Dear pilots,
here is another successfull, and looong loong flight.
When I reached to Tokyo, I decided to switch plane. Another 747 was already waiting my crew to return to Athens. After we spent a nice night in a Hotel next morning we returned to the airport, and realized that both EuroHarmony jumbos were positioned next to each other on the main terminal. Hopefully none of the passengers will mix the flight numbers and destinations...there is only 5 minutes gap between the departures as well !
While we were preparing for the flight, EHM-7207 leaved for home, Amsterdam. After it rolled behind us we could pushback and start the engines. Beacon penalty came as always
Meanwhile the sun started to raise rapidly and became more lighter. The airport started to wake up, and the planes started the takeoffs slowly. Taxiing to 34L. EHM-7207 was starting its initial climb meanwhile.
Rolling, and takeoff ! Farewell Tokyo...
Following the SID. It is an indiot departure path that goes in a cork-screw way, as it slowly left the Tokyo area. I just realized later how much amount of docks there are here ! But that time we were already heading West.
This was the time when I realized I will fly over Seoul ! Oh those nice Korean memories...back from 2000.
Reaching over Seoul. To the right of the Nam river, the old city, to the south is the new city with Olympic center. The fantastic Yeoido island has a very bad model in the default FS scenery. A little to the north-east, where the river banks, there is the To-bong-san National Park, where I almost died during a hill-climbing excurtion
As we pass over Seoul we look left, and there it goes ! Suwon city. It was my hometown for 3 monthes. It is a "small" town with 2 Million citizens. And it is the hometown of Samsung headquarter factories ! You may will not believe it, but the factory has almost 1/5 of area of the city ! The parallell runways next to the city is a NATO base full of F-16 Eagles and A-10 Thunderbolts. Those nasty birds were patrolling all day and all night.
Good old memories ! Who believed that we have a so nice and scenic flight
Soon we passed Korean peninsula and flew over open water. Then came the other surprise...
We flew over the bay of Yellow River, China. And soon we flew next to Peking ! You can see it in the distance. Countdown already started for the next Olympic Games.
Then we turned a little to North, toward Mongolia. I passed the Great Wall...probably somewhere above that chain of hills...but the scenery did not include that.
Turning toward Europe. Now flying over the giant Gobi desert.
In the next few hours captain had a short nap, as we flew over Sybir, and the southern region of Ural mountains. The funny thing when you fly Westward in the morning, that you follow the sun ! It does not want to settle down.
Still at early morning local time, as we flew over Black Sea. Funny that the water is rather blue
Entering Europe over the Bosporus channel. Below the clouds lying is Istanbul.
And finally we reached over the Greek sea, and started the final configuration. This time, everything went fine, even with the FMC. Turning around the airport from the distance.
On final, ready to touchdown. Funny scene of those sails during wintertime.
50-40-30-20-10 we have just arrived ! Err...forgot to turn off the autothrottle in time, and the braking phase became a little long. Somebody sohuld bring a repair kit for the airplane before taking it
Hmmm, what a scene...homeland ! Lot of EHM planes sleeping at the apron.
Settled down. We have arrived to Athens !
Thank you for flying with us, and I hope you enjoyed the flight, as I did !
