The happy whale

I work in the defence industry and, while I haven’t flown an aircraft or entered into serious studies of aircraft engineering, I get the gist of the aerodynamic principles of lift and thrust. But I’m still a terrible flyer and have left fingernail-shaped scars in the arms of my seat neighbours when I’ve gripped anything nearby after unexpected bouts of turbulence or bumpy landings. The people in whom I’ve caused temporary hearing loss from my swear-bear outbursts of potty-mouthed language don’t count as I’m long gone before their hearing returns.

For several years I’ve wondered how on earth the A380 Airbus hauls its 560,000kg self off the ground and gets into the sky, let alone the engineering wonders of getting more than 360,000kg back on the ground without smashing the tyres and undercarriage into expensive scrap for recycling. It’s bog-ugly but really quite marvellous.

Source: Sam Chui Photos

And I must admit the plane was a smooth ride. The usual forward and aft rolls that scare the pants off me during take-off were far more subtle than other aircraft, even from the back rows of the plane where I was seated with the rest of the plebs in Qantas economy class. Banking was like taking a roundabout in a flying lounge chair with not a drop of my water in my cup disturbed.

I was seated in the aisle and a young German visitor sitting next to me was heading home. An advantage of his recent travels was that he had the entertainment screen and console sorted out and within five minutes I was scanning movies, TV shows and in-plane gaming competitions like I was a wannabe Gen-Yer with a goldfish-like attention span.

So, with 80 movies, umpteen TV series and a decent handful of documentaries to choose from, what took my fancy?

Yep, Tootsie. ‘nuf said about my mental state.

Another on-screen feature is the webcam fixed to the aircraft’s tail that provides a live feed of conditions outside. For someone like me who prefers a window seat so I can make sure the plane’s not diving to earth in a tailspin the minute I’m not paying attention, I can watch tailcam and rest assured that the plane lines up with the horizon.

The food was tasty and well-timed as well, and I was happily accommodated without asking even though electronic gremlins had killed off my vegetarian meal request.  A lot of complaints have been made about Qantas service in online news commentary in recent months, but I have been impressed consistently by the level of service during my last few trips.

The poor cousin whale

The second (and longest) leg of my travel was from Singapore to Frankfurt onboard Lufthansa’s version of the same aircraft. My impression is that too much project money went into purchasing aircraft and not enough into fitting them out with crap bought on eBay. The TV screens randomly turned themselves on every half an hour during the night, waking anyone within several metres of the glaring light they emitted. The flight data information wasn’t working and with my watch in Singapore time and my brain in Melbourne time, I just couldn’t extrapolate the right arrival time in Germany on a big scrap of paper and a quickly hand-drawn map of time zones to guess in how many hours I’d be off the damn plane. I’d have asked the staff but there were none to be found. I may have also chugged down some Xanax after the tribulations of getting through Changi airport which didn’t help my maths or timezone map drawing one iota. When I finally dozed and woke, I found some penned scrawl on my hand so it seems I missed the paper for some calculations.

Prior to boarding the plane and with another four hundred people queuing to enter the flight lounge for the flight from Changi to Frankfurt, I had no time for anything but to source a boarding pass and freshen up in the toilet. After being coated in another layer of sweat from dashing between terminals on a train and more long walks to flight lounges, I couldn’t give the toilet evaluation system anything lower than a rating of ‘excellent’. If there was a sixth option of “I f**king love your dunnies to death and you’ve made me feel half-way human again,” I’d have picked that one.

Some TV shows on Lufthansa were on offer but they were one randomly-chosen single episodes of quality programs such as Two Broke Girls. Unlike Qantas, there were no USB ports or power sources to use electrical devices and the downlights were like interrogation beacons so I didn’t dare leave mine on to read in case I woke dozens of my surrounding neighbours.

I also think the call for assistance button was broken as I pressed and waited 50 minutes without luck for a cup of water. Finally, an hour later when a flight attendant walked past with a tray of drinks, I took three cups of water and ignored her stunning Teutonic glare that I dared take more than my fair share. (Lufthansa flight lounges don’t have shops once passengers have been through the x-ray trauma again so I couldn’t buy a bottle to take onboard.)

After 13 hours of being locked in the poor cousin flying humpback whale, I was deliriously joyous seeing that the tailcam was now functioning. The ground! A terminal! Only another hour until we can sort our shit out enough to get off! Little did I know then that nearly all of the two-and-a-half hours I had to get to my domestic flight in the same terminal with the same airline would be taken with more queuing with slow people but at least I was in the country and everything else was sure to go to plan …

 Crank-o-meter: tired and sweaty

One of the things I dislike about the impressive speed of aircraft is the corresponding slowness about everything associated with getting on and off a plane.

On Saturday I arrived at Tullamarine with more than the recommended two hours to spare so I could sort out check-in, slow people in queues, quarantine, more slow people in queues, immigration, more slow people in queues, the plane boarding process and the same bloody slow people in queues who hadn’t learned to move faster after several practice attempts.

I dunno, I haven’t travelled overseas since 1996 and am a bit out of the loop, but I spent 10 minutes on the Qantas web site sussing out what I can and can’t take on the plane and how to sort my stuff for the x-ray inspections: all crap on your person gets put through the machine, laptops have to be removed from their bags and anything in a liquid form must be in containers of less than 100 millilitres to a maximum of one litre and stuffed in a clear baggy. Easy.

I was walking laps around the shops to ease my pre-flight stress when my flight was called early. I assumed the early call meant processing delays so I went through the point of no return doors at quarantine and saw an existing queue of about 300 people. I did some quick maths and 300 divided by four x-ray machines added with a factor of slow people with pockets full of stuff and riffling in their bags while holding up the process meant I’d possibly not make the flight even though I had 90 minutes up my sleeve.

Finally, I passed the official processes and stood in a clear area of corridor feeling proud of the fact that there was nothing between me and the ugliest plane ever built (the Airbus A380, otherwise known as The Humpback Whale with Wings). Then the realisation dawned that I didn’t know where to find the plane. The people who cleared immigration before me were huddling together and appeared to be part of a tour group and the people behind me were all slow f**kers so I couldn’t follow them to the aircraft.

No signage was visible to indicate the gate lounges so I wandered towards the second-brightest set of lights I’ve ever been dazzled by (only the Crown Casino poker machine rooms could top this shiny and flashing extravagance of electricity wastage). Before me was a mecca of duty-free shopping with everything from gadgets I didn’t know I needed to stonking great bottles of booze (boy, did I feel like downing the mega-bottle of vodka there and then) but I still couldn’t see a sign indicating the direction of the flight lounges.

I saw a pilot in uniform and asked, “Is this an airport or a shopping mall?”

He raised his eyebrows and replied, “This is a shopping mall that occasionally has planes attached.”

I walked for what seemed like two kilometres and finally found the flight lounge. Even though I was stressed, tired and sweating from lugging my carry-on bag and work laptop computer, this modern-day trek was nothing compared with the hour it took to get 400 people in their allocated seats on the plane. Again, I dunno, how about fill the plane from the back to the front, window and centre seats first and then the aisles won’t be blocked with people in the front rows stashing their gear while the next 70-odd rows of people stand waiting? We humans are clever enough to engineer flying humpback whales but still resort to antiquated and inefficient ways of filling them.