Afternoon all,
Took advantage of winter deals out of the UK on Lufthansa and flew
Edinburgh, Scotland (EDI) to Frankfurt, Germany (FRA) for a round trip cost
of 90 pounds including tax (about $138 US), for a couple of reasons. One - I
was hoping to do some spotting and photography at FRA, and two - I'd never
flown on any CRJ, let alone a brand new CRJ700. EDI-FRA is 642 miles each
way.
EDI-FRA LH5953 D-ACPF Canadair RJ700ER
Schedule : 0625/0915
Aircraft pushed 10mins late at 0635 due departure slot time (not unusual for
Europe during the morning), took off at 0647, and landed at 0929, making a
flight time of 1 hour 41 minutes.
The CRJ700 is a bit tight inside, but pretty impressive, especially on
runway acceleration. With a load of about 40 pax, we used about half of
Edinburgh's 8400ft runway, and climb performance seemed to be excellent.
There is a door at the back of the aircraft , facing the aisle, but not for
use by passengers. Its like the rear stairs door on a DC9 or 727, anyone
know what its for? And the service door opposite the pax entrance must only
be 30 inches wide by 4ft high - gotta be some weight limit on the size of
catering personnel!! Visibility is excellent on the ground through the
windows though, unlike narrowbody Boeings, the wwindows are not set at
shoulder height. On those, to look at another aircraft on the next stand you
have to crouch a little. I guess Boeings were designed to look 'down' out of
the windows in the cruise.
Baggage space in the cabin is tighter than an A320 or a 737, but not
unreasonably so. One thing about space, though. Standing in the toilet, my 5
foot 9 gave me just one inch of clearance above my head - if you are 6'3" or
above, anything other than a fleeting visit will cause you pain!! Legroom
looked like 31 inches or so, acceptable for this length of flight. Lufty fit
68 seats to their aircraft, but this looks like a pilot concession, because
the frontmost starboard pair of seats looked to have enough space in front
of them for another pair. Seats, like most of the LH fleet, are all grey
leather. Business class is only a separate area, seats are the same, only
meal service varied, though many pax on this flight will connect with longer
haul traffic.
The passenger next to me was flying to Minsk in Belarus for a conference, he
was connecting with a LOT flight to Warsaw (737-500), then Belavia to Minsk,
I believe on a TU134! Cool!
On approach to FRA, we were in the hold for about 10 minutes, before landing
on 07 left. Weather was excellent, with CAVOK conditions and a temperature
of about 8 C.
There is an observation terrace at FRA, open daylight hours (and last night,
about 2 hours after dark!), entrance in winter is 2 euros to cover the
security check costs (about $2). It does face south, which can make
photography tricky. After dark, my friends used digital cameras for about 2
hours until the terrace closed, they used tripods, the results were very
good, because FRA has very bright white ramp lighting, not the orangey crap
in a lot of places.
We took the ramp tour, at 4 euros (about $4), the bus takes 45 minutes to
drive around the passenger and cargo stands after a second security check.
Commentary is in German, but we picked up the gist of it all.
FRA-EDI LH5954 D-ACPF Canadair RJ700ER
Schedule : 2135/2230
On the way back, boarding was delayed due to late inbound arrival. Frankfurt
were down to one runway, I believe due to environmental reasons at this time
of the evening, and due to some calibration runs being made with one of the
runways, the inbound flight was in the hold for 30 minutes or so.
We boarded a bus at gate A54 at 2145, which took the 55 or so pax out a
loooong way, to one of the furthest remote stands, almost at the threshold
for runways 07 and 18. We taxied off stand at 2203 for a short wait for a
couple of landers on the single active runway. Flight time was 1 hour 27
mins, landing at 2241, and arriving at gate 1A at 2245.
Overall, this new aircraft was impressive, well built (nothing rattled), and
FAST!
Highlights at Frankfurt yesterday were :
A4O-KB A330-200 Gulf Air
A6-EAI A330-200 Emirates
A6-EKV A330-200 Emirates
AP-BEQ A310-300 Pakistan
B-18801 A340-300 China Airlines
CC-CQC A340-300 LAN Chile (oh yes!!)
CN-RNQ 737-700 Royal Air Maroc
EP-IBA A300 Iran Air
ES-ABF B737-500 Estonian Air
HA-LMB Fokker 70 Malev
HL7715 B777-200ER Korean Air
I-BIME A319 Alitalia (brand new!)
JA8962 B747-400 ANA in Pocket Monsters scheme, I believe this is
their only INTERNATIONAL 747 in a special scheme
F-OGYC A320 Royal Jordanian
LY-SBC Saab 2000 Lithuanian AL
LZ-BOG B737-300 Balkan, thought they'd gone bust again!!
N672UW A330-300 USA
N673UW A330-300 USA
N14075 DC10-30 WOA World titles and logo on tail,
on top of basic COA scheme
OE-LFR Fokker 70 Austrian
OE-LGF DH8-400 Tyrolean
SP-LGB Embraer 145 LOT
SP-LGN Embraer 145 LOT
SP-EDB ATR42 ELO = Eurolot, full cols
SP-LFC ATR72 LOT
S5-AAB A320 Adria
S5-AAD CRJ200 Adria
TC-AAP B737-800 Pegasus AW
TC-SUD B737-800 Sun Express
UN-11006 Antonov 12 GST Aero (writing on all white fuselage
looked like CST Aero)
UR-GAH B737-300 Ukraine International
UR-42377 Yak42 Dniproavia, in all white scheme with
bizjet style narrow cheatline on fuselage and tail,
no titles
UR-42426 Yak42 Dniproavia, in Ukranian International basic
colours with Dniproavia titles in Cyrillic on fuselage.
VP-BRH B777-200ER Corporate
YA-BAB A300B4 Ariana (one of the aircraft recently donated by
Air India)
YU-AOL Fokker 100 Montenegro AL
4X-EBU B757-200 El Al - we drove past this on the ramp tour,
understandably has the surrounding ramp area sealed off with police tape,
armed police and agents in attendance, and armoured personnel carriers at
each corner.
5B-DBP A319 Cyprus AW (brand new)
7T-VJU B737-600 Air Algerie
Jim