Virgin Australia Finishes Fleet Repainting Program

From VH-VUC in December 2013 to VH-VUL in February 2015, Flying Colours has played a significant role in the transformation of Virgin Australia from a low-cost-carrier to what it is today.
The Townsville-based paint shop has removed the red, white and blue Virgin Blue livery on 23 of the 56 aircraft that were repainted after the airline rebranded in May 2011.
The last of the 23 repainted aircraft to leave Flying Colours paint shop was Boeing 737-800 VH-VUL, which emerged from the hangar named Ocean Grove Beach on Monday evening sporting the Virgin Australia name in silver-grey print on the side of an all-white fuselage.
The Boeing 737-8FE VH-VUL positioned Townsville - Brisbane in the early hours of Tuesday morning as VA 9938, it later returned to revenue service that day doing Brisbane - Mackay as VA 605

OUT WITH THE OLD      VH-VUV  B737-8FE (CN 37821)

IN WITH THE NEW          VH-VUU B737-838 (CN 36609)

BELOW ARE THE DIFFERENT COLOUR SCHEME'S VIRGIN
HAS HAD IN THE PAST

VH-VBY B737-7FE (CN 34323) 50th AIRCRAFT

VH-VOI B737-81Q (CN 30786) GILLETTE RAZORS

VH-VUL B737-8FE (CN 36603) AVATAR THEME

VH-VOJ B737-81Q (CN 30787) HEAD TO QUEENSLAND

VH-ZPQ EMBRAER ERJ190 (CN 412) AFL TEAMS

VH-VUZ B 737-8FE (CN 39921) GOLD COAST SUNS  

VH-ZPN EMBRAER ERJ 190 (CN 312) 'FLY PACIFIC BLUE'



ZK-PBM B737-8FE (CN 36601) 'FLY PACIFIC BLUE'


 

Sunday morning arrivals in Brisbane

Every afternoon I get an alert for when Emirates 434 departs Dubai for Brisbane, yesterday's alert showed me today's A380 was A6-EDZ and it was sporting the "ICC Cricket World Cup" livery. So at 5.15 am I set of on my 40 min drive to the airport to catch a look at this beast. The runway in use was 19 and although 19 is not good at all for morning shot, because you are facing directly into the sun, due to heavy clouds at the time I thought I would take the risk. I wasn't disappointed with Emirates livery or the images I took.

EMIRATES A380-861 A6-EDZ (CN 107)

SMOKIN' THE TYRES ON TOUCHDOWN RUNWAY 19

TAXIING PAST ON BRAVO HEADING FOR AUCKLAND

ICC CRICKET WORLD CUP 2015

TIGERAIR VH-VNC A320-232 (CN 3275) OFF TO SYDNEY

KOREAN AIR HL-8003 A330-323 (CN 1590) LANDING RWY 19
FROM SEOUL

TOLL ZK-TLD B737-300F (CN 23706) USING THE CALLSIGN
'SOLPAK 531' HEADING OFF TO PORT MORESBY

N970SF DASSAULT FALCON 900EX (CN 194)
HEADING OFF TO MACKAY

CHINA SOUTHERN B-6515 A330-223 (CN 1116) TOUCHING DOWN
RWY 19 FROM GUANGHOU

JETSTAR A320-232 VH-VGF (CN 4497) PAINTED ORANGE TO
CELEBRATE THEIR 10th ANNIVERSARY. IT HAS THE TITLE
'LOW FARES FOREVER' ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE AND
'#JETSTARGENERATION' ON THE LEFT

QANTAS B737-838 VH-XZP (CN 44577) PAINTED IN QANTAS'S
ICONIC OCHRE COLOUR SCHEME FROM THE 70's AND 80's AND
 IS NAMED AFTER THE FORMER CEO JAMES STRONG  

AIR NIUGINI B737-700 P2-PXD (CN 28007) TAXIING ALONG BRAVO
FOR ALPHA ONE HOLDING POINT FOR RWY 19, HEADING
TO PORT MORESBY

