Friday, March 20, 2015

Group Flight from LLBG (Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion) to EGLL (London, Heathrow)

A couple of the "Nutters" decided to make a group flight from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel to London, Heathrow and of course, I had to join.  I did experience some peer pressure from my better half to make the flight and if I didn't, apparently I wasn't "hard core."  The reason being, they were departing at 0930 Zulu time which was 0230 Pacific my time.  As always, the flight was great fun and took about 5 hours.  We had ATC coverage out of LLBG via Tel Aviv center, we picked up Maastricht Euro Control over the southern part of Europe, and ended with Tower control at Heathrow.  The other members needed to get to the UK by a certain time due to real world commitments and of course, our departure was delayed after an El Al 737 pilot declared an emergency after departure.  Apparently, he experienced a flame out and returned to the airfield which put departure operations on hold.  After a slight delay, everyone departed and for this flight, I took the PMDG 777-300ER in Air France Sky Team livery.  As always, the 777 performed very well and my only concern was arriving into Aerosoft Heathrow without an "OOM" error, or "out of memory."  If you're an FSX fan, you know exactly what that is and it is a terrible way to end a long flight.  But, we all made it without issues.  The flight was smooth with gorgeous views and upon arrival, I was lined up for 09L but was given the option to side step to 09R due to a preference for parking at Terminal 4 (where Air France parks).  Unfortunately, I was too busy to get grab any screenshots of the approach but the visibility was reduced to 5.6 mile due to haze but I was able to pick up 09R in enough time for a visual approach and manual landing.  As always, the usual antics and banter kept the flight lively on teamspeak and looking forward to the next group flight.  Enjoy the shots and now it is time for a nap!


















     

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