Why I love air travel…

And before you ask, yes, there's a "Why I hate air travel" post coming. It's in progress on my home machine, though, so I thought I'd post this one first.

Early Sunday morning, Portland Oregon: The weather is abysmal. Winds are 20 to 30mph, the rain is falling lightly but continuously, getting blown sideways. It's not cold, but it's far from warm. Sunday morning traffic is light, and 30 minutes later I'm being dropped off at the airport, saying goodbye to the girls (always the worst part of any business trip...they seemingly change so much in a week!).

Although I checked in at home and have my boarding pass, I do have a bag to check (a larger-than-standard bag is requisite for Macworld Expo travel, in order to bring home any potential loot acquired at the show!). So it's off to the United counter, where the lines are non-existent. A few minutes later, I'm in security, where there are also, amazingly, no lines. The only hold-up here is that removing two laptops, coat, and shoes takes a while (two laptops because I need a demo machine in addition to my Keynote slides machine for my presentation; it's hard to demo a hint that requires a logout while running Keynote!).

Boarding starts on time, and I settle into my window seat in the workhorse Boeing 737 (a -300 variant this time). Yes, I know experienced travelers prefer the aisle, but not me--I hate having to stand up every time a "row mate" wants to get up for a restroom break, to reach something in the overhead, etc. I also love watching the world go by, as it makes the flight go more quickly, and there are often some wondrous things to see.

Push back is on time, and we're first in line for departure. After a short taxi, we make an accelerating turn onto the runway, and begin the takeoff. Looking out the window, I notice that we've got a quartering tailwind, which helps explain the need for some extra speed rolling onto the runway. Thirty seconds after the takeoff run starts, we break free of the ground...and into some moderate turbulence, headed up and away from stormy Portland. The bumps don't last for long, though, as most of it comes from the interaction between the wind and the ground; the clouds are only mildly bumpy.

Although we're soon in the clouds, they're somewhat spotty in nature. There are times when the ground is visible through patches of gray; glimpses of terra-firma that quickly appear and vanish in the mist. At other times, we're moving between two cloud layers, one above and one below, apparently trapped between two floating layers of mist.

The 737 climbs at a prodigious rate, and soon I sense the lightening of the clouds above us. That means the best part of a stormy-morning takeoff is fast approaching--the breakout, when the jet breaks through the last layer of overcast out into bright sunny skies. It's the one time in a jet where you get the true sense of the speed of the plane--skimming along the tops of the clouds, you can really see how quickly you're moving. As the clouds give way to blue skies, the mood of everyone on the plane seems to improve as well. Where before there was mostly silence, now there are conversations and laughter to be heard.

A few minutes later, and the storm is long gone, sliding away far below and behind us. The ride is smooth, the skies are blue, and the scenery is spectacular. We glide southwards, basically following the course of Interstate 5 through central and southern Oregon. Shortly after crossing the California border, the glorious site of Mt. Shasta comes into view out the left side of the plane, her snow-covered slopes glistening in the sun.

One reason why I prefer United is that their captains generally put air traffic control (ATC) radio on channel 9 of the in-flight entertainment system. As an instrument-rated (but far from current) private pilot, I love listening to ATC. I know both the Portland and San Francisco areas quite well, having earned my license in San Francisco, and having done some flying around Portland before children and family life dropped flying down the list of priorities. By listening to ATC, I get a good sense of where we are in the flight, what the upcoming flight conditions are like (a good way to get advance notice of turbulence), what arrival route we'll be using into the destination, and what kind of approach we'll be using for the arrival.

ATC had been pretty quiet for most of the flight; it was a peaceful Sunday morning ride down to the Bay area. But was we began our descent into the Bay area, things started to heat up. The Bay area controllers handle a lot of traffic--San Franciso, Oakland, and San Jose all have international airports, located within 50 miles of one another. The controllers are smooth, fast, professional, and very good at what they do. Listening to them sequence arrivals in complex airspace such as that of the Bay area is really an amazing experience.

Descending from the north, our approach takes us past the Golden Gate Bridge, with Alcatraz and the city itself visible further to the east. It's a spectacularly clear day, and the view is amazing. We continue southward, descending out of 11,000 feet to 4,000 feet, and the views continue to improve. Our route takes us west of the city itself, headed towards Palo Alto and San Jose. Out my window, I can see the small Palo Alto airport where I learned to fly, and beyond that, the monstrous runways at Moffet Federal Airfield. When I lived in the area, Moffet was still a naval base, and we used to watch P3 Orions climb out of there, headed for the coast, right over Palo Alto airport (which is only a few miles away).

As we approach the Palo Alto airport, we turn northwesterly, headed for runway 28L at San Francisco International. Amazingly, despite the clarity of the day, the winds are basically calm, so the final approach is incredibly smooth. Touchdown and taxi follow, and a few minutes later we're parked and disembarking.

Total flying time was about 90 minutes. Total travel time, from home departure to airport arrival, was just over three hours. My bag showed up relatively quickly, and then it was a simple matter of hopping on the airport shuttle train to the BART station. Another 30 or so minutes later, and I was walking into the lobby of the hotel...where, BTW, internet access is a spendy $14.95 a day! (And yet, if I stay in a modest Holiday Inn Express somewhere, internet access is free...so why do expensive hotels charge for net access while the less expensive places give it away? Short answer: because they can!)

As noted at the beginning, air travel isn't always this enjoyable, and I have an article in the works on that very topic...but yesterday's flight reminded me of how enjoyable travel can be when everything works well.