VS019 LHR-SFO 20 Oct 06 (Econ)

This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin

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well an early 3am start to make the trek from leicester down the M1 to Heathrow which isnt the best time to start a journey but anyway.

I was travelling with 40 other students for the half term break. we managed to get there at about 6am with plenty of time to get some brekkie before the check in. when check in opened there was a little queue which passed quickly i checked my luggage in and queried about my guitar. the check in agent said that i should take it to the gate and see if i could get it onto the plane which i thought was ok.
got to security which was its usual length. im still shocked at how many people think that they can take water through security[:0]. I hate when they seperate you when you got through the security. got throught security with the guitar ok and then just pondered looking around the shops until the flight was called. when it was called i had to look at the screen twice, it said to go to a GATE 1.
This made me laugh and suprised as i had never even seen a gate 1 before let alone departed from it. i was unfortunate to get a second security check at the gate which meant taking all of my electricals out and taking my guitar out of its bag. finally i got away and began to board the plane.
I beleive that i was flying on G-ROC not sure though. i was happy at this point as my guitar was over my head in the bins rather than being in the hold of the plane. we departed fairly quickly and was on my way to san francisco. not a long wait in the queue and we were soon in the air, once we got to around 5000ft we started to descend. we climbed again and then descended a little, there were a few people who were slightly nervous and i was certianly wondering what was going on[?]
All seemed to be fine bcause the fab v:port began and i was soon into the programmes and films. A bonus was that almost all of the screens worked first time so no re-boot yay[oo]
the food was very good, i had a chicken and pasta meal which wass very nice i would be proud to make it[}:)]
i listened to a few songs and before i knew it i was flying over san francisco. the landing was good we got to a gate quick as well which is a bonus. the drag was that i was at the back so had a long wait to get of off the plane. got to immigration and had a nice officer which was nice. he joked with me and said enjoy your stay. so then i was off to explore the best city in the world imho.
return report soon[:D]

[mitchja]

Thanks for the TR [y]

I do like the immigration officers at SFO, they are always very friendly and welcoming on your arrival [:)] unlike a lot of other US entry points.

Regards

Nice one.

Enjoy San Francisco - I agree, it is the best city in the world, by far. have fun

Thanks for the TR!

SFO is GREAT! Beats NYC hands down! Lets hear it for SFO [^][^][^]

Have fun,

Dominic

Originally posted by virgin crazy
not a long wait in the queue and we were soon in the air, once we got to around 5000ft we started to descend. we climbed again and then descended a little, there were a few people who were slightly nervous and i was certianly wondering what was going on[?]

Standard departure routing from LHR will hold the aircraft at 6000ft (IIRC) until a specific point when ATC will clear the flight to climb in the flight corridor out to NW (in your case, could well be possibly back over Leicester again!). Stansted, Luton, Gatwick and London City all have slightly different departure procedures and hold heights, all in an attempt to keep the air traffic over London skies organised and of course separated from incoming traffic! Occasionally ATC have to amend this mind so your experience wouldn't be too unusual, I imagine.

Interesting reading. I look forward to taking this flight in April.

Thanks for sharing.
Kev.

You also get a feeling of dropping/sinking not long after departure as the thrust used for takeoff is quickly reduced once airborne, which makes it less noisy for those on the ground.

Of course, when the thrust is reduced, you also have to lower the nose in order to keep accelerating. The vertical speed (the rate at which your climbing) changes quite a lot at this point, probably by about 1000ft/min, so you get this sinking feeling when this happens.

All perfectly normal stuff!

The chicken and pasta meal is one of the preferred Y meals among the V-Flyers, indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if some of us prefer it to the meals in Upper Class!

Cheers!
Mike

once we got to around 5000ft we started to descend. we climbed again and then descended a little, there were a few people who were slightly nervous and i was certianly wondering what was going on

Further to Drnoble's post, there's a restriction speed limit in place for departing flights within the London TMA (Terminal Manouvering Area), basically a huge bit of airspace, incidentally one of the busiest and most complex in the world, that all flights in and out of London airports and usually Birmingham and East Midlands fly through. They can't exceed 250kts below 10,000 feet. For this reason you would have felt a dip (feels like a descent) on reaching the top of the SID(standard instrument departure)climb, 6,000feet and another one on reaching 250kts. It would be a very serious issue in ATC terms for you to have to descend once in the climb, for this reason it's highly unlikely it happened.

Technical stuff over, cheers for the TR[y]
YS