QF Prog Rock

I have always been an indifferent aeronaut. I put this down to the fact that my father was an aeronautical engineer working for Vickers Armstrong (later the British Aircraft Corporation). Our dinner time conversations were often about dramatic air disasters or spectacular test flights he had taken part in, most often in an aeroplane know as "The Vomit Comet".Dad's somewhat absent minded flying style as a glider pilot didn't help either. When I was a child, being a passenger was an exciting roller coaster ride, with vivid, added comentary about pilots who had frozen to death or passed out from flying too high. As an adult, I am armed with a little too much information that I would rather not have.

Two nights ago I was once again sitting in a 747, 38,000ft above the Pacific Ocean, trying to keep calm. Yes, I know all the statistics, flying is safer than driving a car or crossing the road. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was doing pretty well too, floating along on a mixture of complementary scotch, champagne and a couple of Valium. Feeling smug about it too, as heavy weather in the Pacific meant that much of the flight had been moderately turbulent.(John denies this, but cannot be relied upon as he slept for the first nine hours of the flight.) But then around 4am, the Captain switched on the seatbelt sign and announced that we were going to go through some pretty "signifcant" turbulence. In aeronautical terms this means bumpy as hell. John (who had actually woken up at this point), claims it only rated 7/10 in his experience of turbulence, but even he stayed awake wearing a facial expression like an owl that was being given an enema. He claims this was because of the film he was watching (and incidentally one that he recommends): District Nine.

In flight entertainment was denied to me, as my seat, screen, handset and noise reduction headphones were all, to put it politely, completely cactus. What to do? Only one course of action, drag out the walkman and queue the prog rock; Jethro Tull, Supertramp and best of all, Quadrophenia by The Who.

The Who (or what's left them) were harshly criticised for their recent Superbowl performance. But Quadrophenia is a sublimely manic piece, recorded in 1973 when they were at the top of their form. And so here I was, bashing through the sky at 600mph accompanied by Roger Daltry's huge voice, John Entwistle's superfast bass, Pete Townshend's mad vision and best of all, the extreme,insane,drumming of Keith Moon. As a soundtrack to 1 hour and 16 minutes of inflight turbulence(yes, I timed it), nothing better - or to quote Pete Townshend; Getting high, you can't beat it...

My name is Sue and I hate flying

Transports of Delight : Going Boeing

Seattle  is home to 2 of the world’s largest corporations; Microsoft and Boeing. Microsoft are predictably unfriendly to tourists, but Boeing run public tours of their Everett complex. Costs $15, 9-5, on the hour, every hour, every day (except Christmas day). Problem is getting there. Boeing is 32 miles north of Seattle and while public transport is possible, no one seems to know how. Locals just don’t  travel that way.  The only practical option is to hire a car, which adds $120 to the price of the tour (and only if we return the SUV to AVIS before 4.45 the same day). But you do these things right?

The traffic was surprisingly heavy for Saturday morning - we later learned that it was a long weekend (President’s Day on Monday 15^th) and everyone is travelling to Seattle for the holiday. Driving in the US is alarming if you are not used to driving on the “other” side of the road and is horryifyingly surreal if you have jet lag. But the trip was quick and we were at Boeing in 35 minutes. Photography is banned in the factory, in fact you have to hire a locker and leave all your personal belongings outside before the tour starts. To fulfill the tourist need for photography, Boeing have put together the “Future of Flight" a gallery of aircraft parts and distrbing facts which you can browse before the tour:

In the Future of Flight gallery:

• Alarming videos of engines disintegrating
• Alarming footage of bird strike testing
• Alarming push button simulation of a jet engine at take off
• Alarming middle aged men in leather flying jackets
• Exremely alarming cross section of the new latest Boeing 778
  The fuselage of the "Dreamliner" is made up of super thin carbon fiber (picture below)

The tour;

• 6 minute film (the projetor displayed an overheat warning throughout - Boeing say it is too expensive to fix so we should just ignore the message - alarming!)
• Bus ride to the factory
• Short walk through the tunnels under the factory
• Freight elevator (held all 52 of us) to the third floor viewing platform over the factory. Amazing - it is not enclosed or roped off, you can just peer over the top at the 747-8's being assembled
• Second bus trip to see the 778 Dreamliners being assembled

A few Boeing facts:

• The Boeing factory is the largest building in the world (it is in the Guiness Book of World's Records (they have several entries in there)
• 5 stories high, bigger than Disneyland, would hold 9,000 basketball courts
• World's largest mural painted on the front of the building
• World's largest private fire service
• 30,000 employees
• 13,000 bicycles for riding from one end of the building to the other
• Sections of the plane are made in different countries through the world and flown to Seattle for assembly
• Some of the parts are so huge that Boeing had to design a new cargo plane, the Dreamlifter
• The planes are put together on an assembly line and are moved around the floor from station to station
• It takes 3 days to assemble a complete 747
• Boeing has orders for the Dreamliner 778 until 2018 
• Each 778 costs around $300,000,000 each
• Total take off weight is 975,000,000lbs
• Paint adds an extra 2000-10,000lbs to the weight
• Boeing exports more than any other US company
• The factory does not operate 24/7. Standard work hours are Monday-Friday 9-5. People do work at weekends but it is voluntary (for 1.5, 2x salary, though)
• The factory has it's own restaurants and cafes; including a Tully's Coffee outlet which sells more than any other outlet in the US

Amazing. Alarming.Recommended

Edited to add: Yes,I know I had typed in 774 instead of 747. I did try to fix it (several times) but there was a problem with the style sheet which I have only just managed to nut out. Put it down to jet lag!

Rampant Hamster

Is there a boutique pet shop on Pike Place? Are animals allowed at the Inn at the Market?? Is it a new Seattle rock band??? No such luck, it's jet lag! And it found me using the laptop, in the bathroom at 2.30 in the morning (and now again at 5.30am). The bathroom is the only place I can turn on a light in our hotel room without waking John - He-who-can-irritatingly-sleep-at-any-time-of-the-day-or-night. And yes, I am sitting on the toilet. It's the only available seat in the bathroom (hey - the lid is closed, OK!!). More information than you needed? Which brings us to the hamsters.

I read my email, caught up on Ravelry and then started idly browsing the web (as you do) looking for webfomation about jet lag. Then I found it; a NewScientist  article reporting on a study in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science) - about jet lag in hamsters. Researchers found that jet lag was common in the travelling hamster, but that it could be siginificantly reduced by dosing the hamster with - Viagra. Eh?!! Sorry, I'll read that again, yes, it is correct, Viagra. Now, I am suffering from jet lag so am already losing grip on reality, but this information is a fact too far. I am now perched on the porcelain in a Settle hotel bathroom, imagining flying hamsters. Hamsters; reclining in business class seats, eye masks pushed back on their fuzzy little foreheads, quaffing Piper Heidsiek, popping Viagra, permanently priapic. Thanks very much NewScientist. Now I'm halucinating as well.

Edited to add: Yes, Qantas did give us Piper Heidsiek. No Viagra though. Perhaps that is why they are no longer the world's best airline?

Edited to add - to add: And anyway, what kind of sicko would even think of feeding Viagra to hamsters as a cure for jet lag? Surely this is the stuff of an imagination even more crazed than mine?