flying – awordfromjapan

We arrived back in Japan this morning. We flew from Dublin to Amsterdam yesterday morning with KLM and then on to Kansai airport (Osaka).

As I was considered to be a returning resident, I was able to join a short “re-entry” line at immigration and was processed through quickly, which was welcome after the long flight.

There are a number of options for flying from Dublin to Kansai, the cheapest and shortest of which is usually KLM/Air France via Amsterdam or Paris. With a very tight transfer of 45 minutes in Amsterdam, you can do the whole journey in a little over 13 hours. (Our luggage didn’t make the transfer, but it will be delivered tomorrow, and on the good side we didn’t have to manage it on the train and the bus.)

It’s a journey I’ve made many times over the last 15 years or so, and this time something very unusual happened – we flew over North Korea.

The shortest route from western Europe to Japan follows a great circle routing that looks something like this:

(These photos are taken from the flight information screen of KLM’s in-flight entertainment system).

The initial heading is approximately north-easterly, typically overflying Denmark, southern Sweden and southern Finland or Estonia, before spending many hours (the majority of the flight) flying over the vast and mostly empty expanse of Russia.

But it’s the detail of what happens at the other end – the last few hours of flight – that has changed over the years. I don’t know why.

Until just a few years ago, the plane always took a more northerly heading, seemingly avoiding Chinese airspace until arriving at the Pacific coast, and then take a sharp right turn to fly south over Japan to Osaka.

Then, a few years ago for the first time, the planes started to take a more southerly (and more direct) route. This route cuts across Mongolia and the deserts of northern China, passing directly over Beijing before crossing South Korea en route to Osaka. It seemed, however, that North Korean airspace remained “off-limits” and was deliberately avoided. This added some time to the flight.

But this morning I looked at the flight information screen and saw this:

The plane had flown straight through North Korean airspace. Admittedly a remote north-eastern corner of North Korea, but definitively North Korea nonetheless. If I had been in a window seat I would have taken a peek out the window just out of curiosity, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have looked any different from neighbouring regions of Russia and China.

Of course, I didn’t spend the whole flight watching our progress on the flight map – I also passed the time watching films such as American Hustle and Gravity (which I’m sure wasn’t shown to best effect on a 7-inch screen). But it is fun to check in on the flight map every now and then, if only as a reminder of just how big the world really is.

Note on the word of the day:

When setting off on a journey, Japanese people will often cheerfully announce 出発だ　shuppatsu da—we’re off! And then when they arrive at their destination, you will hear 到着　touchaku—we’ve arrived!

We went flying today, and Yuko brought her camera.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t very good (for flying or for photography) but Yuko got some good photos nonetheless.

Here we are on the take-off roll, just on the point of leaving the ground.

Cows don’t pay any attention to aeroplanes.

Here’s our flight path:

I decided to fly one circuit to a touch-and-go before flying east towards the coast. A touch-and-go means that you land and then take off again without stopping. This was partly for me to practise landing and partly to get a view of the surrounding area from circuit height (1000 feet) before deciding whether to continue the flight.

This was the (very unpromising) view towards the coastline to the east. The cloud base was around 1500 to 2000 feet, but visibility was generally poor.

A short distance to the north, conditions were even more murky, which caused me some anxiety later in the flight on the way back to the field, as I considered the possibility that we may have to divert to another airfield if weather conditions at Navan deteriorated.

Flying east along the Boyne, we made a loop around Newgrange, a 5,000-year-old prehistoric tomb, older than the Pyramids.

This is the town of Drogheda, looking east towards the mouth of the River Boyne. The railway crosses the river on the Boyne Viaduct, whose monumental stone arches and iron truss central span date from the 1850s.

The little fishing harbour of Clogherhead.

Waves racing towards the beach….

…and breaking on the rocky coastline.

Some rays of sunshine broke through the cloud layer.

My intention was to fly down the coast as far as the Skerries Islands and Rockabill. These islands are just outside the Dublin control area. As long as you remain outside controlled airspace (in Class G airspace), you are not legally required to talk to anyone on the radio (or even to have a radio). However it is good practice to talk to ATC and let them know where you are and what you are doing.

In the end we didn’t go that far. The weather was a bit rough and there were showers of rain, so the prudent choice was to turn back to land and head for home. Coasting in near Balbriggan, you can see the mouth of the River Delvin, marking the boundary between Dublin and Meath:

On the way back to Navan, Yuko took some beautiful pictures of Stackallen House, one of Ireland’s finest 18th-century houses. Check out the formal gardens!

All in all, flying in these conditions isn’t a wholely enjoyable experience, and there were a few anxious moments, but we arrived back on the ground safely and home in time for lunch!

Tag: flying

到着　touchaku—we’ve arrived!

Flying around Co. Meath