Pilot's Trip Report: EK 404/405 DXB - SIN - MEL - SIN - DXB with B777-300, 5 days down route

This is my first trip report and it's a try to give some others insights of what a pretty normal trip as a crewmember with Emirates Airline can look like. There's nothing spectacular about it, neither is it especially great or dull, it's a very average trip for us Boeing guys in this company.

I included some personal thoughts and what gripped or moved me the most. They are not necessarily connected especially to this trip but I thought that it might not be too interesting just to hear plain numbers and facts and technicalities about the flight. But I might be wrong with that, please let me know.

I'm not a native English speaker so please bear with me if I sometimes might use some strange ways of telling things or even downright incorrect words. Spelling could be a bit out of the normal as well and forget about punctuation. That's never going to happen that I will grasp and understand where to set commas...

Since this is my first trip report I don't really have a clue about what some guys would like to read or hear. So please, by all means, do give me feedback, even if it's negative.

So here goes:

1st sector, DXB-SIN, EK 404

I was picked up by the company driver at 00:45 LT at our house, that's roughly 2hrs before STD. I was the only guy in the car this time, usually the flight crews are picked up together in one car but if the locations of where the Cpt and the F/O live are too far apart, they organize individual pick-ups. Sometimes that can be nice because it gives you a little time for yourself to completely wake up before actually diving into the job. But it requires you to do all the little introductions and the ice breaking with the guy next to you later when actually doing a pre flight briefing already. And that's sometimes not so easy because you have to be focused on the job.

This time I felt quite well in terms of not being tired, or even completely somewhere else on this planet in terms of where my body thought I was. I had enough sleep before and felt pretty fit.

When arriving at the briefing center I put down my suitcase and went straight to my mailbox to see if anything's in there. After that I signed in on the computer and since arriving there before my F/O I grabbed the stack of paperwork for the first flight of our trip and started to look at the flight plan, weather and NOTAMS. There were plenty of other people there, all crew, but I couldn't see any familiar faces so far, neither did the crew list have any familiar names on it. Seems that it is a pretty big company already... Luckily I discovered that I was not the grandpa on my trip! I was only runner-up and the cabin crew had a wide range of ages, from 22 to 36 years old, averaging at about 26. They were from all over this planet, too long a list to write here, but starting from Bangladesh via Britain, Australia to Kenya, the UN seemed to be well represented on my crew. My F/O was an Aussie and he turned out to be a nice chap who I could have something to talk about on the trip. Lucky us, it can be different and that's unpleasant... After all you get to spend a lot of time together so there's hardly anything worse than to have a guy next to you that you can't stand, or where you have to catch up on a bad first impression at the time you got to know each other. And that's vice versa, of course.

We had some dangerous goods on board, flammable liquids, nothing much. The weather enroute promised to be nothing bad, however there was the Bay of Bengal waiting for us. The weather chart as well as the satellite picture didn't look too promising there. It's rainy season in SE Asia, that says it all.

The cabin crew meet and brief in another room so we went there to tell them the details about the flight and to introduce ourselves. It's always a bit of a surprise moment when you enter that room since they never know what to expect unless some know the pilots by their name. For us it's the same the other way around. Today they seemed to be a nice group of people. Initially a bit tense (Alas, the flight crew entering again...) but I think I managed to loosen them up a bit. I think it's enormously important to have a motivated cabin crew who are relaxed and not frightened of their flight deck crew or pursers who can make their lives hell when, e.g. asking nasty technical questions on procedures, equipment or other stuff. Having a good working environment with pleasant colleagues in the front and back makes all the difference for them and thus for the passengers. And in the end, if they are motivated, communicative and open to others they are a huge positive safety factor! They can save lives! And - some of them sure were pretty!  

After we went through security and immigration our purser went missing. Nobody knew where he had gone and even when I went back to look for him I couldn't spot him, so we departed with the bus to the aircraft and hoped he would show up later. Which was the case as he had to check on some required paperwork and was hidden from view by a little wall when we left. Good that he was back with us very soon as it's a tough fight against the odds during preflight preps to have a team without a dedicated leader in the front of the cabin.

