NEW YORK TO ABU DHABI

While relaxing during my flight from JFK to AUH, I took these pictures, shown on the screen infront of me. I was in team B, resting on the first half of the flight and took over on the second half. The total flight time was 12 hrs and 20 mins. As seen on the picture, we flew over the North Atlantic, no radio aids to fly to, just point to point using coordinates.. Basically on latitude of 50 deg North, from 50 deg West up to 20 deg West longitude. The first land that we met was somewhere near the Landsend, south of England. after that pretty straight forward route, overflying France, Italy, Athen, over the Mediterranean ,Cypros Lebanon,Damascus,Jordan,Saudi and Bahrain.

BEIJING AND PYONGYANG

Lama tak pergi Beijing. Dulu semasa bekerja dengan MAS almost 3 bulan sekali dapat buat Beijing flight. I was tasked to bring back UAE National football team from Pyongyang ,North Korea after playing there againts them for the wold cup qualifying. UAE was beaten by N Korea 2-0 . We took off from Beijing on 28 Mar, reached Pyongyang at 1800, just after the match,stayed on ground for refueling and took off for Abu Dhabi. It was slightly over 10 hours flight. Unable to snap any picture at Pyongyang becouse it was already dark when we landed there, beside we were afraid that our camera might be confiscated or worst we might ended up in jail. Until now I still can remember the smiling face of their president big photo that can be seen miles away at the Pyongyang airport.

The exitement was when we were in Beijing. Went up the Great Wall at Bedailing, the nearest point from Beijing city. Then we went to the Summer Palace and lastly the whole day completed with shopping at silk Market and Ya Show Market. Things getting more expensive nowadays, not as cheap as before the olympic game.

http://picasaweb.google.com/abakarhassan/TheGreatWall?feat=directlink

LATEST SYDNEY TRIP

I had my breakfast at 7 am and then grabbed my camera , walked to the Opera House which is only 5 minutes walk from the hotel. It was cloudy morning and I forgot to set my camera accordingly.

The city view from The Rock. My hotel, The Four Seasons is further right of this picture.

The Sydney Control Tower can be seen on the far side, and the big Qantas monster ,A380 on tow out from the hangar.

And finally we were on the way back to AUH again. I was in the jump seat, took over control half way through the flight. A330 captured on the gun sight of A340.

TORONTO @ NIAGARA FALLS

Entering Toronto City. The tall CN Tower can be seen from far away and something different here, all vehicles while on the road must put the headlights on either day or night.

Quite easy to drive around the city with the prominent signboards and if getting lost due to wrong turn taken, there is always an alternative routing.

The towering CN Tower, the most prominent feature in Toronto. Would like to go on top one day, just want to see Toronto from bird"s eyes view.















Niagara Fall is about 120 km to the South of Toronto. It takes about one and the half hour driving, very easy to find. It is very near to the border of Canada and USA.


Please click to my slide show to see more of Niagara Fall.




http://picasaweb.google.com/abakarhassan/NiagaraFalls?feat=directlink

THE PALM, JUMEIRAH

Empat hari off, tak ada flight, nak balik KL baru jer balik dari buat KL flight so pergi la jalan jalan ke Dubai. On the way back singgah sekejap kat The Palm and drove all the way to the end. Memang cantik dan mengkagumkan. Sempat ambil gambar kat depan Atlantis Hotel , tempatnya adalah di pucuk pokok palm itu.

FLIGHT INFORMATION

On very flight, a flight plan needs to be submitted to the relevance controller so that the Air Traffic Controllers well inform about that particular flight and aware of the aircraft position at all time. In the flight plan, the aircraft's type, colour and marking, speed, radio and emergency equipments carried, routing and flight level requested transmitted to the controlling agencies that the particular flight will overfly. Here, my flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi, with Sydney controller initially,then passed over to Melbourne, then Colombo, Manglore of India,Mumbai of India, Muscat of Oman and finally UAE.

During the flight, the progress of the flight is shown on the passengers In Flight Entertainment system at their seats.

OVER MALDIVE

These pictures taken during my flight from Abu Dhabi to Sydney yesterday. Maldives consists of 1190 islands, mainly sitting on 26 atolls. Nice view from the top and I think Dubai got the idea of making The Wold, the man made islands assembling the map of the world.

This screen showing the view using the aircraft's fixed camera . The top part is from the camera situated at the belly, looking forward and the bottom one is the view from the camera which is positioned at the the vertical tail looking downward. Other information, the aircraft's GW gross weight at that time, 329,900 kg at time 0842 UTC and the outside air temperature of -45 deg C.

ETIHAD AIRWAYS AIRBUS 340-600

Abu Dhabi will be hosting the last F1 racing for the season in 2009 . Etihad airways being the major sponsor put on the new livery to their aircraft. I will be flying this plane to London tomorrow.

The Tallest Building In The World, Burj Dubai

Visited Dubai recently. This tallest building in the word still under construction. So far the height reached 780 m, 160 storeys. The construction required at least 8500 workers.

New Year in Johannesburg

Landed at OR TAMBO International Airport , Johannesburg at 0815 am 01 Jan 2009.

Went straight to the bed after a hectic 8 hours flight from Abu Dhabi. The weather there almost similar to KL with sunny day till afternoon then follow by thunderstorm in late evening. Everything was closed on the public holiday , the only shop opened were the restaurant and fast food outlets. Met MAS cabin crew having dinner at Bullrun Restaurant, nearby my hotel, Holiday Inn.

Walked to Sandton City which is about 1 km from my hotel on the 2 nd morning and on the way stopped by at Nelson Mandela Square. The big mall at Sandton still empty but most of the shops were opened, easy for me to walk around for window shopping.