Ben's Air Blog

Whew!  It has been a busy final quarter of 2016.  In October, I flew on Singapore Airlines’ inaugural non-stop flight from San Francisco to Singapore, on board my first A350 ( Trip Report ). Two weeks after near the Equator in Singapore, I found myself crossing the Arctic Circle in the Yukon.  I flew in an Air North Hawker Siddeley HS 748 before they to retire from scheduled passenger service in early 2017.  It was also my first flight on the HS 748 (and very well be my only/last flight). Which leads into my final video trip report for the year.  The story to go with it was published in the April 2017 issue of Airways magazine . Two weeks after the Great White North, I was back in the Tropics.  This time on a real vacation in Maui. All that travel in five weeks!  (26,326 total miles) I certainly had a productive year in 2016.  Looking back at some highlights: In January, I had a closeup look of the fire-damaged Dynamic Air 767-200 on the Florida Aviation

San Francisco to Singapore Non Stop on Singapore Airlines’ Inaugural A350 Flight Credit:  Singapore Airlines

See my video of the arrival and departure. March this year, Southwest announced that they were starting service to Long Beach (LGB) on June 5th.  My good friend and fellow photographer Rick suggested us taking the inaugural flight.  Southwest had received four slots at the noise-sensitive, capacity-controlled airport and the airline decided to use all four slots for service to Oakland (OAK).  This further solidifies SWA’s position as the dominant airline in California, flying to all five Los Angeles area airports (LAX, BUR, ONT, SNA, LGB) – 10 cities in total in California with 160 daily intrastate flights and 19 unique city-pairs.

I went to Seattle in April for AvGeek Fest 2016 for a fun filled aviation weekend put together by the wonderful folks at Airline Reporter, Future of Flight, Museum of Flight, and Boeing. We got exclusive access to the Dreamlifter Operations Center (an AvGeek Fest first), tour of the Dreamliner Gallery, an on-the-factory-floor tour of the Everett Plant (home of the 747, 767, 777, and 787), a tour of the Renton Plant (home of the 737 – not open for public tours), and to top off – a walk around of Boeing’s newest baby – the 737-8 Max. Boeing even pulled out the Seahawks 747-8F out for us!  Alas, Boeing does not allow photography on their property so I was not able to take photos while on any of those tours.

There is something prestigious about seat 1A.  Sure, anyone can grab that seat this day and age when flying on an all-economy or regional airline.  But for someone like me who grew up in the 70s watching jumbo jets flying overseas – seat 1A was something special.