Hot damn!

Just four words, but ones to a seasoned el cheapo business traveller like myself mean oh so much; "you've been upgraded sir."

Yess!!!!! Hot damn!!!!

First the pure green glares from the people behind you in the boarding queue and then the probably imagined change of attitude when you reach the plane door - "ah yes sir, on the left, just a short way."

So here I am, somewhere over Greenland, 36000 feet and about 568mph sipping Champagne after a 3 course meal served on China. What a difference from what I'm used to. Sadly, the last 18 or so hours of the 45 hours in the air I have over the next week are really low fare (no chance of upgrade) economy. Oh well - I better make the most of this.

Flight attendant, more champagne please?

Jet Lag...

It's 5.30am, according to the clock on my lap top, which means I've been up for about 22 hours. But sadly, that makes it barely 9pm here.

Do I hit the sack, as my body is demanding and accept that I'll be wide awake sometime around 4am, or do I struggle through and call my beloved in a couple of hours? Only time will tell.

On a more serious note, we had some "interesting" weather on the flight over and especialy on landing which, based on the way we hit the tarmac, was sideways. It reminded me about something I've been thinking about for a while.

I watched the Columbia video the other night, pretty sad, given they were minutes away from dying and knew nothing about it, and, in all probability didn't have a lot of time to realise how badly screwed things were before the Shuttle fell apart. Quite unlike the Challenger crew. It's not often reported that in all likelyhood the Challenger crew were alive pretty much until the crew compartment hit the atlantic. The shuttle did not, as is commonly thought, explode. That happened after the vehicle had already broken apart under the aerodymanic forces. However, unlike the Columbia which seems to have completely disintegrated, the Challenger crew compartment survived the initial incident more or less intact.

Certainly the crew had used their emergency oxygen supplies and there is evidence that they were alive during the 4 or 5 minutes it took them to hit the water. Yuck.

In another example of what not to do before flying, I saw part of a programme on TWA800 the other night. It seems likely that there was an explosion in the front central fuel tank which severed the nose of the aircraft, including the cockpit. For several seconds or even up to a minute or so the aircraft continued to climb as the aiframe was largely intact. Then it started to lose trim and went into a dive, hitting the water several minutes after the initial incident.

Not something to think about during a bouncy trans atlantic hop. *sigh*

On those happy notes, I think its bed time.

Tomorrow I do battle with the beast.