Trip Report: CBR-SYD-CBR

[Snorzac]

This trip was what the last one was supposed to be for! An airside tarmac tour, after getting confirmation that I had a booking for the tour I jumped at the opportunity to fly to Sydney once again. Cheap flights from both airlines, once again I went with Qantas to Sydney and Virgin back. Impressed with both airlines this time.
CBR-SYD 05/06/2010
Flight: QF560                    Aircraft: 737-800
Rego: VH-VXP                    Name: Logan                   
Seq: 1                               Gate: 11                           
STD: 0645                         ATD: 0650                       
STA: 0735                         ATA: 0730
Seat: 18F

Leaving home early I made my way to the airport arriving at about 0520 just as my travel partner for the day Ed arrived with Qantas employee 'Sir Pompously'. After having our boarding passes were re-printed I found that our seats had been moved, something that did not surprise me as our aircraft had been upgraded to the newer version of the 737, something I was happy about.After clearing security I proceeded to gate 11 only to find that the aircraft was VH-VXP, 'Logan' the only Australian registered 737-800 I had been on, no new regos this morning.


After sitting around for a while boarding was called and we proceeded down the aero bridge and onto the aircraft.VH-VXP getting stocked up for the flight.After sitting down I plugged in my head phones and listened to some music while we waited for our push back.  Before puching back we were de-iced.





Push back was a little late and we made our way down to the end of runway 35 for a brief takeoff roll followed by a brief climb out.








The crew immediately began serving a snack as the plane climbed to it's cruise on the short flight, this morning it was a blueberry muffin and a bottle of juice. The muffin was alright but the snacks on the QFlink services are much better.


Just after the snack was served we commenced our decent into Sydney, today heading for runway 16R. A full landing video can be seen below, landing was very smooth.


Taxi to the gate was quick and we were at the gate a few minutes a head, after this we rushed off to our spotting location for the A380 departures.

Qantas 737-800 Landing in Sydney

more to come!

[Sir Pompously]

Yes, you get no Tea/Coffee service on Q Mainline between CBR-SYD and vv, aswell as no softdrink 'Bar' service. On QLink, you get the Bar service aswell as Tea and Coffee should time and weather permit. That is why I like travelling on the Dash 8!

[Snorzac]

The Tarmac Tour
After a few hours spotting and some breakfast we headed to the REX gates for our tour of Sydney Airport. After about 45 minutes waiting we were picked up by the tour bus and we boarded the bus. We drove around the airport for about 2 hours learning many things and seeing many things not usually seen, highlights included the Qantas Jet base and having an Airbus A330 pass 20 metres over our small bus. Unfortunately photography was not permitted on the tour. What a great tour though, I cannot believe they are being forced to close at the end of the month. What a shame 

[Snorzac]

SYD-CBR
Flight: DJ672                       Aircraft: Embraer 190-100LR
Rego: VH-ZPJ                      Name: Bambino Blue
Seq: 6                                 Gate: 39
STD: 2035                           ATD: 2039
STA: 2125                           ATA: 2110
Seat: 12F (Exit Row)
 
After a great day in Sydney we mad our way back to the airport from Campie which is where we ended up, conveniently located along the route 400. On route to the airport we made a brief stop at the International terminal where we went to the observation deck for a few minutes.

Although we were already checked in we made our way to the check in desk to see if we could get an exit row, somewhere we could have a bit more space, what luck, we got it. After getting our boarding passes we went over to T3 to meet 'busn00b' who was on his way to Brisbane. After a nice dinner we walked back to T2 with an hour and a half to go before the flight.

After watching part of the Wallabies match (or as the shitty subtitles said Estonians vs Israelis) our flight was called for boarding. A quick briefing from the cabin crew on how to operate the exit and we were all good, our aircraft Bambino Blue was pushed back and started.

We literally had a 30 second taxi and we were holding short of runway 16R for our departure. After an arriving aircraft touched down we lined up with the centre line and those wonderful little engines on the E-Jet powered up. After one very quick roll we were airborne over Botany Bay. A few quick turns and the seat belt  sign was turned off.

Cabin crew came through and did their service, I got cheese and biscuits and lemonade, my standard Virgin Blue meal. After a brief cruise we descended into Canberra landing on runway 35 about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Landing was a little turbulent followed by some very strong braking, exiting the runway just after the intersection, a brief taxi down to gate 5 and we were off the aircraft.

To sum up it was a great day, I will be going to Sydney by air in the near future and I can't wait!Thanks for reading!