When we arrived at the aircraft cleaning and catering was in progress, and we went through the normal routine, checked the tech log, did the preflight preps and briefings and I did the walkaround. Every time I do this I am impressed by the size of this aircraft. It doesn't look like it but when getting closer it sure is huge and impressive and when sitting in the flight deck one tends to forget about it very quickly.

There was only one minor item in the list of accepted faults and we didn't have a problem with that. The aircraft was checked for ETOPS since this was going to be an ETOPS flight. So before sitting down we got the nav charts out and I plugged in my personal headset, an active noise reduction one. That was the best investment of my whole flying career I guess, it's amazing what it can do! The sound of silence still is the nicest of all  . Then we decided on the amount of fuel after receiving the weight of the aircraft with its payload and calculated the performance data with the laptop that we have on board. We were very close to max takeoff weight so we didn't have much of a chance to give the engines a break by using a lower power setting with assumed temperature thrust. Closer to STD we got our ATC airways clearance, the same as it was filed.

We were then informed about missing passengers and that some 60 bags had not yet turned up. Nothing unusual but still annoying. I always wonder what those people are thinking when they decide not to be at the gate at time of departure. Is it pure ignorance or blatant rudeness or are they just so confused and anxious that they forget about the flight and when it departs? Or can't find the gate? I'll never know... Anyway, we had to start the race again of who's faster: the baggage handlers offloading the baggage of those missing passengers or the passengers getting to the aircraft. Sometimes I would like to teach those people a lesson and just not accept them, whether they make it before the baggage is offloaded or not. There are some 350 other people waiting just for a few egoists. But then again it's the airlines who make their policies and not the pilots. So we do as we're told, right?

Thus we departed half an hour late and that gave us no chance of catching up on that delay, no matter what.

The departure and takeoff was non-eventful, heading northwest on 30R. The roll was very impressive once again since we use improved climb technique with higher speeds if the runway is long enough. It seemed to take like forever until we got to the necessary 172 kts for rotation. When airborne we received a direct clearance and had no speed control limitations so we accelerated to climb speed right away after passing some 5000ft. Once we left the immediate vicinity of the city of Dubai and Sharjah we only saw a few lights left on the ground and soon we headed out to the Southeast, towards the Indian Ocean. It was still dark but we could already see the first glimpse of daylight, Venus was the morning star and looked bright and shiny. Sometimes if she is close enough to the horizon you can mistake her for an opposite direction traffic with its lights on but today she just pointed our way to the east, high up in the sky. The Milky Way was still visible and within it the dark dust clouds that block the view to the deeper areas of our galaxy in such beautiful shapes.

It took us 29 minutes to reach top of climb, the 773 is not an aircraft that is a performance miracle when it comes to climb. Compared to the 773ER it's almost a joke but it's a fantastic cruiser like all the other 777s. Once up there we had a look at the performance in case of an engine failure, a quick glimpse of the expected fuel on arrival and at other pertinent stuff for the route. Over the Indian ocean it's pretty straight forward and nothing much to be considered except the remoteness of suitable airports. We had a wind data update via datalink to have a more accurate fuel and time prediction as well as to have a better judgment on when to get a step climb.

Once up at cruise level we started flying offset by 1 NM. Especially nowadays with the high accuracy of navigation and reduced vertical separation I see it as important especially in those areas where ATC is notoriously unreliable or sometimes downright bad. Unfortunately Bombay Radio is such an area so even if all the necessary separation is accomplished by the adjacent sectors I feel a lot more relaxed when I fly a little bit off the airway. Even in radar environment I bet that most of the controllers won't even notice. If you're on a direct or in places with excellent ATC radar services it doesn't matter but as long as I'm on an airway outside of radar coverage there's no discussion for me. On top of it it gives extra margin to avoid wake turbulences of passing aircraft.

I started the paperwork so not to forget it at the end of the flight. There's nothing more annoying than to have forgotten to fill out the routine tech log details when arriving at the destination (except of course anything new occurring during the flight). So I usually fill out all the necessary stuff right at the beginning and just the minor details at the end. Then it's time to prepare the log book to keep my personal records up to date. That's basically it for the initial paperwork, after that, if all goes right we just keep our flight log up to date with fuel reports, times, winds and speeds so that the guys in the office can update the performance and fuel burn data of the individual aircraft. It also serves as a back-up if the FMS or anything else goes haywire and we're left with basic instruments. Which is highly unlikely anyway...

