"It was just one of those days."
It was just one of those days again.....in a good way.
Like so many mornings in the airline game it began in a hotel room with an alarm clock sounding at an hour too early to accurately recall. A shower, a shave and a stealthy exit, carefully trying not to slam the door and disturb the other guests. An exchange of pleasantries and a room key to the sole staff member manning the foyer desk, before a cheerful ‘Good Morning’ to my fellow pilot. As the car makes its way to the airport along the darkened roads, we both check the latest weather and radar paints on our iPhones. What did we do before these things? In the briefing room we pore over the detailed weather and ‘Notices to Airmen’ before ordering our fuel load, passing through security and finally walking out to our aircraft sitting quietly on the tarmac.
The control tower was still asleep as we brought the Boeing to life for the day and then passengers started to climb aboard. A few more calculations and then the ‘tower’ was open for business. We received our ‘airways clearance’ from the chirpy Air Traffic Controller and I’m sure that I could smell coffee on his voice. The runway lights were on, the sun was threatening to rise in the east and we were all ready to go. Engines started; we’re on our way.
Climbing out from Hobart, the darkness grew deeper very early in the flight as we entered a low layer of cloud. Some thousands of feet later the cloud began to glow and then I was in clear air with a line of bright orange sunrise back over my shoulder. The brilliance only lasted a few minutes, before once again the cloud consumed the aircraft and held it in its grasp until 30,000 feet. By then we had well and truly set course for Melbourne and a solid white blanket lay below us. Thirty minutes later and we were over Bass Strait with the thrust levers closing to initiate our descent into the Victorian capital.
Not much was happening on this sleepy Sunday morning, so Air Traffic Control instructed us to fly a straight line at our maximum speed to join final for the northern runway; an instruction that we happily complied with. As the cloud thinned out the coastline lay below and we shadowed the waterline with the high-rise of the city looming ahead and out to our right hand side. This stretch of coast was familiar to me as I had dawdled along it during my fund-raising flight around Australia in 2010. At that time I was flying at 120 knots and around 1,500 feet, now I was on descent from the flight levels at 320 knots. Still, from the higher vantage point I could pick out various features and mentally retrace my steps.
The view as we passed Melbourne’s skyline was beautiful as we began to decelerate. The early morning sun silhouetted the buildings without affording the full detail of colour. But there was colour; seven or eight dots of colour. In the stillness of the early morning air, a sea of hot air balloons silently drifted into the sun’s earliest rays and was illuminated by its light. They appeared to be untethered lanterns welcoming the day from on high. It was spectacular.
We continued on and landed at Melbourne, but after such a breathtaking start to the day, the latter phase of the flight could not compete as a spectacle. The flight deck truly is the best seat in the house and I treasure every day I spend there. Every day offers something new, so really, today was just another one of those days.....but in a good way.
Title Image supplied by "Picture This Ballooning."
