| Date | Airline | Flight | Type | Regn | Routing | Time | Miles | Remarks | ||
| Back | 22 Feb 17 | RO | 392 | A318-111 | YR-ASA | LHR-OTP | 02:49 | 1426 mi | My "lifer" A318 ride | Next |
After my overnight flight to London Heathrow I rode the connections bus from T3 to T4 for my eventual afternoon departure to Bucharest Romania via Tarom. This roundtrip on Tarom was solely to fly aboard Airbus A318s...at the time the only Airbus major type I'd not flown in yet. For some reason I didn't make a point of flying aboard Frontier Airlines A318 while they were flying around the USA!!
I still haven't flown in sub-types A340-300 & A340-500. And I missed out on A320-100.
Thankfully, I'd become aware of the small indoor viewing deck in T4 a month or so earlier while looking at Google Earth. This observation area offers great north-facing views of the airport from near the arrival end of runway 27L. One drawback to this viewing deck is the thick glass which degrades photo quality somewhat like most glass does. Minimize the effect by shooting as perpendicular to the plane of glass as possible.
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I had a great 7 hours or so watching planes from this awesome venue. The iPad-type device started working in time for me to track my inbound Tarom A318 for a time whilst it was over the southern part of the North Sea and inbound over England. For a short time the flight entered a holding pattern east of London then finally it started descending for eventual arrival on 27R.
 Inbound over North Sea |
 Leaving the holding pattern |
 On the ground LHR |
 YR-ASA on short final to Runway 27R ~1.25 miles / 2 km away |
 YR-ASA taxying to the gate |
 YR-ASA at the gate |
 YR-ASA at the gate |
Once onboard I took my assigned seat: 6A. This seat was right next to the port engine so my view of the ground was blocked somewhat but it was still a great view outside.
View down LHR runway 27L as we prepare to cross enroute to 27R. Malaysian A380 about to rotate way down the runway.
My photo of chicken, vegetable and rice meal enroute to Bucharest.
Flight Aware screenshot of RO392 LHR-OTP.
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