WestJet 737-700 simulator

This week I was lucky enough to visit WestJet headquarters in Calgary. As part of my trip they treated me (and @AbFabSkyLife and @SarahDeveau) to some play time in a 737-700 simulator. This was my first time in a simulator and it was fantastic. It took a while to get to grips with the beast – sweaty palms didn’t help! I found getting a feel for the delay when banking especially tricky. I must have heard the “bank angle” prompt a hundred times. We got to experience flying in and out of YVR and HNL; by day, by night, in clear and overcast skies (aka flying blind) and with some interesting turbulence that caused an iPhone to go AWOL for about 5 minutes. When I win the lottery this Friday, CAE will definitely be getting a call from me. Thanks again to the entire @WestJet team!

The outside of the beast

Runway 26L at YVR

HNL approach info

Mid-last week Air Koryo’s Facebook page started making the rounds and before long had crept up to 737 likes.

Air Koryo Facebook Screen Capture

That is likely the last time you will hear Air Koryo and 737 in the same sentence since economic sanctions prevent western goods from being sold to North Korea. Looks like dear leader (not to be confused with great leader) will have to remain content with a fleet of Soviet/Russian-built planes for the foreseeable future.

After the Facebook swell, as if by magic, a couple of YouTube clips started making the rounds on Twitter. The clips were screen captures of in-flight videos.

This peek at what goes on north of the DMZ was of particular interest to me – the 1980s style graphics and tone of the video reminded me of watching TV in Vietnam in the early 90’s. For people with a penchant for travel and a fondness for aviation these videos were an interesting intersection of the two.

I thought it was odd that such an obscure carrier could drum up so much buzz in a week. That was until I remembered that North Korea’s leader is a self professed internet expert. With the official webpage of the DPRK all sorted out clearly he set his sights on building his profile in the western world and to reclaim the handle Lil’ Kim from his American namesake.

Jet Age by Same Howe Verhovek

I recently had the chance to sit down and read Jet Age by Sam Howe Verhovek (See competition rules to win a copy). The book centres on the head-to-head battle between the first two jetliners ever built – the Comet and the 707. Only a few pages in, however, I realized that the book was so much more – it provides an incredibly rich reader experience, painting a fact-filled and lively timeline of how each aircraft’s manufacturer got entangled in the then-crazy notion of creating a passenger jet plane.

Using famous aviation events as mile markers, the book cleverly introduces an array of lesser-known events and characters, including engineers, pilots, politicians, executives and tycoons, that played a part in the events that precipitated the birth of each aircraft. This spectrum of events and characters is really what gives the book its colour; each being an ideal segue to introducing a new layer of complexity and detail to this very well-researched story.

This book would be interesting for anyone whose life has not straddled the jet and pre-jet ages of commercial aviation – irrespective of their level of interest in aviation. It blankets the reader with such perspective that it forces an appreciation for how far the science of aviation has come, in relatively little time, thanks to the brilliance and drive of some of the most amazing people you’ve probably never heard of, and some you have.

Competition Rules

To win a free copy of this book simply follow @airceo on Twitter and use the Twitter button below any post on airceo.com to tweet it. Each post you tweet will get you one entry in the draw. Tweets linking to this post will get you two draws. There is no limit to the amount of entries you can earn in the draw. Competition starts at the time this article was published and closes at 23:59 GMT on Friday the 22nd. One winner will be selected at random. Good luck!

Note: when using pagination you must specify the number of images per page.

Last week I was at Blackberry Devcon 2010 in San Francisco. It was an interesting show and the city was beautiful. This was my second trip to San Fran and since I totally neglected to take pictures last time I forced myself to take some snaps this time round.

SFO is an interesting airport. Its cross-hairs style runway layout provides a lot of interesting picture opportunities (dual parallel approaches etc) and the proximity of the runways 28L and 28R  to the terminal allow photographers some decent chances to snap away. Being  a United fortress, pretty much ever type of UA bird in any active livery can be seen here on any given day. Whether you’re for or against the merger with Continental you really can’t argue that a coat of paint will do a lot of these birds some good.

SFO is also a key gateway into the United States and as such there was a significant presence of airlines hailing from the other side of the Pacific. As I was only there for a few hours in the early afternoon I was only able to capture the Asian carriers.

I’m still very much a beginner photographer but managed to capture some half decent shots. Enjoy the shots in full size by clicking the thumbnails above or click through to Flickr!