Morning Express in the Alps!

[CAY792-William]

Well hello again!

Its been a while since I last talked to you! Nice break away from the norm then but back to work!

Come join in with me then on a short chilly flight then on our EuroCay flight from our base in Chambery to the BA Fortress of London Heathrow!
Our flight today was an early start for us! The flight was an early morning 8am departure to take our travelers up to LHR today and luckily for them, you can show up just an hour before departure! Unlike me and the co-pilot who had been at the airport since 6am to get all the paper work and flight planning all sorted out for our journeys today to and from LHR!
We had plenty of time and even though the weather was wet here at Chambery it looked fairly dry up in London, however, I have learnt never to trust a weather man in the UK for weather! Best to play it by ear!

Our Aircraft today is the very nice Embraer E-170 which is a fantastic aircraft! Anyone who loves the small commuter jets and is looking at getting a add-on for one, the Wilco E-Jets is just a good grab! Nice Cockpit, good FMC, the works!
Our aircraft today was F-GUER which I believe is our only E-170 over here at the moment, and is a great aircraft and no problems! We headed out to our aircraft and she was already powered up by our ground crew here so she was already warm and the systems were warming up! As it was raining I let the co-pilot get his round in of the ground inspection while I sorted out our cockpit for today’s flights! (the joy of being the PIC when it’s time to choose what to do when its raining!).


Our Bird with all the gear up and ready to go.
As I was in the cockpit, our two lovely stewardesses joined us and were as usual, very chatty women! Over here at EuroCay, the ladies are always up to top notch and im sure its another reason why so many people (many men) choose to fly EuroCay!

There was to be a near full load on the flight today and boarding began just half an hour before our scheduled block off time and being a small flight with not too many bags to load, it was plenty of time for our flight today.
We soon were ready to go so the doors were all shut and secured and we began to call for our ATC clearance and start up



The equipment being removed just before we can get our engines all started up.



Our man Fred on the ground standing out in the weather just making sure that its clear for us to start and get on our way. Anyone notice some odd stuff here? Small airport Chambery is remember!



With the engines started we made our way out to RWY36. The winds were forcasting at 180 at 08 kts!

However due to restrictions with all the mountains around, departures cannot be done via RWY18. Its very odd indeed considering there is a procedure to land on rwy36, nothing is done for departures on 18!



Fred gave us the “finger” to show that the aircraft was good to go and that no obstructions were around that would hinder the aircraft so we throttled up and set the aircraft for her departure.



I have never understood why the Olympic Rings are on the apron here at Chambery, I guess it has something to maybe do with old Winter Olympic games…. Perhaps!



As it was raining, I switched on the weather radar and gave it some time to warm up before we took off as I wanted to make sure that on the departure, there wasn’t going to be any big cells that we may need to avoid to make sure that we provide the smoothest ride available for our passengers.



The Tower gave us clearance to line up and wait on the runway. As it was a departure with the wind, I decided to backtrack and make use of all the available runway that Chambery has to offer! On a Normal day with the wind coming in from the North, I would happily take the intersection and just run on down, but today, better to be safe than sorry!



Looking down the runway and now with the weather radar active, I can see that straight ahead is a small rain cloud but it looks like its not going to be in our way as we will probably be above it by the time we get over to it. With our Takeoff Clearance we issued the power to the engines and began our journey…



Heading on our way and giving the runway a good cleaning with our small power jets!



Airborne with plenty of runway to spare even with the tail wind!



Climbing out of Chambery, it’s a great little airport and some fantastic scenery by Franc VFR! A very good purchase! Thumbup!
Soon we cleared the weather and was shown the beauty of Dawn during winter time here in Europe, you get some great colours due to the long sunrise with it being so far south!







Making a right turn on course now. Still this wonderful colours coming from the rising sun….





As it is winter time over here in Europe, you can never be too careful with the Icing issues, here is a little EICAS message just to inform us that the auto Anti-Ice is on due to probably some icing on the leading edges of the wing as we climb up through some clouds. It is a misconception that Icing only happens in the colder climates! In fact across the whole world at any place, Icing can occur on an aircraft! It normally occurs around 7000-13000ft anywhere you have precipitation so it’s always a good thing to have on aircraft that would fly up and beyond these altitudes.



The Sun making its very slow climb out for today’s daylight. During the middle of winter, up in these areas you may only get 7 hours of Sunlight a day! If we were to go just 500 miles north of here, can be down to 4 hours a day! Just a bit up beyond that, you’re into the Arctic Circle, where any geography person knows, its dark 24hours a day!

Our cruise was not that long of one, our two fine ladies in the back were serving up the usual goodies that EuroCay has to offer our clients! Nice warm pastries and jam for our flights departing France with a good cup of coffee, and on the return flight the optional English breakfast would be offered along with a good strong cup of tea!