PHILIPPINE A320-214 RP-C8618 (CN 5140) TOUCHING DOWN RWY 19
AFTER ARRIVING FROM MANILA

My Darwin to Brisbane Flight

I arrived at the airport around midday for my 2 pm (Darwin time) flight home, after checking in with Virgin I was given my boarding pass and told we will be boarding at 1.40 from Gate 3.
I went upstairs and noticed the long ongoing renovations were finished and the new café offered excellent views of the runway and taxi ways. Once before you could not see the runway at all apart from two little windows, and if someone was sitting there you missed out.
The new extension of the terminal was opened as well but renovations were still continuing .
After having lunch in the new café and sitting near Gate 3 I noticed it was 1.30 and there was still no aircraft at Gate 3, I thought great, another late flight home.
I got up and walked around and after 15 mins thinking this is weird, I heard the page "this is the last call for the Brisbane flight, please go to Gate 5.        It was clear I hadn't heard the gate change notification.
The aircraft, a Boeing 737-8FE VH-YVC (CN 40997) with the name 'Jetty Beach' was sitting there in the bright Darwin sunshine waiting for us to take us home. Sitting in 6A I took my seat, I turned on my iPad and logged into the Virgin Wi-Fi. We pushed back 20 mins late at 2.20 local, (2.50 Brisbane) and taxied out for a 29 departure. After taking off we maintained runway heading for about 5 mile then made a long slow left hand turn and headed for Brisbane. The flight was very smooth and very comfortable, as we approached Brisbane we were put in a 10 min holding pattern. We landed on runway 19 in Brisbane at exactly 6.45pm (local) so the flight was 5 mins under 4 hours long.
My next flight is on Monday 16th February to Cairns.

Flight path of VA 454

United offer wireless inflight internet

United Airlines is on track to provide wireless inflight Internet access on all Australian routes by July this year, and remains the only airline to offer the service to Aussie travellers when crossing the Pacific.
Included on the roster are flights from Sydney to both Los Angeles and San Francisco and the short hops from Cairns to Guam, with Melbourne already enjoying connectivity on United’s LA runs aboard its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
Sydneysiders currently have about a 60% chance of scoring Wi-Fi when bound for the States, with 44 of 74 Boeing 777s already fitted out with the technology and the rest due for completion by July.
Cairns residents will initially need a little more patience, with just one Boeing 737-700 in United’s fleet configured with satellite-fed internet, although all 37 of the type are also on track to meet the airline’s own June deadline.

Darwin Airport

Darwin International Airport (IATA: DRW, ICAO: YPDN) is the busiest airport serving the Northern Territory and the tenth busiest airport in Australia.
The airport is located in Darwin's northern suburbs, 13 km from the Darwin city, in a suburb called Marrara. Along with the RPT's it shares the runways with the Royal Australian Air Force's RAAF Base Darwin and is the main hub for Air North.
It has two runways, the main runway 11/29 is 3,354 metres (11,004 feet) long and the second runway is 18/36 is 1,524 metres (5,000 feet) long.

DARWIN TOWER (TAKEN FROM MY MOTEL ROOM)

VH-YDQ PILATUS PC-12 (CN 1414) NT POLICE AIRWING

A41-207 BOEING C 17 GLOBEMASTER (CN F-173)

VH-ZZP De HAVILLAND DHC 8 (CN 411) CUSTOMS

9V-MGF B737-8SA (CN 44222)

AIR TAHITI NUI   F-OLOV A340-313 (CN 668)      
 OPERATING AS AUSSIE 3 FOR AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE

VH-WMQ PIPER PA 32R (CN 32R- 7680135)

RP-C8612 A 320-214 (CN 3553)

VH-JCX LEARJET 36A (CN 057)

VH-ANQ EMBRAER 120 BRASILLA (CN 79)

VH-UOP CESSNA 404 (CN 3553)



Air New Zealand A320 ZK-OXH First Flight.

Air New Zealand A320-232SL ZK-OXH (CN 6471) made its first flight from Toulouse yesterday wearing test registration F-WWIQ and positioned Toulouse – Finkenwerder.

How much does that plane really cost?

Here is something I found that I thought was interesting.
If you have ever wondered why the cost of flying is still sky-high these day, then this figure will help explain why.
Half a billion dollars; Yep, that’s the amount some airlines have to fork out for a single plane from aircraft manufacturing giant Airbus. And that’s not even factoring in the price of fuel, hiring out space at the airport, or employees!
According to new figures released by Airbus, the A380 is its priciest model, at $549 million a piece, followed by the A350-1000, at $452,000. The cheapest plane was the less popular A318.
Here’s the list, and this has been converted from US dollars to Australian dollars.

Airbus aircraft type Average list price
• A318: $95.4 million
• A319: $113.8 million
• A320: $124.6 million
• A321: $146 million
• A319neo: $125.2 million
• A320neo: $136.4 million
• A321neo: $159.8 million
• A330-200: $294.1 million
• A330-800neo: $320.6 million
• A330-200 Freighter: $298.3 million
• A330-300: $325.9 million
• A330-900neo: $365.6 million
• A350-800: $346.2 million
• A350-900: $391.5 million
• A350-1000: $452 million
• A380-800: $549.8 million
These prices came into place on January 1, 2015, and represent an average price increase of 3.27 per cent across the Airbus fleet.