We were flying into the sunrise, which occurred at 00:48 UTC, some 1:10h into the flight and was strikingly beautiful. The whole sequence of colors and illuminations of parts of the sky and the sheer magnificence of it is always unbelievable. The sky bursting into flames in slow motion.



One's body tells you that it is crazy to be there at that time but the eyes sure enjoy it - that is, up to the moment when the sun actually rises above the horizon. Then the fun stops and pain sets in because of the brightness and brutal intensity of it. At times I block off the light by using newspaper as a sunshield during those flights when I fly into the sun. This time however, that wasn't necessary because some nice cloud layers protected us from the worst. This way our bodies could do the waking up slowly, which is nicer than the screaming sun yelling at you that daytime is here.





The downside of sunrise or sunset is that it is even harder to establish contact on HF - especially with Bombay Radio. They are quite hard to contact anyway but in the vicinity of any thunderstorm or during sunrise / sunset it is next to impossible. This time we had one success. I still wonder whether it is necessary at all to do that. I have never gotten any climb in this area, never had any route re-clearance and even if they did try to issue that, the chance of them reaching an aircraft is so remote sometimes that they might as well leave it anyway. Separation is done by the adjacent sectors and nowadays with TCAS it's almost safer to rely on the onboard systems than on Bombay Radio. I'm pretty sure they think about it a whole lot different, however.
Finally we reached the Indian subcontinent and radar contact was made, which gave us the chance to get a step climb to FL330. There was some big weather ahead so we started the dodging part of the flight. It wasn't supposed to be the last time, so much was certain. Somewhere north of Goa we were transferred to Chennai ATC. There was a gap of no radio comms on VHF for about a stretch of 100NM, at an altitude of 33.000ft! Indian ATC really needs to update their ATC system big time if they want to cope with future traffic. And this being a country where they predict a virtual explosion of air traffic in the next ten years. I still don't believe that to be happening until I see it with my own eyes - or, make that: hear with my own ears... They might get the aircraft but there the sky literally is the limit. Or more precisely the organization of the sky.

During cruise some flight attendants came up and rested for a while. Most of the passengers were asleep anyway and I rather have my crew well rested at the end of the journey. Call it sense for survival, but I totally disagree with anyone saying that cabin crew shouldn't rest during a flight that's a bit longer than just 3hrs. On sectors like these it's funny to see their reaction when they enter the flight deck: Because of the time of day all the blinds of the cabin's windows are down to let them get some sleep, and it's pitch black dark in the cabin, perfect for little Draculas on world tour. And when anyone enters the brightly lit cockpit with the screaming sun shining at full volley angle we often get to see open mouths and dropped jaws combined with very tiny eyes.
After about 2 1/2 hrs we had some breakfast, the food was good, thanks to a sector with a first class cabin. On top we often have veggies on board for the crew, together with dips. Hommous and mint yoghurt this time, with olives, tomato slices and other veggie sticks. Yummy! Gives us the chance to get some healthy stuff even on board.

Once we crossed India after about 3 1/2 hrs flt time we established CPDLC or datalink connection with Chennai. Strange, same country, just another area and all of a sudden ATC is a lot better. Bombay still is light-years away from a working datalink environment and here at least it is implemented, even though it's still not used according to international standards.





What a relief! No more talking - or should I say screaming? - on HF necessary, just one SELCAL check to see if it works. This CPDLC thing is as much overdue as satellite navigation was some 10 years ago. After all, in a lot of big cities even taxis are equipped with some sort of datalink. Just in aviation we still keep on yelling at each other on some loud radio frequencies. I would have some words for that which would be somewhat unsuitable for this forum, I guess...

From approximately 4:20h to 5:45h into the flight the Bay of Bengal was full of storm cells and squall lines, as usual. But daylight helps a little to avoid the big storm clouds. Deviations up to some 50NM off the airway are necessary, some squall lines having a span of easily 150NM. At one time there's just no way of flying around it so we have to go through the tiny gap between two cells avoiding the red areas on the weather radar as much as possible. The cabin crew was strapped in for about 15min as well but it turned out to be relatively smooth for these conditions and nothing spectacular happened at all, fortunately!