As we crossed the French Coast we were handed over to London Center and began the long tiresome process of fighting for an arrival slot today into Heathrow!

In fact due to the weather being very clear and just a bit chilly, they were not showing any delays for us and we were given descent via the arrival chart which today was the BIG3B arrival.



Descending over the greater London area.
As it’s a normally very busy time in the cockpit there wasn’t much done apart from follow the instructions handed to us by London Control and just making sure that the aircraft was ready for landing. The winds were favoring a 27L arrival so the aircraft was set up for the runways.

Heathrow has some of the largest runways and so there was no need today to worry about any braking restrictions today! In fact the boys down at maintenance prefer the use of just spoilers here and a touch of reverse for most of the braking so it expands the life of the brakes onboard our aircraft! We are very keen to keep the costs down here and so we try where possible to keep the life of our parts here longer than say some other airlines!



Making a right turn to proceed up to pick up the LOC for rwy27L, as it was a very good day, we were going to be flying a visual approach for most of the way, however in London, with all the traffic they really prefer that you fly instruments until on final.



Picking up the LOC, anybody see the field???



Gear down, and with us fully established, we were handed over to Heathrow Tower, also instructed to keep the speed up as most as possible due to traffic behind us!



Very short final now for rwy27L. It is around here that the BA 777 had its unfortunate event last year while on approach and landed short of the runway. Luckily the crew were able to make a great “ditching” landing and save all the lives onboard!! Even if some are now trying to sue BA for trauma, they should be smacked in the head as they could be dead! Beggers cant be choosers is what I say!

Also in the background is the massive fortress of BA maintenance where a lot of their aircraft go for C and D checks. Only the 747s and 777s head over to Cardiff for those major checks!



Touchdown here at LHR on a beautiful morning, albeit a bit chilly but still, no rain so cant complain!

We quickly vacated the runway and made our way over to the ground frequency where we were instructed to follow Taxiway Alpha all the way around to our T1 spot today!



A view of T3 and the new LHR tower!



On a real day, this is where you would find the A380 Whale jets of Singapore, Emirates and Qantas all parked up! Unfortunately my scenery doesn’t show the 3rd air bridge used for the upper deck!



Making our way past what use to be BA’s Terminal 1 European gates. This is now where United fly out from!



May not seem like much here but the boxed area is where BA use to sit their last Concorde that is at LHR for a while. She use to sit here while T5 was being built as there were plans that she would get her new home inside there, however due to T5 being more of a shopping mall now, she is now just left at the engine bay area where she just sits and looks very sad….. Im kind of annoyed how BA are just pushing their once pride of the fleet to just sit in the maintenance area and not be on display. They should put her near the Entrance to T5 like Air France did with one of their birds at Charles De Gaulle!



We were soon in out alleyway and parked into gate 102. This is actually where BMI use to do their Domestics out of but I think that has changed (I don’t know fully as I haven’t flown BMI in 10 years!)
Also notice the gate parking system telling me how far to the left or right of center I am and distance to go till we need to stop!



We were soon parked up and engines were shut down. The air bridge is making its way across to our door to allow of passengers to head off onto either another flight, or into London via the Heathrow Express to do some business or even some shopping!



Interesting gate here as if you don’t line up properly, then it can’t pivot to get to the door! Nassau have a similar gate system with their air bridges.

Well that’s it folks! Hope you enjoyed the trip up to LHR today with us, its been a pleasure having you onboard with us today and we look forward to seeing you on one of our next flights here at Flycay/Americay/Eurocay!
Thanks for reading!

[CAY253- Guy]

Excellent report! LOL at the 747 parking mark at Chambery, Easter Egg perhaps? What LHR scenery are you using, UK2000 or Aerosoft?

[CAY792-William]

Thanks Guy!

Lol i think they took it from another scenery and didnt realise!

Also the LHR is Aerosoft with AES!

I looked at both of them and i just thought the Aerosoft looked the better of the 2


Edited now to show the correct photo and not the duplicate!

[CAY029- Pierre]

Excellent trip report, and beautiful pictures. Was very interesting, and great job typing it up!

One thing: The slow sunrise is because they're so far north, not south. And only latitude 90 doesn't get sun all winter, the artic circle itself just doesn't have any sun for 24 hours on December 21st.

[CAY408- Ralph]

Nicely done Will I Am.
Great pics.

[CAY792-William]

Thanks for your feedback!

Pierre, i what i meant about being south was that the sun was south! I know that Europe is in the Norhtern Hemisphere and that in Winter we get shorter days due to the earths axis and in relation to the sun during the winter period, the sun is farther south in the sky for us.
ou are right about the artic circle tho, i beleive that on the 20th of December the sun is around for only 1 minute!

[CAY029- Pierre]

Ah, alright!

[CAY036- Moses]

Awesome report William. I always love the approach into Chambery.

[CAY102- Jon]

Lovely report, thanks for sharing with us!