Dear friends,
after the success of last intercontinental flight, here is another one ! After arriving to Lisbon, I had to fly to my HUB: Amsterdam. A plane was already waiting me to fly it to far-east.
Ladies and gentlemen, boarding has been started to EuroHarmony flight 7206 to Tokyo, at Gate E20.
Welcome to a foggy, IFR, and busy Schiphol ! I am sorry but I had to break the rules and look for another runway to takeoff, because the stupid ATC selected the worst one from the 6 available runways. Look at that convoy waiting for departure !
After I understood the fuel filling logic of the 747, this view with the hanging wings is not strange anymore
Takeoff from 09 instead of 06. Sidewind is only 13kts, do not need to worry about this little change
We have 11 hours flight in front of us, and there is not much fuel to waste !
We quickly reached out of the clouds at 5000 feet. Slowly reached initial cruise level of 30000 feet. Turning toward Finland.
Flying over the thousands of lakes. It is only early afternoon, but getting darker and darker quickly.
The rest of the route was about complete darkness. I did not saw the Aurora lights either. The northest point of the route passed by the Novaya Zemlya (New Land) islands.
As always the approach was quite rapsodic. There was heavy wind at Tokyo Narita Int'l, although the selected runway was quite good. I should pass HONDA
intersection at 7000, but the stupid FMC did not want to descend below 10000 there. Furthermore, it did not want to follow the path to ILS 34L, so the base and final leg became a little rushy.
At the end I was quite nervous I let the autopilot land. At least it knew its job and made a nice landing.
Then came the 15 minutes taxiing. I selected that runway because that is closer to the terminals, but it was full ! There was no life at the airport that time. The ATC gave me a parking position at the other end of the airport. Being BIG in Japan is good
I hope next time we can pass MAZDA intersection and there will not be any problem with landing
Thank you for flying with us again
