Travel Day: LA to Sydney

Hey everyone! I write this post to you in jubilation. The flight into LA was scenic; the Rockies were beautiful from 30k feet and I got to see a chunk of the Grand Canyon. Sorry, I didn’t think to snap a picture of the canyon. Maybe I’ll get it on the return trip home. This upcoming LA to Sydney leg will represent a number of firsts for me. It’s the first time I’ve been on a flight over 5 hours, the first time I’ve flown overseas, and the first time I’ll travel on an Airbus A380 Superjumbo jet. Allow me to dork out for a minute on the A380. She’s the largest and one of the newest commercial aircraft in service today. She’s been manufactured with superlight composites and alloys, cruises at 570 MPH, she’s about 50% quieter than a 747, and the Qantas liner I’ll be riding is configured to carry 450 passengers. All in all, a first rate aircraft.

The next time you hear from me I’ll be on the other side of the world doin’ what I do best: being Dan.

P.S. I hope the in flight meals are good.

*Update* I’m ten hours into the flight and all I can say is A380 = bitchin’. This plane and my current experience with Qantas air has been above and beyond my expectations. The in-flight dinner was good! I had the chicken in a brown reduction sauce, with penne noodles and a side of mixed veggies. After dinner, the attendant brought me a cute little cup of hot cocoa with a big, fluffy marshmallow in it. The seats in economy are fairly spacious and recline an adequate amount of distance. The flight attendants are friendly and host a wonderfully congenial Aussie accent. I lucked out and have two great people in my row. The first is a property manager from Las Vegas and the second is the facilities engineer down at McMurdo, so I’ll be seeing him frequently over the next few months. The A380 is also incredibly smooth and quiet. She’s to air travel what the Titanic was supposed to be to ocean liners. Now that I’ve made that claim, we’re probably going to crash into the Pacific!

Most badass of all is the LED touch screen entertainment center built into the seat. This little doohickey is loaded with over 100 movies (I watched Terminator: Salvation), TV shows like Top Gear, The Office and Mythbusters, radio stations, a Lonely Planet guide to key cities across the world, news channels, games and innumerable other features. The coolest features are the flight path function that shows our aircraft’s real-time position in our journey and there is also a closed-circuit camera built into the tail that gives the passenger an above aircraft view of the flight in progress. Totally bad ass.

Oh, and in the morning the attendants hand out hot towels to help get the juices flowing again.

Music tidbit: I bought the new Air album, Love 2, before I left. It’s good.