Normally this area here is 'dark matter' for us EK Boeing guys simply because most of our flights traversing this area happen to be in the night. So together with the fact that we had our ETOPS part on this flight there, together with the usual storms and our usual light conditions I'd say that 'dark matter' is an appropriate term for that and pretty well known to us meanwhile. ETOPS is just a paper work exercise for pre-flight or pre ETOPS sector planning nowadays but still it has this touch of mystic atmosphere around it. After all it is a long time until a twin engine jet aircraft will reach an alternate airfield once an engine stops blasting air out its back. Some guys will say that in reality ETOPS stands for Engines Turn Or People Swim. The only reason why I don't get worried is the fact that these huge engines are just as reliable as they are huge these days, and that's something I do strongly trust and believe in.

Then we finally reached top of descent. It happened under (Kuala) Lumpur Radar and we were handed over to Singapore Radar to promptly receive a speed reduction some 70NM out. Both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are pretty good at what they're doing (SIN the more efficient of both I'd say) and it's a relief to get into their hands after the 'murky waters' of the Indian Ocean. Weather in SIN was good and clear. That can be a lot different and it's no fun at all if it is. Thunderstorms in this area just aren't small. They're always huge and I mean always. But this time they just weren't there. The most pleasant form of cells. Mileage predictions by SIN Radar were very accurate and we could therefore adjust our profile such that we descended constantly in idle power from top of descent until reaching about 2000ft above ground. Well done, controllers!

Arrival in SIN is pretty nice if it happens to be in darkness. Most of the time it's just 'follow the greens to bay XYZ' by ATC and then get out to the hotel. However this time we had to find our way with normal taxiway instructions because it was still daylight and thus the green taxiway lights aren't used. Who would have thought that daytime is more difficult?

Once we had left the aircraft and handed it over to the next crew we walked together through immigration and customs. Every time I walk through this airport I think of how much I like it. For passengers it's great, what a nice atmosphere, and it feels a bit like a huge living room with its ambiance. If I had to choose an airport for a flight with a transfer or a break in between I would always go for SIN, even if I had to pay more money. It beats Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur or any other place around it by far. And no, I don't get sponsored by them  

The hotel is nicely located, nothing especially fancy but our crews like it in general. Other airlines stay there as well, e.g. UA. We never get to talk to each other, though. Crew life in EK is a matter of luck. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it isn't. I won't go into detail here, too long a subject. This time it was okay but I wanted some time on my own. So I relaxed, had a lot of sleep and nice coffees in one of the ubiquitous coffee shops a la Starbucks and generally a good time.

Since the departure time was in the afternoon I slept long and just had a bit of a breakfast before the pick-up. The bus driver gets a tip in an envelope that the crew collects before we get in, mostly consisting of all the change we have left from our allowances. I don't know what those bus guys think of it but I always feel happy for them to get a nice little sum for handling our suitcases in and out of the bus. I heard in Japan they actually were offended so we apparently stopped doing it. Cultural differences, here we go again. Another reason I love flying for this airline, it really does broaden my horizon.

2nd sector. SIN-MEL, EK 404

At the airport we were met by our handling agents. We don't have official dispatchers anywhere but here in SIN they do a hell of a good job preparing the papers and briefing us. It all happens at the counter next to the passenger check-in since we don't have any dedicated room for that. The aircraft came in late, just like with us the day before, so there was time for another nice coffee on the go on the way to the gate. Taking over the airplane from the incoming crew was nice as they were a nice bunch as well (we were, of course!   ) and there was no drama to be told by them. Good for us. The same routine as always took place and on the walkaround I finally got a few photos taken.





Once the paperwork was done and all the guests on board we left. Takeoff was on runway 20C and we soon got our first direct on the way to the Indonesian boundary. Our weight again was very high but this time we could use some thrust reduction, albeit not much.

1:40h into the flight we saw the active volcano Semeru, some 170NM to our 1 o'clock position with its ash cloud erupting. We were to eventually pass it at about some 60NM away as it was classified as 'aviation alert code orange'. I took a few pictures since I do not get to see this very often in my life. One picture is taken from Google Earth to see it from the birds' eye view, I hope they don't mind.







The next image shows the weather chart for this trip with the positions of the presently active volcanoes Semeru (code orange, as seen on the photos) and Merapi (code red, too far away to see for a photo).



