Its really amazing to note the difference in ease with which an ordinary person can notice the technical details of an aircraft with an increase in size of the plane. When you think of it, it seems obvious but to sit there and notice for the first time after you’ve read about them and you know about them and all the time, tried to visualize them, its an exciting prospect. Sitting in the Boeing 777(thinking of A340 or 330. I like Airbus over Boeing), I was feeling something similar. I had been on planes on a number of occasions before but they were all small ones – an A321 or a Boeing 737. Comparing their dimensions and interiors to this fuselage would be like comparing a Hum-V to a hatchback like Alto. I was too small to notice anything the last time I had boarded a considerably big plane. Now, sitting there in the middle of the plane on row 45 and looking at the wing assembly, I was at awe. All that I saw till that day on domestic planes was nothing compared to what I was looking at. I always have the habit of looking at parts and trying to make out what they do or to identify parts that I knew and there it was - a feast for my eyes. You could easily make out the flaps, ailerons and other control surfaces. And the plane itself was noticeably much more refined and well insulated than their domestic counterparts. It was like a child’s dream come true and I really can’t put in words how much I liked that. It was amazing – the smoothness, the complexity and the sheer brilliance of aircraft making, something that has a lot of similarities to f1 car aerodynamics. But as we finished taxiing and started waiting for our ATC clearance at the end of the runway, I could see lots of people sitting on the airport walls and on the small hillock just adjacent to the airport wall. There were small houses too on this hillock in typical Mumbai style. They were all watching at the planes taking off and I was uncomfortable with their proximity to the planes because they were directly in their slipstreams and in the wake of their engines. It was just too risky for them to lead their daily lives in such a place. Few days down the line and a déjà vu feeling hit me when I read a news bit that said that a few houses were blown away in the turbulent wake of an aircraft. It was an incident waiting to happen.
We took off and headed towards Gujarat and Pakistan and it was a pleasant flight and luckily it wasn’t raining by the time I took off (I couldn’t afford delays…not now!!). Over Arabian Sea and Pakistan and finally the physical exhaustion of the last few days finally started to show on me. The in flight entertainment system was no longer entertaining and the movie was now a stretch (It was 10,000 B.C). We were over Dubai and I decided to look outside for some time. I always thought the desert would be a barren yellow-brown stretch of land but it was far from that. It was actually very beautiful and awesome to look at (from 38K feet atleast :P). It had these beautiful patterns and connect-the-dots kind of art and it was good fun over the desert (Ship, dog, cat, ship, heart :P). Then came the black sea. OK it wasn’t black but it was huge. I mistook its dimensions. It took about 3 hours for us to cross it and you could never see land around. After the desert, this was very boring. The movie was also over and there was really nothing to make me stay awake and watch water water and more dark water. I dozed off over the black sea and I really didn’t care what I would miss seeing or not playing games or watching movies. Exhaustion beat excitement and body won over the brain!!!
I woke up some 2 and half hours later and the black sea was still beneath us, the only difference being I could see Europe now. We had almost crossed the sea and were about to enter Europe. It was a delight to me and the sleep had also made me feel better. There was still about 4 hours to go and that was a lot of time to watch a movie. Some might say it was the sleep but I don’t think so – whatever the reason, Europe was stunningly beautiful from above when compared to everything that I had seen till that day from the air. The sun was milder and brighter, the air was clear and the clouds were excellent (abbahh itla manchiga uhh uhh). It was a dream world – absolute delight to the eyes. Forget the movie, the world was out there. I already started to feel lucky to be able to fly over Europe during the day (as most fly at night). There were so many things to see. Hills, rivers, dams, towns or cities, roads or rails (difficult to differentiate), airports and greenery in all directions – you could see everything. It was amazing and it also sparked off a desire to go there some time. I dreamt of settling there with a small house near some hill and enjoy life till it ends (question is if I’d be alone or not). It was all nice and pleasant after the black sea. It was as if I had woken up in a different world. Things had taken a U turn after we crossed it. Things were much brighter and less gloomier than before it. But it was when we were over Austria and nearing Vienna that the real action started. Something that I had only hoped for, but never really thought would happen (like many other things) had happened. It just happened like that with no prior indications (as if indications were possible!!). But it really did take me by surprise. It took me a minute to let it sink in and I was completely alert after that, waiting for it to happen again. A plane had just flown head on to ours with less than a thousand feet horizontal separation and maybe 500 to 1000 feet vertical (di dikki di dikki di dikki). I was not ready for it and that was the only reason I had not noticed the paintwork and the airline logos. Otherwise, one could easily read them on the other plane at that distance. I was determined to read it the next time it happened. I had expected this as I knew it was normal over Europe for planes to fly above, below, side by side, etc but it never occurred to me that they could fly head on in opposite directions. It was unnerving to imagine things going wrong at close to sound speed but at the same time it was kick ass stuff…Awesome!!
