Passports with Purpose Thanks
January 11, 2010 by admin
Filed under Blogging, Giveaways, Media, Misc, Passports with Purpose, Travel products, World Issues
The Passports with purpose travel blogger’s fund-raiser completed just before Christmas raising a fantastic $26,000, which was double the original target. The money will be going to build a school in rural Cambodia through the charity American Assistance for Cambodia and should be built by this summer. Not only has enough money been raised to fund the school building, but the additional funds raised will mean that your donations have also provided water filters, a kitchen garden, books for the library and a school nurse.
Passports with Purpose builds a school in Cambodia
So now it’s time to say some big thankyous to all those who contributed to this amazing effort, not least all of you out there who pledged donations in the Passports with purpose raffles for some amazing prizes, from camera equipment to holidays to hotel stays.
Flip Ultra Video Camera
I’d like to thanks my sponsor, Flip UK who donated the Flip Ultra Video camera that I was able to offer as a prize. The Flip Video Camera was won by Rebecca Self of Xpat Adventures - hope you have fun making some cool videos Rebecca!
Thanks also to the sponsors of Passports with Purpose, supporting travellers with their services
Last but not least, thanks to Debbie Dubrow, Pam Mandel, Michelle Duffy and Beth Whitman, the bloggers behind Delicious Baby, Nerd’s Eye View, WanderMom, and Wanderlust and Lipstick who worked so hard behind the scenes to organise Passports with Purpose.
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Confessions of a commercial airline pilot
August 16, 2009 by admin
Filed under Guest post, Misc, World Issues
My guest post today is from a commercial airline pilot who told me about his job and his insider’s view of the airline industry. Although he loves his job, you may not want to read on if you’re a nervous flyer.
How to become a commercial airline pilot
Historically the route to become a pilot was to get a basic qualification, build up your hours and become an instructor. As you become more experienced you move to frying 50 seat turbo props, then you move to fly small jets like the 737. Most captains need to build up 30 yrs of experience before they’re allowed to fly the 757s and 737s are used for longer flights.
Fast track training
These days simulators are used to accelarate training and fast track pilots. Pilots love it because they can earn more money flying fast jets. But of the people who have already completed £70K worth of training, only a tiny percentage get through the rounds of selection to make it to flying big jets like 757s. Low hour pilots going too quickly on fast jets are bad news.
The airline industry is a closed shop
Training schools cultivate close affiliations with particular airlines in the hope of placing the pilots that they train. But it’s pretty much a closed shop. All the pilots I’ve met recently in jobs were from one of two UK training schools. They all had the same profile; A-levels, Degree, good exam grades, interest in sports such as sailing, ski-ing and rugby. All had some military or Territorial army connection.
Military connections in the airline industry
All civilian airlines are dominated by the ex miltary in the top jobs. The pecking order of the air force from fast jet fighters, to helicopters, to Hercules & Nimrods is replicated in the airlines. The guys in the top jobs are former fighter pilots. I joined the TA for a good reason and spent a lot of energy getting military qualifications for that reason. At the last 3 airline interviews I went to I was interviewed by ex-military and ended up talking about driving tanks.
Training establishments give unrealistic expectations
Plenty of pilots who are not good enough are given false encouragement to do the training. Training establishments train 10 times as many pilots to fly big jets than there are places and try to use their contacts to get people jobs. But for every 5 jobs there are 50 people being trained. They pay for their own training which costs £100-125K. They get massively in debt and then so many can’t repay their loan.
On getting paid
The reputable airlines will put their pilots on a good salary and pay them a small top up based on the hours they fly. But the low cost airlines use a higher hourly rate but pay no retainer when the pilot doesn’t fly. That’s bad news because you need to fly every week to keep up your experience. The low cost airlines can’t cut their fuel & maintenence costs of running the flight, so they’ve ditched the salaries and pensions instead. They count on the fact that there are so many trained pilots out there desperate to get the experience.
The large airlines have the market sewn up
On mainstream routes the larger airlines have it all sewn up - there’s no competition and extremely rare to get a newcomer into the market. Richard Branson got his big break when Laker airlines collapsed leaving many pilots out of work. At the same time the government awarded him the contract to fly a new route to the Faulklands after the war had ended and forced BA to give up slots at Heathrow and awarded them to Virgin. Branson is a sharp and hardened businessman which belies his fun loving public image.
The pressure to use less fuel
When flying big jets, minimising fuel consumption is a huge consideration. As soon as you start your descent to fly at a lower altitude you start burning massive amounts of fuel. The best, most experienced pilots optimisise the balance between speed and altitude to get the best fuel consumption. But if you’re flying for an airline that’s cutting every corner on costs, you’re under massive pressure to leave your descent as late as possible. This can lead to other problems like coming too close to the plane landing in front of you or touching down towards the end of the runway. You get pushed into taking more risks. That’s another reasons why airlines need their most experienced pilots to fly big jets, as it can make a huge difference to fuel costs.
League tables in fuel consumption
In every airline there’s a league table of fuel consumption for pilots. If you’re consistantly at the bottom, you might get called in for a little chat and you certainly won’t be promoted. The computer calculates the average fuel based on the route, weather, time of day, winds and aircraft type. Normally the pilot will be able to use their judgement to decide if they need to carry extra fuel on top. But certain low cost airlines, who are cutting costs to the bone, remove that option from the Captain and only allow them to take the amount calculated in the flight plan.