Usually we fly past this area only in the dark except on this flight so there's never anything to see anyway - unless those mountains blow up like a firework, God forbid... And later the views got even more spectacular as we passed another volcano almost exactly overhead with its enormous crater perfectly visible to us, Gunung Raung in eastern Java. There was a trail of fumes emerging from it, white, small and snail like. Again with images taken from Google Earth, they're rotated to roughly resemble the same direction as the pictures were taken from. The first image shows the Nav display with Semeru's position entered as a fix slightly to the right. The radar returns are pretty much exactly the islands of Java and Bali.













For me that was spectacular and the three of us in the flight deck at that time (the Purser was there, too) were really excited.Even some passengers asked if we knew what volcano that was but unfortunately at that time we didn't know. Whoa, I do hope these volcanologists / geologists that rate this things as either benign or dangerous are experts who know what they're doing! Not a nice thought to be there at the wrong time knowing what volcanic ash can do to jet engines, let alone a 'little' chunk of rock that they might spit out during a violent eruption.

This time we flew away from the sun into the sunset. We reached the earth's shadow within Indonesian airspace under Ujung control. It's so impressive to actually see that shadow and its sharp divide between daylight and night when you are up there at a high altitude. It literally rises from the horizon and as long as you're not engulfed in it you see the darkness that is cast behind earth away from the sun. The colors can be breathtaking and this night they were! My colleague was having dinner and I just thought what a time it was to enjoy your meal! Must be the restaurant in the world with the most spectacular views, always combined with absolute uniqueness to them as no view will be the same the next time. I had goosebumps about it.









Shortly after we had a sick child on board with severe diarrhea. Luckily we have the opportunity on board to call a US company called Medlink via satellite phone and get medical advice from them. Real doctors are there to help airlines and they do a fantastic job. We even have this monitor onboard now that can send all the patient's data like ECG, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen level, and breathing rate to them via datalink so they get a real time picture of that patient's condition. Unbelievable. This time of course, it wasn't that bad and we could go on after administering the correct medicine to the little boy. I sure do hope that these doctors know how much they are of a help to us. Don't know about their career with this but I hope it pays and they have a chance to appreciate it. The guys who invented it hopefully became rich, they deserve it  

Once we were in Australian airspace CPDLC was established again. And those ATC guys use it according to standards, and they do it to the max. Sometimes to such an extent that it's almost annoying because they constantly keep filing reports about 'misbehaving' pilots. That is, pilots who do not use it the way they think it's supposed to be used... I'm getting on thin ice here, I know: they sure are good - but very, hmm, let's say, somewhat over the top and uneasy about it, perhaps? Not quite the guys you get to see in the adverts for Australia showing the surfers and other relaxed people. But hey, adverts hardly ever show the real picture, right?

We got a block clearance from FL 330 to FL 350, meaning that we can basically fly at whatever altitude in this band of airspace. Great stuff! Usually it means that we do a constant very shallow climb in 100ft steps about every 8 min. Very efficient if the wind is good for it.

About 3:12hrs into the flight we reached Aussie mainland. For the untrained eye it rather looks like you fly over a little island in the dark in an endless sea. When passing Broome in North-Western Australia it basically is just that. Only there's no sea to its east. A lot of desert and dust, though. Amazing, every time I fly there I think of the isolation some of these places live with. The author Bill Bryson once said that if NASA or whatever organization is going ahead with a mission to colonize Mars they should look here for the people to do it because no one else will know how to cope with isolation as well as the Aussies living in these places. I couldn't agree more after seeing it from above. Sometimes a bush fire lights up the blackness but that's relatively rare. By the way, absolutely no EK Boeing flight over Australia takes place in daylight. So all we ever see is this apparently never ending darkness before we reach some bigger city, of which there aren't too many.

The nice aspect of it is the view of the sky. I just love to look at stars and here in this area at these altitudes you get to see things that I never saw before with my naked eye. Once the eye is accustomed to the dark the milky way appears bright and shiny, the dust clouds take up an almost tangible 3 dimensional shape. When staring out a little while I think it is possible to actually feel and grasp the vastness and emptiness of space around you and earth. I sometimes believe to be able to virtually visualize my spaceship Earth with me hovering slightly above it in those moments while drifting through space, making it an almost bodily experience. That's always an elevating feeling and makes me wonder how much a space or orbit mission must enhance an astronauts perception of life. I guess a lot when I consider how little of it I can see or feel when some mere 10km above the surface of our blue planet and how much it affects me already.