There were many occasions after that where I was able to see planes. Unfortunately I was never really able to read the airline names due to the relative speed I guess though some of them like Swiss air, Virgin and Lufthansa were recognizable due to their paintwork. On one occasion I had 3 planes at the same time in my small oval window. That was how much fun it was. You could see another plane easily in these clear sunny skies. They would shine and almost all of them would look black when seen from far. Then they would get closer and closer and some of them would then go down and bank to the right and disappear under the plane, others would rise and bank and fly over the plane. Others would just go away and away till they were no longer visible. And to see all of that was truly breath-taking. And on four occasions, there were planes going in the opposite direction almost on the same vertical level and pretty close. But the moment to cherish was somewhere over Frankfurt. I don’t know if it was the main airport or not but the GPS showed Frankfurt nonetheless. We were flying over an airport (40000 feet) and you could see below you all these planes lining up for approach (to land i.e.,) one after another in a straight line and others taking off and turning, the airport buildings and the runways (and some planes big enough to spot) and its here that all long distance flight that don’t stop at this airport stay at a higher flight level (like ours) to clear airspace for planes landing and taking off – so u get to see more planes flying along with you or dart past in the opposite direction. So it was quite a busy time for my eyes. One misconception I had was broken on this flight though. I always thought that the white streaks left behind by the planes that one can see from the ground as they flew high were made by smoke from the engines or something like that. As I learned more and more about aircrafts, it looked ridiculous to me. But I was never able to think of why they were formed. I got my answer over Europe. It is actually formed as a plane cuts through the layer of cloud at high altitude. I guess this flat layer forms at an altitude above which clouds don’t form, like a boundary. Atleast that was what I felt when I saw a neighboring plane do it (as I couldn’t see whats behind my plane!!!). Its like a plane cuts through clouds and disrupts the layer creating these streaks until they reset again. Once we crossed Austria and till we reached London, there were planes and planes everywhere. Even when I was in London, all I could see were planes. Its hard to digest even when you know its common.
Over Germany, France and the Netherlands and there we were crossing the English channel. It was also good to look at, atleast from the sky. Boats crossing the channel and England on one side with Europe on the other. You can actually see both shores and it’s a picturesque sight. It took only about half an hour from Paris to London but it took about an hour to find space to land in Heathrow. As the plane circled the town in twister type circles going down then up and then again down, I got a birds eye view of the city that ruled our country for centuries. The houses were all organized and stereotype – as if someone had copy pasted everything. The cricket grounds were full of people playing in whites (padathi padathi). Most football grounds were empty except for one stadium in which some rock show was going on. One would get an impression of a properly organized city right from the first sight of the city and its really commendable for a mega city to be organized (unlike in our case). Anyways every place has its pluses and negatives. And while awaiting permission to land, I could once again feel the cut-throat job that was air trafficking and aircraft piloting. Every time our plane banked right or left, you could see another Virgin Atlantic Airbus A340 on the left (my side) and some other plane on the right. It meant there were (as far as I could see) 3 planes doing circles in the same flight path one after the other going up and down till the runway cleared. It could be imagined as a hurricane type spiral having planes moving around its outer edges in circles from top to the bottom and then up again. And all this time you could see planes taking off and flying away from London. What a high pressure job that would be. After sometime, I couldn’t see the Virgin Atlantic anymore and I got the reason for that soon as we began our final approach towards the runway at Heathrow. As we landed, I was as excited as ever. We were going past the British Airways section (as I call it) and then on and on and finally we reached our bay and parked right beside a Virgin Boeing 747-400. There I was, in London, less than 36 hours since I had received my visa and that seemed like ages ago. Jetta!!!!
I never really got the dimensions of Heathrow on my trip. The return journey helped a bit, and so did Google earth after that, but it wasn’t clear to me when I was there. I walked a long long distance to the immigration queues full of Chinkies and firangis (there was a school that had brought its students on excursion too!!! All of them ching ping pong types listening to chinki music on our jagdish market quality mp3 players) and all and I didn’t like the fact that people with US and European passports had separate lines and virtually no fuss at all. I saw other people being questioned and verified and all. Finally it was my turn and I really had no problem getting through (well the clerk was a girl..so that’s understandable). There were so many warning boards around and instructions not to give false information. I remember one - “Blah blah we can now access and obtain complete information on an immigrant even before he steps into our country blah blah” – Jason Bourne, Minority Report types. But the thought of non authorized access was something. The rest of it was ok but I had lot of things on my mind along with taking in the surroundings (which were not spectacular by the way). It’s the same everywhere. One different thing would be the quantum of information and indications and other stuff like that. If you would pick up a guy used to so much information at display, he would not go from Kothapet to Dilsukhnagar (or Kachiguda to Narayanaguda) properly. For us, we won’t even bother to read (frankly, there’s too much information at places) cause that’s implied. But in many ways, information is always useful. Then finally after so many hours of flying at close to speed of sound, I was walking towards my brother – the hero of the story….I had done it and I was going to meet Kimi – the man who made me travel this far (though he did not sponsor my trip :-P, that credit goes to someone else)!!!!
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