Background

Back in February, I started studying gravitation in school, and the topic of Shuttle Launches came up, which got me pondering. How amazing would it be to witness first hand a Shuttle launch, in Florida. So I suggested it to my parents, as an idea for our last "family"holiday so to speak, as I am moving out to college next year. We picked our hotel and carhire, and were stumped with the flights. We had a three way dilemma. My mother wanted to go direct, with Aer Lingus, for abour 2900 Euro rtn.; My dad wanted to go the cheapest way, with US Airways, for 2500 Euro rtn., via. PHL; and I wanted to fly with Delta, for 2,700 Euro rtn., via ATL both ways. Eventually we settled on DL and picked the following flights from the vast selection:

July 25th
DL 165 DUB-JFK Boeing 767-400ER
DL 79 JFK-MCO MD 88

August 8th
DL 176 MCO-ATL-DUB 752/76G

Flight 1 of 4 - Delta 165 - Sunday July 25th 2010

Airline: Delta Air Lines
Flight: 165
Aircraft: Boeing 767-432ER
Registration: N845MH (Breast Cancer Research Foundation)
Statistics: 3rd flight on this type, 1st on this aircraft
Cabin Class: Economy - Y
Seat: 27G (Window, two rows infront of door 3R)
Departs (Schd/Act): 12:30pm/12:30pm
Arrives (Schd/Act): 2:50pm/2:25pm
Flying time (Announced/Act): 6 hours 48 minutes / 6 hours 55 minutes

The day before departure, I attempted to check-in online, at delta.com. I had done this once before, on a trip back from Myrtle Beach, SC, and had no problems what so ever. I had other errands to run so I let my mother try it. When I returned I learned that the flight was overbooked, and that volunteers would be sought at the airport, to be re-booked on later flights. My parents, wanting to avoid this, decided it would be best to be at the airport about 8:45am, to try and get there before volunteers would be needed. This plan worked, and we arrived at the airport at around 8:40am, greeted by a crowd of people, waiting for either the AA flight to ORD, or the US flight to PHL. We headed down to Area 13, to be greeted by the highly organized Delta area, completely deserted. All the desks were still for DL 177 to ATL, which was about to close, but we were told that we could check in for DL 165 if we wanted. We already had our seat assignments, and within a few minutes, I left my parents, who had wanted to go upstairs to get breakfast, and headed through security to do some spotting. Some nice traffic at DUB that morning.

N1604R, heading to ATL.


EC-LEY, of Swift Air, heading to...somewhere. Must check this one out.


OY-RJF, of Cimber Air heading to Billund. There were a lot of people from the flight from BLL connecting to either JFK or ORD that morning.


There she is. N845MH arriving 10 minutes late from JFK. There was a buzz around at the windows of the 300 gates. Airport staff wanted to see the special pink plane arriving. I think it was only in DUB once, in June sometime.

View of ship 1821 from the walkway to the old "C" gates.


I soon went down through the US CBP, after meeting my parents filling out the forms. It is very handy only having to fill out the customs form now, the ESTA online form depleting the need for the I-94 form. Twenty minutes later, we're now at gate 303, waiting to be called for boarding. They began boarding at around 11:55am. They started as usual, with Zone 1, MQM Platinum, Gold and so on, and pax. With small children and passengers needing extra time to board. At 12:10pm zones 3 and 4 were called and the scrum began. The Serviceair staff, I thought, didn't make an effort to control passengers and soon there was a sea of DL passengers all over the cramped gate area, trying to get onboard. This fiasco over, we were greeted at the door by a friendly American flight attendant, and we went to our seats. We had to pass through Biz. Elite class on the way, which didn't have the new Lie-Flat seats, making sense considering we wern't in LHR! I soon found 27G, with another friendly female flight attendant at door 3R, overseeing the process. The crew today were 8 strong, all young bar one, who was an airline veteran for 40 years. 6 female and two male, the latter of which were in J for the entire flight. Soon enough everyone was on board, and it seemed like seconds later we began our push back, at bang on 12:30pm.

Soon enough, the CF6 engines were started up, and the flaps deployed.


The pilot then came over the PA, while we waited for some traffic to pass by on the taxiway. He told us we'd be very quick today, 6 hours and 48 minutes. He said there was a very short taxiway and we'd be airbourne withing a few minutes. He then asked the flight attendants to prepare the cabin for departure and told us he'd be back in touch with route information. Promptly we started towards runway 28 and were number 1 for departure within a minute or two, joined by an EI 320 behind us. We were only waiting for a RE ATR42 to land and then it was us. The brakes were taken off when the little ATR floated over us and we slowly moved onto 28. Less than 30 seconds later the engines got going, and we did a very powerful rolling take off. We used about 70% of the runway to get off the ground, I thing rotation was just after taxiway E5. We blasted off into the sky, through the clouds, turning right and then left again, to head out towards Galway and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean, as is usual for America-bound runway 28 departures. The AVOD system seemed to activate just as he put on full thrust.