Approaching Melbourne is straight forward, especially at this time of night. It is about 1:00h local time when we get there so there isn't much of a traffic jam to be expected. Because of weight reasons landing on the airport's preferred runway 27 is not possible (takeoff never is either), so we had to fly a non-precision VOR approach onto Runway 34. Not the best for noise abatement but what can you do if the winds are from the north? Weather was VMC or visual conditions and it wasn't a problem at all.

After arriving on blocks Australian Customs / Quarantine didn't allow anyone to leave the airplane before they clarified what illness that little boy with the diarrhea had. Which gave us another 5min to wait before getting to the hotel. I wonder what happened if there were someone with a real illness on board. What a mess that would be! Clearing immigration is usually relatively quick, especially since they have separate lanes for crew. Customs clearance is a bit trickier, however. No special lanes for crew, which I understand, but since they're really strict it can take some time, no matter how efficient they are. And boy, you better declare everything you might have that's of the slightest interest to them. Once a crew member was held for some 3hrs for failing to declare a knife in the suitcase as it was a potential weapon. Not some crazy thing, just a normal knife. I wonder whether the crime rate would have gone up because of that knife but that's the wrong question to ask these guys. No humor there, as with any customs and immigration guys throughout the world. So, better tell them everything, even dirt on your shoe's soles - and hush. Simple. Sometimes difficult, though.

On arrival in the hotel it's time for a final glass of good Australian wine in the business lounge of the hotel. At that time it's about the only thing that's open for us strangers without knowledge of local clubs or other places for night life. For us crew it basically is daytime, 6 hrs back and that wine winds you down nicely and smoothly.

The next day is a short one. Since the aircraft stays with us in Melbourne and no other crew takes over from us we only have some 17hrs of rest between the flights, meaning that we have some 14hrs after subtracting the time for the bus rides and check out and check-in before the next flight. Which is not much. The guys from Melbourne who like to do this trip for seeing some hometown friends or family curse that fact. The weather was nice but not warm, Australian winter. Good for walking, though and always good to get some great food in one of these modern and fast restaurants in food courts. That alone already is worth the trip and I love this city with its possibilities anyway. A little more time would be nice, though.

3rd sector, MEL-SIN, EK 405

So after a short period in MEL pick-up at the hotel was at 17:00h, once again the paperwork was handed over at the passenger check-in counter. Ground staff thoroughly ignored us two flight crew members and hardly exchanged any word with us. With the rest of the cabin crew and the Purser they chatted happily, so they didn't suffer from a bad day it seemed. I guess they had their bad run-ins with other pilots and from there on promised themselves to ignore them in the future. You see it happening all over the place. A lot of pilots are very good at making enemies. The big majority of nice guys have to basically bear the consequences of a few idiots.

What I will never understand however, is that people give up on other people, perceived groups, or professions in general. Yes, I could name quite a few idiots in almost all aspects of life that I've seen and I certainly had my bad days myself. But in overall I do not think, e.g. 'doctors are idiots, cabin crew are dull and dumb, and police officers rude and full of negativity'. Yes, a lot of that is true but probably even more of it isn't. Yet I see it happening over and over again. Even with me in normal day life. E.g. when people start talking to me they start out being normal. But when they hear what I do for a living they suddenly change in some way, mostly not negative, though. Not all of them alike, but hardly anyone stays normal as they had been until a few moments before. You wouldn't believe how much I hate that.

So these handling agent guys apparently decided to pretend we're not part of this world except as a paperwork receiver. Fine, as long as we stay friendly with each other.

We were looking at a flight time of 7:10h, which meant payback time for the previous relatively short flight due to the winds not having changed. And it seemed to be bumpy for at least the 1st 4hrs. Not good. The weather chart could mean exactly that however. A pretty long jet stream was in our way and we had to more or less follow it against its flow. Like yesterday we had to fly over Ayers Rock but it was going to happen in darkness. Once again no chance to see anything except a few lights on the ground. By the way, this flight was totally in darkness all the way from the start to the end.

