How to destroy V Australia’s $23M flight simulator

by Grant Martin on

I thought that I was the luckiest person in the world when Ken Pascoe and Marty Khoury, two pilots from V Australia invited me, a lowly blogger, out to visit them and their flight simulator out in Australia last week. Sure, I edit a travel blog and I do run Linux, but that usually can only get me so far.

So I was thrilled to accept the invitation and join the crew out in Silverwater, just outside of Sydney, last Monday. As I detailed last week, Ken picked me up at the train station and showed me around the CAE facility and cockpit, then the safety briefing started.

“Should we lose power and the gangway not extend to the sim, the escape hatch and rope are just outside of the cockpit,” Ken explained.

“Furthermore, if anything goes wrong during the flight, emergency stop buttons are here, here and here.” He pointed to a spot next to each seat and to two on the wall of the cockpit. “But you won’t have to hit those — I’ll have probably already reset the system once you realize something has gone wrong. Now, grab a seat.”

Pulling my SLR camera out of its bag and stepping towards the left seat, I paused, and turned to my companion, thinking that it would be best for me to film part of the experience before taking my turn. And that’s when the lights turned off and everything ground to a halt. Think of the noise you hear when a subway or train shuts down, it’s eerily quiet and something doesn’t sound right. Or the sound of broken dreams. That’s the one. I had pressed the emergency stop button with my shoulder when I turned around.
Note, that there are two emergency stop buttons on the wall of the cockpit: there’s the “turn off the movement and relax” stop and then there’s the “pull the plug on thirty computers, rip the circuit boards from the machine and stomp on them” stop. That second one is the one that I pressed.

“No worries,” said Ken, “this has happened before.” And as we left the cockpit, he gave a nervous chuckle. “We’ll be up in no time.”

Ah, but we weren’t. After an hour of pulling circuit boards out of the machine, two techs determined that they might have to order another board. My session and a later, real pilot’s session were definitely canceled.

Later that evening I got a text message from Ken saying that they figured out the problem after replacing two circuit boards, and that I should swing back as soon as I could. But by that point I was already headed towards Auckland.

Maybe next time, V Australia.

Inside V Australia’s Boeing 777 flight simulator

by Grant Martin on

When I was invited out to visit V Australia‘s 777 on it’s maiden voyage from Seattle – Los Angeles – Sydney earlier this year, poor Amanda Bolger from public relations had no idea what she was signing up for. Sitting in the cockpit with Ken Pascoe, the pater familias of VA pilots, we took a couple of photos and he casually mentioned “Hey, if you come out to Sydney we should take out the simulator.”

Oh, but I was coming to Sydney, Ken, and after a few pestering emails, he finally gave in and invited us to come out to Silverwater, just outside of the city to take the simulator out for a spin.

Meeting Ken out at the Strathfield station earlier this week, we drove up to CAE, where V Australia had a small suite of offices and a simulator installed in a rear, cavernous room. This is where all VA pilots train, both in instrumentation at a computer console and in actual flight operation, inside of the 23 million dollar simulator.

The front of the cockpit is replicated in exact detail to a “white tail” aircraft, a generic 777 that still hasn’t got the exact installed features of VA equipment. A little bit later next month, they’ll be making those upgrades. Behind the pilot and co-pilot seats are an additional three seats where an instructor and observers can curate the flight.

As far as operation, Marty Khoury, another V Australia pilot on hand explained that the graphics and performance are so lifelike, even to the bump of every light in the runway, that sometimes the pilots forget that they’re even inside of the simulator.

So how did Gadling’s flight experience go? Disasterously. But I’ll tell you about that next week.

%Gallery-48794%

Plane Answers: Sleeping gas to thwart terrorists, longer winter takeoffs and which aircraft is the smoothest in rough air

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

Jack asks:

I was wondering why the airlines don’t put sleeping gas on a plane for highjackers. This way when the plane is highjacked the pilot puts on an air mask and gases the rest of the plane, calls for help and lands the plane, arrest & shoot the highjackers, well at least arrest them. Nobody gets hurt and we won’t need all the security people.

Jack, if you only knew how many times the O2 masks have been dropped by a pilot inadvertently flipping the wrong switch during a preflight, you might think twice about this ‘feature.’ Not to mention the chance for leaks or having the system used against us in an attack.

Nope, I would prefer to have passengers available to assist in the case of any terrorist action.

TC asks:

I live in South Florida and drive by FLL (Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International) every morning and evening in transit to work. We recently had a few days of real cold temperatures and I noticed the planes taking off are lower over the interstate and seem to be on the runway longer. How does the effect of temperature and humidity relate to take-offs and landings?

Actually, it’s the opposite, TC. During the colder days, both piston and jet aircraft perform better in the colder weather. On hot weather days the engines produce slightly less power and the density altitude is higher resulting in a little less performance.

In an indirect way, the winter season may have been the cause of the longer takeoff distances. I suspect those flights were completely full of people and bags after escaping from the dreadfully long winter we’ve had here in the northeast!

Andrew asks:

On what type of medium to large jets do you feel the least turbulence, e.g., Airbus 320, Boing 737-400, Boing 737-500, etc.?

Certainly the larger aircraft are smoother in turbulence, usually. The 777 has a ‘gust suppression’ technology that helps with side to side turbulence, and the new 787 will have a system that’s designed to mitigate the effects of both horizontal and vertical turbulence.

More important than the type of aircraft is where on that aircraft you sit. The front-to-middle section is always a smoother ride. We’ve had flight attendants injured in the aft galley while the flight attendants were still able to serve meals in the front of the airplane. So try for row 17 and forward if you can on your next domestic flight. You might notice a difference.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for next Monday’s Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work.