Take off Video - 720p HD

The AVOD system was the Panasonic eFX system, which is seeming extremely popular with airlines now. I know into Dublin alone, EI, DL, CO and I think the XM equipped AC airplanes use it. It has a few flaws, so I've heard with freezing and crashing but for me, I've had over 30 hours of flight time with the system, no problems to report. There was a wide wide range of movies, TV shows, HBO shows, CDs and Games but as you can guess, I had the Moving Map on most of the flight. After 5 minutes, we hit 10,000 feet and the crew got to work. We were told we'd get a beverage service, with a range of Coca Cola products, all free and the usual wine, beer and the sorts. I got a cup of Coke Zero, hoping to savour it, as the American Coke Zero compared to the Irish one, is...a word I can't use here! Lol. While that was going on, the captain told us of our route. Standard TA route: out over Galway, over the ocean for alomst 4 hours, then over North East Canada, past Halifax and down over Maine, passing Portland, Providence, Boston and decending out over Long Island and turning back in to JFK. Our initial altitude was FL320, but we'd climb if we hit rough air over Canada (that is not a big if). Anyway about two hours into the flight, dinner was served. We had a choice of either Chicken Risotto or Pasta something or other. I chose the former and it was delicious. It was served with the usual - bread roll, butter, cheese, crackers, chocolate bar, and a tossed salad consisting of lettuice, cucumber and tomato. I finished everything there, and no complaints. Yet another beverage service was offered. After this, I settled in to watch some movies. I watched Leap Year and the start of Valentines Day, an episode of Cougar Town, and a Louis Theroux documentary. I got some photos in flight.
The beautiful wing and raked wingtip.


The moving map system and the AVOD system menu.



Here's why I love people who don't close their window blinds - the glow of pink on the panelling in the cabin from the engines.


Obligatory cabin shot, with the crew on the other side just starting another beverage service. The one in the red one piece uniform (which might I add is my favourite FA uniform I've ever seen!) was the one at 3R on boarding, and the one with her back to the camera was the one greeting at the door. The glow is also present in this photo


The view I had of the engine.


Not long after that, the Duty Free service began, I didn't buy anything. The time, pardon the pun, flew today for some reason, which is odd for me as TA flights usually drag for me. We hit rough turbulence, as usual, over Canada and it kept up over Maine and northen Mass.. Soon enough, we had 2 hours left to go, and the crew got to work again, distributing pizzas, and ice cream which were nice, but nothing to write home about. We soon made a right turn between Boston and Providence. We began our initial descent with about 55 minutes to go, and made our way over Long Island, NY.


Spoilers deployed


We turned out to sea again, but turned back in again, making course for 22R


The gear was lowered, the flaps extended fully and the flight attendants made one last sweep of the cabin, a little late I thought in relation to the flight as we were coming through 1800 feet when they sat down, is that normal?

On finals


Video of approach - 720p HD
Video of landing & Taxi in - 720p HD

Touchdown, approximately 2:25pm EST on runway 22R, behind a DL 333 and 744.
We used no reverse thrust (to my knowledge, there was no loud noise like last time or nothing. The glow didn't seem to change shape either, could be wrong) and heavy, heavy autobrakes. The plane seemed to keep pulling to the right, probably the rudder movements.


We taxied in past the B6 hangar, and past a rare Uzbekistan 763 which I thought was a nice treat. We passed a VS 346, with "No Way BA/AA titles", who still had his flaps deployed for some reason. MX maybe? We pulled into Terminal 4, gate 24 beside a QR 77L, which was just in from DOH. There was a LOT of crew on that plane, about 15 Flight Attendants and 4 flight crew, maybe 5. There was the DL 744 from NRT, that landed before us, parked behind us at T3, the old TWA terminal.




Bye bye pink engine!


We headed towards door 1L, but not without taking two J Amenity Kits that weren't taken. One slightly used, and one still in it's plastic wrapping. Oops...
We disembarked and headed straight to baggage claim, and Customs. We made it through security an hour later. One comment on T3. It is seriously, seriously outdated. It needs to be improved vastly, and now. I know DL is planning it and that's all well and good but the sooner the better, seriously. It was cramped, and showing it's age. We headed to gate 29 for our MCO flight, as the bad weather started to set in.....

End of part one, of four. Part two will include flight DL 79, from JFK to MCO in an MD 88.