For takeoff we had to use the longest runway simply for weight reasons. This time it again was 34. Departing to the north there is a special procedure in case you loose an engine on takeoff. Normal climb criteria and obstacle clearance are not met by the plane's performance in that case. Even with these procedures it's not a whole lot of space between the ground and the plane if bad comes to worst. So every time there's such a special procedure it needs to be briefed before the flight, of course, as with any other stuff. Even the 'normal' engine out climb gets briefed but in this case it needs a little more attention.

The night sky was exhilarating again and this time I once more saw a spot of blurry white a little east of the milky way, some 20 degrees above the horizon. I always wonder what it is and even in my little PDA software that I have about stars I can't find it. I would love to know whether it is a part of the milky way that protrudes a little out of the flat plane of its shape or perhaps even another galaxy. I doubt the latter one very much since I always thought that Andromeda would be the only galaxy visible to the naked eye if you know where it is (I don't). Well, I guess I have to go to a planetarium one day to find out.

The flight turned out to be bumpy indeed. Tough luck for the passengers really because most of them would like to sleep during that time. For us it was simply annoying.

Once again we obtained a block clearance and datalink helped us a lot again.
It's funny that during these times of day and especially on the later sectors of a trip like that you really start talking about quite serious and substantial things with your colleague if you have some connection to him. I bet there are some pilots out there who know more about me or other colleagues than they do about their friends, in rare cases may be even their wives. Funnily enough a lot of friends just don't have the time to talk about things like we do inflight in this tiny room called flight deck. Even funnier, though, often you do not very well remember the stuff they told you. So if you see each other again for the next flight, which might be months if not longer away, very often you start over. There's just this feeling left, that you're going to work with a really familiar person, whom you either like or dislike, a memory from your last encounter. Usually it's pretty positive. It turns out that recruitment might be doing a pretty good job in filtering out the guys that don't really fit in. Or that pilots after all aren't such technically driven geeks who don't open up. I guess it's a mixture of both.

The flight back led us past the volcano Semeru again and within Jakarta FIR we climbed to FL360. Not much traffic in the night so not much radio congestion, which is nice, especially in this area where radio quality is poor. When flying past Java we could see the fishing boats with their bright lights to lure in fish. In this part of the world the sea actually has the appearance of land and the other way round during the night. Quite in contrast to those parts where the rich civilizations are. Land is dark, water has hundreds of bright lights. And I wonder how many fish are actually left in the sea when I see these masses of boats...

The bumps and jolts continued to the end of the flight. Which makes it a bit difficult to decide when to turn on the fasten seat belt signs. If they're on for too long and during relatively smooth times people will start ignoring them. If you continuously switch them on and off whenever the conditions change people will start getting annoyed and ignore them as well. So in the end it's a bit of a lose lose situation. Basically they seem to be there to protect the airlines paying any fines or even more money to any potentially injured passengers, but in reality they are there to protect people from getting hurt. That's my part of the job so I take it seriously. But what can you do to protect ignorants from injury?

Landing in Singapore was very uneventful again, Runway was 20R with radar vectors. A completely uneventful flight, albeit an very unpleasant one. There's nothing more to tell about it.

On the way to the hotel most of us fell asleep on the bus. I guess no crew life this time... The following day was relaxed again, a late breakfast and some more sleep before the last sector home. I managed to get another 2hrs before the flight and that made me pretty fit.

4th and last sector, SIN-DXB, EK 405

Once again the papers were excellently prepared and after going through the normal motions we went to the gate grabbing a coffee on the way. The weather for the flight looks horrible! Not only SE Asia and the Bay of Bengal were completely covered in clouds, no, this time it extended to the east coast of Oman, almost at the end of the flight. That means some 6hrs of dodging clouds and weather. Just the right stuff for this time of day.





Forecasts for Dubai were showing haze and we have an instruction in this case to check with our ops in DXB whether they have any updates available. All due to the fact that we had it happening pretty often that some haze forecast turned into a fog forecast but by then all the aircraft had already departed towards home and it was too late to uplift more fuel. Being an operator that heavily relies on its hub the highest priority is to protect that hub, even if it means to carry a whole lot more fuel than normally needed. They rather have us wait in the air until the fog eventually dissipates than diverting to another airfield which renders the aircraft to more time uncertainties than plain holdings over the destination.