Subchartering between airlines
There’s a lot of subchartering between airlines - an airline could charter it’s plane, with or without crews, with or without fuels with payment in different currencies. You can smell a rat when a plane is bought to fly a route for which it’s not obviously suited. Another tell-tale sign is the amount of rotations a plane will fly in a day. A commercially run company will try and rotate it’s planes 3-4 times a day in order to maximise the usage. When you see a company rotating it’s planes only 1 or 2 times a day and still posting a profit you wonder what’s going on.
On Bags of cash
It’s standard industry practice to pay for chartering flights between airlines in cash, sometimes around £50K. As a pilot working a flight that’s been chartered between airlines, I sometimes get handed a bag of money from the paying airline, to deliver to the rep from the airline that owns the plane at the end of the flight.
On my worst flight experience
I’m a conservative pilot, so I haven’t had anything really bad happen. Once I flew out of Palma into an electrical storm. The plane dropped altitude suddenly and I banged my head on the roof of the cockpit and could hear the passangers screaming. A plane in turbulance is like driving a car with flat tyres. I put on some extra power and flew through the storm.
On the Hudson river landing
That pilot was very, very lucky. Technically, you can’t land on water in a jet because the engines are under the wing and as soon as they catch the water, the plane will flip over onto it’s nose. Because the plane was on a very short flight, it had hardly any fuel on board. Also it landed with the current of the river which was already flowing at 15-20 knots. Because of the low fuel the tanks in the wings were full of air, giving the plane extra buoyancy and the pilot also shut off the outflow valve sealing air into the plane and keeping water out for longer. But that pilot had been flying for 40 years and he kept his cool. He made the best of the bad situation he had, but as he came down he must have thought this was it.
My pilot friend asked to remain anonymous and the views he expressed are personal ones and not necessarily those of Heather on her Travels.
Thanks for the photos to John Wardell, bfraz, Ingy the Wingy
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Inspired by the Anne Frank Museum in Berlin
July 6, 2009 by admin
Filed under Berlin, Europe, Germany, Leisure, Museums, Sightseeing, World Issues
Our visit to the Anne Frank Museum in Berlin came as a happy chance, when you stumble across something interesting and decide to follow your instincts. We had been planning to make an early start to beat the queues at the Reichstag Dome, but walking past the museum we spotted the sign and as our girls were keen we went on in. I’m so glad we did, as it’s a small museum which brought to life the important subject of the Holocaust in a personal and non-threatening way.
Into narrow courtyard and up the stairs we found a couple of rooms devoted to the story Anne Frank and her family. As Jews during the Second World War, they were forced into hiding in an attic in occupied Amsterdam, where they lived for nearly 2 years before they were betrayed. Anne and her sister and mother were separated from her father and were sent to the concentration camp at Bergen Belsen, where they died in 1945 not long before the Allied forces liberated the camp. Anne was given her diary for her 13th birthday and it became her lifeline and confidant at a time when she could do none of the things that a normal child would take for granted, like playing with friends and running in the fresh air. After her death, her father, who survived Auschwitz was given her diary and decided to publish it.
The reason that our 14 year old girls were so interested in visiting the museum was that they were studying the Holocaust at school and both had parts in a school play about Anne Frank. In the first room, they became absorbed by the photographs of Anne Frank from before the war and in reading about her family and her life.
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There was also memorabilia from the era, like ration books, newspapers, a typewriter and a facimile of Anne’s diary. In the second room, we found colourful wigwams with videos with children talking about what they enjoyed in life and their hopes for the future, compared with Anne’s voice from her diary. It highlighted that each child is an individual yet essentially the same in all countries and across the years. Yet there was a seriousness and thoughtfulness in Anne’s writing that was forced upon her by her circumstances.
Compare her hopes;
‘ If God lets me live, I’ll achieve more than Mother ever did, I’ll make my voice heard, I’ll go out into the world and work for mankind’
with some of the other quotations from children of today,
‘My greatest dream is to go on a trip round the world after my Abitur (school leaving certificate)’
or
‘I want to be a model and a Hollywood film star’
Anne’s eternal optimism and positive spirit also shines through from her writing, as she learned to find pleasure in the smallest of things. In 1944, after a year and a half in hiding, it seems incredible that she was still able to write;
‘The sun is shining, the sky is deep blue, there’s a magnificent breeze, and I’m longing - really longing - for everything’
After we had been in the museum a while, we watched an excellent 30 minute film in English which explained the circumstances of the war in occupied Amsterdam and the story of Anne and her family.
I’m so glad that we seized the opportunity to visit this museum which had a more personal meaning to our girls than some of the bigger museums might have done. It’s ideal to visit with children aged 8 and up as it gives them a feel for the war and the fate of the Jews in Europe in a way that is very real and easy to relate to, but not too overwhelming.
Anne Frank Zentrum
Rosenthaler Straße 39
D-10178 Berlin
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Children at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin
Blue Glass reflections at the Kaiser Memorial Church in Berlin
A postcard from Berlin
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