jeez sounds like i should... hopefully ill be going again next week and i'll get better photos. i dont have the camera at the moment but when i find it ill put the photos on, so PHOTOS COMING SOON
Well im not one for 'exactness' in stuff like this, But ZK-VAC is a Dash 8-100, ex NEZ from Ansett, therefore it has four extra seats in the back, making it a 40 seater. There were four of us on board including the two pilots, the ops manager, and me. I was lucky because the only reason they stopped in Wellington was to offload some seats, leaving three rows in the back. it really ian't that easy trying to get about 7 pairs of seats through a passenger door, but we did it, with
almost no damage to the inside of the cabin. the majority of the floor was laid out with plastic sheeting and then plastic crates, the crates being there to get some air flowing though the boxes of chicks piled 6 high once they were loaded in chch. It was a fairly uneventful flight to christchurch except for the short takeoff as we were nearly empty. i didn't see much on the way down because i was busy getiing the strops ready to put over the boxes. after landing in a fairly quiet Christchurch with some low cloud at about 10:30 (from memory) the tegel truck turned up. i dont think anything prepared me for the sound those chicks made. loading all 25,000 of them was slow to say the least, but eventually we got it done and took off at about 11:25, with 3pob as the ops manager had left us in NZCH. We tracked to New Plymouth via Nelson at 17,000 passing directly over egmont in our descent. during the flight, i went back to the galley from the jump seat to get a photo and check on our passengers, and even with the air conditioning at almost full cold it must have been close to 40 degrees in the middle of the boxes. once we passed through all the cloud we found ourselves straight above NZNP , so we did a left base to rwy 05 i think it was... it was slightly cooler unloading the chicks in New Plymouth as there was some light rain, but i had the harder job, taking all 250 boxes with 100 chicks in each in loads of 2 from the cabin to the door. it was easy to start off with, but once i got further aft, it got harder and hotter
The three of us had a snack at New Plymouth and i even got a discount because i was wearing my hi vis jacket B) so there you go, if your 14 and you want cheaper food at the cafe, wear a hi vis jacket, it may even pay to get a couple of guys to dress in pilots unifroms too
. we had a great trip back, with nice weather and i remember the water over the sounds looking exactly like the plasticky sort of water on fsx. after a couple of beers (of course!
) there was another half hour of putting the seats back in in the rain, but it was well worth it.
if i manage to get on another flight ill take some better photos and write down important stuff like cruise heights, times, rwys etc
thanks for reading, and because this is my first report constructive criticism appreciated.
Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 8:56 pm