I'd say pretty bad for Dubai for all the money and possibilities they have to not being able to get a working Cat III ILS landing system going there. The best they can offer is a Cat II at the moment. That cost the airlines a lot already, probably more than what a good and reliable equipment or at least the removal of disturbances for the old equipment would cost. But, heck, who am I to tell them. They know it, let them do something about it.

Tonight we didn't require any extra fuel for fog, however.

The aircraft came in late, the same effect of the winds that we had the day before. A little of the delay was made up on the ground. Takeoff speeds again were very high, as on all other three takeoffs before, rotation at175kts.

Climb out was normal and happened under coordination of Singapore and Lumpur Radar. There was company traffic right behind us so we were blocking each other a little. We were offered a higher flightlevel but declined because of non optimum weight. If we only had taken it because then the other guys took it. We had to ride the tops of the clouds, dodge more than they had to and eventually lost more fuel due to that than had we accepted a premature climb. It was a rough flight, unpleasant as predicted and it didn't stop until we finally made landfall after some 5 1/2 hrs. There is this rule, when you are offered a higher level you take it, no matter if it is a bit outside of the optimum as long as it's safe weight wise. What you have they can't take away. And why didn't we follow that rule? Can't remember...

Since we rode the tops most of the time we saw our own strobe lights continuously. Initially you don't think of it being a nuisance but eventually they really start bothering and nagging. Nothing nice and so we sometimes turned them off and most of the time we used our so called storm lights in the flight deck. They illuminate it really well, by that eliminating the danger of being blinded in case a lightning goes off in the vicinity of the aircraft. And there were plenty this time around.







However sometimes it really is nice to turn the lights off. Because when St. Elmo's Fires start appearing it's a spectacular sight. We had quite a few ones this night, however none being really outstandingly strong or extravagant. They only appeared on the outside of forward facing windows.



The strongest I have seen so far were to such an extent that they were visible on all the flight deck windows, even the side ones. Additionally the arcs started spreading into the clouds ahead, almost like a moving circular brush protruding forward from the nose of the aircraft whose tiny hairs are made of purple light and thus illuminating the whole ghostly scene. Breathtaking to see it, but it only happened twice to me so far. Quite interesting to know that they need an electric field strength of minimum 100 kV/m. Imagine your hair standing up if you had to hang on to the aircraft's exterior, considering no wind of course  

Again a climb was denied because of traffic at the higher level on the parallel airway, they had to divert left and right because of weather. So lateral separation couldn't be assured. Once we got to the area where we had to talk to Bombay HF we gave up on our intention of climbing. And guess what, we couldn't get a hold of them anyway, no matter what we tried.

On this sector we had sunrise behind us, catching up with us. That's actually the nicer way even though the colors aren't quiet as beautiful. However, it is a nice feeling to get back into daylight again.

Arrival into Dubai was normal with a straight in approach since we were amongst the very first of the aircraft to arrive. As I said before, Emirates is heavily relying on its hub in Dubai and thus all the flights basically are scheduled to arrive at roughly the same time. That means that if you are in one of the later ones there will be delay, either by holding or by vectors and certainly by slowing down, sometimes even some 130NM out. But not for us today, we came in straight with high speed. An uneventful last landing by the F/O followed, he was pilot flying on both the last sectors. On the way in we saw patches of fog creeping around in the vicinity of the airport. So I guess it was a lucky day because there's just no way of telling where these patches appear. Weather forecasts are not as easy as they might appear in this part of the world.

After all passengers had disembarked the crew got off into the bus and drove back to the briefing center. In my previous airline we usually sat together for at least a few minutes just to wind down and say bye to each other. Doesn't happen here, though. So once we clear customs and immigration it's time to quickly say good bye to the crew, sometimes with a little hug to the ones that you were able to get to know a little better. But since there are so many of them it's really quite hard, even if you try.

I got out after signing out on the computer and checking my mailbox a last time and the driver took me home, once again just me in the car and not together with my colleague.

And then it finally happened: My daughter was already up and she welcomed me with her bright smile and embraced me while I was on cloud no. 9 to be home again.    In the end there's just no place like home, where your loved ones are and where six year old girls have more control over your happiness ratings than any sunset or sunrise anywhere in the world.   

Still, I wouldn't want to miss any of that for all the money in the world.