Greetings from 39,000 feet above the Pacific. No, I did not fall off he face of the earth, in fact I am presently returning from Honolulu on board a 777, but it has been too long since my last column. The second half of the summer flew right by and the start of the new school year kept me busy with my “day job.” Now it’s time to get back to writing about travel. Upcoming columns will focus on the Hawaii hotel and visiting experience and staying at a bed and breakfast as a lodging alternative.

What follows are a couple of updates to previous columns and a few travel tidbits.

Follow up and correction to- “How to Tell a 737…”-

In the September edition of Conde’ Naste Traveler magazine, there is a short and helpful piece in the "Stop the Press" section on seating and other plane pluses/minuses. It was gratifying to see that my own observations were quite similar to those of the Conde’ Naste writer.

While reading the September 29 edition of the Wall Street Journal I realized I had left out one of the major airplane models- the MD11. After finishing the article perhaps it is not such a bad thing that it was off the original list. The plane, originally conceived and built by McDonnell Douglas and later by Boeing (when it acquired MD), was an update to the DC-10. In fact to the casual observer it is rather difficult to tell the two planes apart*. Click on the link for each plane and see if you can guess which is which (answer at the end of the column- no scrolling down!) Plane 1, Plane 2. However, according to the WSJ article, changes made to the length and controls of the plane have made it one of the most unwieldy to fly and American carriers are phasing them out of their fleet, perhaps one of the shortest production runs ever for a modern jet. The MD11’s safety record (as measured in hull losses per million departures) places it at the bottom of the list with a rating of 6.54. Compare this to the 737 3-5 series with 0.39 rating and the models that have no hull losses (A340, A330, 777, 737NG & 717) and the MD11 is not a particularly attractive option.

The inside scoop on your flight’s progress, now coming to a headset near you-

Ever been stuck on the tarmac for a REALLY long time and wondered what possibly could be holding things up? Well some pilots** are now giving passengers an opportunity to “listen in” to their communications with Air Traffic Control for the real deal on what is going on in the cockpit by turning to channel “9” on the plane's in-flight audio system. The ability to eavesdrop on the conversations with the controllers was never more welcome than on a return trip this summer from JFK to LAX. After pushing back from the gate about 10 minutes late (an “on-time” departure by airline industry standards), we headed toward the runways and then for the next 2.5 HOURS literally drove around the airport, in a Que. of over 50 planes all taking off on one runway. An incredibly frustrating experience to say the least but tempered somewhat by being able to hear the pilot/ATC conversation. First, it provided an explaination- weather forced the closure of all but one runway and we were leaving a the same time as virtually every European overnight flight. Equally important and gratifying was knowing that the airport control tower was moving planes just as fast and as safely as it could with a take off every 30 seconds. Those two bits of info helped to temper what was otherwise a really awful night.

Now you might be saying why would I ever want to know that much? Well granted I am way more interested in planes than the average traveler but the ability to track the flight’s progress is a welcome diversion during flight. Most communication is short, clipped and strictly to the point- "United 21 Heavy, descend and maintain one-two zero (12 thousand feet)" but occasionally you do get the unexpected comment or exchange. On channel 9 I have heard-

"Can you believe all the traffic heading outbound on I40 tonight?!"
"You should have been up here last night! It was rockin' and rollin' for 100 miles in any direction."

So the next time you're flying, see if channel 9 is available and give it a try. You just might get hooked!

**It is the pilots discretion whether to make ATC communications available. I hear it about 65% of the time on my flights.

A Must See!-

If you've ever been driving past LAX and had a jumbo jet pass over your head so close you thought you could touch it, then you've got to see 405 The Movie! It's only three minutes long and currently only available on the Internet (a VHS version is coming soon) but it is well worth the download time. The creators have received a lot of positive feedback and even inked a production development deal (in classic Hollywood fashion) so if you like planes, are a commuter or just really like cool visual effects then you'll watch this one over and over...