Prestwick report + pictures!

Ok, now a lot of you were very pleased with my Glasgow (GLA) trip report last weekend, especially as I was lucky to get a wide range of pictures. However, as some of you would probably have guessed, Prestwick isn’t really the place for many pictures or variety, and neither is STN at 5am in the dark! And so, yes, I have got several photos to share with you, but don’t expect it to be as good as the last one!

So, after having 3 hours of sleep and getting up at 3:30am, I made my way to Stansted at 4:15am. By 4:30 I was in the terminal, and we checked in for our flight quite quickly, managing to get the boarding card numbers 2 and 3. At around 5:45, I made my way to the departure gate, exactly the same gate as I used with Easyjet last week! I was hoping for a -200, as I would like to fly on one before they go out of service, and so I was slightly disappointed to see the ex.Buzz -300, G-BZZG. We boarded via stairs, but it was still ‘night time’ and so photos were not possible. The flight took off on time, and apart from some turbulence and a bit of a storm shorlty after take-off, nothing much happened. The best thing was that I got to see the sunrise from above the clouds, but, yet again photos were not possible because of the reflections on the windows from the cabin 🙁

We landed exactly an hour later, and once beneath the thick cloud cover it was still like night-time, so no photos there either……The only photos that I did manage to get on the outbound flight, was one of the cockpit, which the captain very kindly let me have a look in. (picture below)

Nothing very interesting about Prestwick, your average ‘Ryanair’ airport I suppose. Small, efficient, out-of-town. After our look around the cockpit, we walked straight to check-in, and got our seats for the flight back. There weren’t many aircraft around anyway, but the ones that were there (a BMI Baby 737 and a Cargolux 747) were not possible to see due to there being a wall between the departure lounge and the aircraft. On time again, our flight was called up, and I was very pleased to see a brand new -800 sitting there to take us home 😀 I was even more pleased when I saw the reg, EI-DAN (my name’s Dan if you didn’t know 😀 ). This time, thankfully, there were a few photos to get, as you will see below. The aircraft was very nice and clean, all with new leather seats and nice clean windows. I was also suprised (and pleased!) to see a Northwest A319 parked next to us.

We departed without hassle, just 5 minutes behind schedule, and I managed to get one or two photos as we took-off. Very quickly we were in the clouds, and there was a fair bit of turbulence as we climbed very quickly to 36,000ft. I got several more photos at crusing altitude, but the whole of the UK was covered in 2 or 3 cloud layers, and so most of the pictures look pretty much the same. The pilots had to turn on the seat-belt signs atleast 5 or 6 times during the flight, due to un-expected turbulence, and it was quite a bumpy ride as we approached Stansted. The only thing that gave away the fact that we were landing, was that I could see the flaps and hear the wheels coming down. Other than that it just looked white! I had my camera at the ready, and we broke the clouds literally about 5 seconds before we got to the runway. Then I managed to get a few more shots as we came down onto the runway and also of the spoilers etc.

Now for the best bit 😀 After we had arrived at the gate, me and my cousin took our time getting off the plane, and as we got to the front I just asked if there was any chance of looking in the cocpit. The captain invited us in, and we sat there talking for around 10 minutes about what I’m hoping of doing, and also how he managed to get in the left-hand seat (he was only in his thirties!) As I thought the conversation was coming to an end, I just asked him if it would be possible to take a photo of the cockpit, and then……..he let me and my cousin sit in it! I made sure I got the captain’s seat, and he took a photo of us together in the cockpit! This had tobe the best captain I’ve ever met! We continued to talk for another 10 minutes, and then the ground staff started to get a bit aggitated as they were waiting to board the next lot of passengers. I exchanged e-mail addresses with the captain, and then we made our way out of the cockpit to see all the faces of the angry cabin crew 😉 We apologised to one of the stewardesses on the way out for holding them up, and she goes ‘well it’s not my neck on the line’. Ah well, I am not bothered about it as the captain’s in charge of everything, and so whatever he says, goes.

And so I think that’s about it! Hope it wasn’t too long, and I hope you found it interesting all the same. Photos on there way!

Oh yes! I forgot to add that I was back at my house by 12:30om, just in time for lunch. This feels so wierd, I’ve been sitting here for a couple of hours after already going to Scotland today…..