step closer to Burger King.

We had a two and a half our connection at AMS, but by the time we’d found food and finished there wasn’t much point in heading to Panorama Terrace, which I have a feeling may have been closed at that time anyway, so we wandered around the shopping centre that is Lounge 1 until we boarded our flight back home.

Flight 4

Airline: KLM
Aircraft: Fokker 100
Registration: PH-OFC
Route: AMS-LBA

There had been some pretty heavy snow at AMS (as indeed there had been across much of Europe). After boarding the captain informed us we were in the queue to be de-iced. After an hour of watching Phoenix Nights on my laptop we finally pushed back from the gate to have the cold solid stuff blown off us. As you can see, we needed it!

We later found out many flights hadn’t made it out of AMS that night, so we were among the lucky ones.

A short and at times slightly bumpy hop ever the North Sea and we’re back at a very cold LBA. We all head home in need of a good sleep.

Because I’m, stupid, and ever so slightly obsessed, I spend Sunday and Monday at LBA taking photos, even though I’m flying back out of there on Tuesday for a trip to DUB.