Behind the Scenes of the V Australia 777 tour

by Grant Martin on

When any Virgin company throws a party, it’s usually in your best interest to show up. Whether this is a Virgin American inaugural flight with Victoria’s Secret models, a Virgin Galactic tour in the Mojave Desert or plain old marketing schlep, you’re almost always guaranteed to meet a few friendly faces, have a few drinks and learn something interesting about the Virgin brand.

Last week’s introduction to V Australia‘s 777 in Los Angeles was no different. Members from all branches of the media were on hand to witness the aircraft’s arrival from the factory in Washington, and to keep us entertained at the Flight Path Museum (just off the LAX tarmac,) organizers had a DJ, snacks, all sorts of literature and even a faction of the USC marching band and cheerleaders (?!) on hand to play a few tunes.

Most interesting, however, were the people. As usual, our old friend The Cranky Flier was on hand to deliver the down and dirty on all of the recent airline gossip (“OMG OMG did you hear about the Virgin America numbers??”), Juliana from Jaunted was armed with her Twitter entourage and suits from Expedia, Hilton and other travel brands were on site. On the flight’s arrival, Richard Branson also brought a few celebrities, including Australian celebrities, Brett Godfrey, the CEO of V Australia and other fancy headliners. Cranky also swears that he saw Chase from House MD, but I think that was just the Wild Turkey talking.
%Gallery-44370%Once the tour of the aircraft started, I found myself walking towards the airplane with Richard Branson and Godfrey, the former of whom barged up the steps towards the door while the latter ushered me up. And as I passed the first class cabin and rounded into the aircraft bar, I suddenly found myself standing in the compartment alone with Branson.

I asked him if we could jump on the beds. In my defense, the invitation that I got from V Australia specifically said that we could, but I doubt that he knew that. Branson looked at me like I was some sort of squirrel and replied “Sure… In a minute,” and promptly opened up a bottle of Champagne.

Then the mayor of LA, Antonio Villaraigosa, showed up and ruined all of the fun, sucking down a glass of Champagne and spouting off some senseless marketing drivel. With him came the rest of the media, including questions like “Will trips to Australia be non-stop?” (Answer from Branson: Well, it’s over the ocean, so I should hope so.) so I headed to the back of the aircraft to meet some more people and take some pictures.

Finding myself in the cockpit, I ran into Ken Pascoe, one of the pilots of the aircraft who was currently sitting in the right seat. After a couple of pictures and some plans to visit the 777 simulator in Sydney, we took this video:


Overall, everyone seems really excited about the new service that’s coming up. Once the 777 reaches Australia, the airline is going to spend a few weeks acclimating, training and preparing their crew, then first flight is later this month. Stay tuned for a review of the inflight service.

Onboard V Australia’s Boeing 777

by Grant Martin on

This past Friday, Gadling got a special invitation to tour V Australia‘s new Boeing 777 jumbo jet, the aircraft that will soon fly routes between California and Australia on the world’s newest airline.
We’ll get to into all of the hobknobbery of the event in a forthcoming post, but for now, lets take a look through the aircraft.

Each Boeing 777-300 has three classes of service: Business, Premium Economy and Economy.

Like most other transpacific products, economy is fairly cramped with 3 x 3 x 3 seating (32″ of leg room and 6″ seat pitch,) cloth seats and rows upon rows of cattle. Sections are fairly compartmentalized among rows 20-25, 26-38 and 40-52, with each cabin separated by lavs and galleys respectively, so you can bet that the smaller sub-cabin is going to be quieter.

Exit rows have plenty of space, and if you’re going to pitch for a set, I would recommend row 26, because row 20 has bassinets and row 39 has a galley nearby.

Thankfully, each seat has an LCD running the Panasonic RED system with an additional USB port, so you can stay entertained with movies, games and music or charge your iPod. Bulkhead seats have video screens in the armrests. Contrary to other reports, however, there is no in-seat power. Alternatively, a flight attendant that we spoke with said that there is AC power in the rear galley, so you can always wander back and plug in.

%Gallery-44162%

Premium Economy is much more posh, with leather seats in a 2 x 4 x 2 configuration, so if you and a mate want some privacy you can book a window pair. LCD screens are a bit larger, seat pitch (9″) is more generous and leg room (38″) is more available, so your overall experience should be an order of magnitude better. There are only 5 rows of Premium Economy for a total of 30 seats, and each row is equipped with A/C power.

Finally, Business class is sectioned into two compartments with row 5 separated from rows 1-4 by the forward bar. The fully flat seats are in a standard 2 x 3 x 2 configuration and offer small privacy screens that you can raise between each. Given that each seat can recline fully, there is an astounding 77″ of leg room for each person, which means that you can basically play a small game of flag football with the space you have. Additionally, the front cabin offers bed turn down service, pajamas and the ability to eat your meals whenever you want, affording those who want to sleep or be left alone the flexibility to still have a hot meal.

Naturally, those up for a chat in Business class can also slip back to the front bar for a free beverage. Above the front bar there is a raised motif where one can look up at a (simulated) northern cross constellation — apparently the brass wanted a window up to the sky, but Boeing couldn’t fit that into the design.

Throughout the entire cabin, Virgin’s trademark “mood lighting” is prevalent, and even if you are off put by the pink and green seats, the purple and blue overhead lights can be remarkably calming. In some areas, a simulated starscape pattern also broods from the ceiling (pictured).

Overall, the best part about the aircraft is the clean, crisp aesthetic. Straight from the factory floor, this 777-300 has a solid, comfortable feel about it, and we’re sure that any transoceanic trip in this bird that’s in Premium Economy or Business will be outstanding. Coach might be comparable to the competition, but where V Australia could really excel is in the service. We’ll see how that performs in March.