Review Of Skytrans Q6 17 Sydney To Toowoomba

[mnewbery]

This trip report is a first hand passenger account of:

 

• Taxis in Sydney
   
   
  
• Sydney T2 airport terminal; and
   
   
  
• Skytrans Dash8-200
   
   
  

 

 

Taxis in Sydney

 

Won't come as a surprise for those who live there but the shift handover occurs between 3pm and 4pm. That means the taxis become very rare about 3pm and stay that way for a while. Armed with this information I hailed a cab from the side of the road in the middle of the city after five minutes at 2:45pm. Traffic through the under harbour tunnel (or whatever its called - the cab driver called it the bird house as the entrances are full of bird that drop poo on you as you go) was heavy but moving and this appears to be normal for that time of the week. While cab drivers get a lot of bad press and this one was obviously using english as a second language he was an attentive driver and knew how to give quite terse and direct instructions to the other drivers ... out the passenger side window where I was sitting. He also mentioned that he was looking very much forward to the end of his shift.

 

When we emerged from the tunnel it became apparent that the flashes of light I noticed earlier weren't geriatric speed cameras. They were flashes of lightning.

 

Sydney T2 Terminal

 

God had spoken and she was pi55ed but I was over an hour early for a flight that would most probably be delayed if not cancelled. By the time I got inside Sydney T2 terminal the rain had reduced the visibility to 50 metres. I began to wonder how the bigger planes were faring. I didn't expect to see mine - a Dash 8-200 - until after the rain had passed. Thunder was being heard even over the usual din and crush of a typical Friday afternoon at any domestic airport.

 

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T2 is significantly more efficient that I expected it to be. While the queues for the major carriers were stretched a long way through the barriers, mine was shared by Brindabella, Rex, SkyTrans and maybe a couple of other carriers. I was one of three people waiting in line. The joy of the small airline! The terminal is efficient, relatively easy to navigate and eye wateringly expensive to buy anything. If you must, go for the meal deals that include a drink or wait for the inflight catering which is actually cheaper (or free)

 

I noticed with some curiosity that the screeners will find your laptop and get you to re-screen it seperately but they didn't care about the other six pieces of electronics in the bag including an iPad, several batteries and an air band radio. In Brisbane I had a cloth wallet in my pocket but they waved me through after I waved it at them because it didn't have any coins in it and since it had already passed through the metal detector at arms length, the rest of me could then proceed. Rather than being a sign of inconsistency or incompetence I think this is a sign of well trained people making good decisions within their authority. I stifle a chuckle when I see people automatically removing their fashion shoes and belts then placing them on the scanner conveyor without thought or being asked to do so. Where do the commuters get these ideas? Someone help me out here!

 

The incoming Dash 8 landed nearly on time after the airport runways and taxiways had been closed at least twice due to strong winds, rain, lightning and localised flooding of the paved areas. Not a good day to be outside. Their main problem wasn't the landing which appeared to have gone quite well. It was that the parking spot was out in the boonies of Sydney airport and they needed to offload (or decant) the passengers plus whatever else was onboard into a waiting bus. It was too wet for the baggage handlers and almost too wet and windy for the bus. So we waited a little longer for the airport to re-open and the huge windmills on the end of the Pratt & Whitney engines to stop spinning enough to be captured and secured by those outside. While waiting in the departure lounge I saw a QANTAS Dash 8 with a windmilling propellor. This was obviously not on the side that has the stairs but it was moving fast enough to be a hazard and I would not like to be the owner of the hand stopping it - Instead they just loaded it up and started it. Lord only knows what the turbine sucked in while that was going on.

 

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So finally it was our turn and the bus took us form the terminal out around and beside the other planes to somewhere I though looked like a graveyard for less fortunate and more ugly airlines. A JetStar A320 thingy was camped up next to the Dash 8. This was the flight to the Gold Coast I had heard was cancelled earlier. I suspect it was broken good and I wonder why QF/JQ hadn't salted away a few extra planes for these sorts of network delays in order to keep up the ontime running.

 

Welcome to Friday YOU ARE going to be LATE home tonight. Thankyou for turning up then not flying JetStar, please return to the baggage counter to claim your lugggage, then go away. Nobody cares about you. Your refund will begrudgingly be transferred in a few months time.

 

We leapt out of the bus and into the front of our plane one-by-one to avoid being un-necessarily soaked waiting to board. Safely inside, our cabin steward-ess went through her passenger list and checked it twice. Erm, Christmas was a little while ago but maybe she was practising for this year. Anyways we were all here apparently and the door was closed just as a gout of wind made things dramatically unpleasant for the bus driver. He was happy to be back in the bus which had its airconditioner flat out on the "Antarctica" setting in an attempt to keep it from fogging up. He met with success but some of the passengers had mild hypothermia after sitting on the bus for fifteen minutes waiting for the vehicular traffic jam to clear on the taxiways.

 

It was that sort of day.

 

So what happens when a PW123 runs backwards for 30 minutes in a bucketing rain shower? Nothing good as it turns out. The right engine spun uselessly for a couple of minutes while the left engine - secured during the passenger boarding - started and roared into life in a few moments. Of course with one engine running and the start-cart still connected it was only a matter of time before the right engine farted out all the rain and soot into the storm and resumed normal service. I breathed a little easier after that knowing that nothing short of a missed service or solid object up the intake would shut it down before we landed.

 

During the pre flight safety briefing my steward-ess Robyn upon attempting to demonstrate the correct use of a life vest managed to forget to loosen the waist strap enough for her already skinny middle, jam her skivvy into the plastic clip on the end thereby making successful donning impossible, mistaking the YELLOW plastic tab for tightening the waist strap for the whistle and waving that about and generally dissolving into giggles while demonstrating. It didn't help that I had the yellow tab waving in my face. You need to remember that the strap was pulled a long way through ... so to retaliate I quietly grabbed the yellow tab and waved it unhelpfully at the stew' as she lost her composure. She responded by taking a swift step backwards and away from me. I would have done the same thing. Also remember this is the same cabin crew that flew through through "THE STORM" into Sydney so the fact they still has their sense of humour was a great credit.

 

The pilots appeared to be the ones who flew into Sydney too and they were keen to "git outter Dodge" so we belted up the taxiway at a rather faster than normal speed in order to catch up with a JetStar thingy already waiting on the piano keys.

 

Off into the murk. Nothing to see here (literally). The bases were low by now but not so low that a circle and return would be impossible if required. It was loud. As with many old bangers, the interior panels all buzzed together making conversation impossible andit stayed that way until we got to about FL220. It was during the climb I noticed that successive passengers had torn up bits of paper and shoved them in the panel gaps overhead in an attempt to make their part of the world a little more bearable.

 

Futile. I just waited until the din died down as I knew it would when we were strainght and level. By now I was far more interested in the in flight catering which I deliberately left as a mystery.

 

We didn't level off for some time. As you can see from the attachments the pilots went somewhat left of track after their standard departure over the water. One believes the PIREPS and storm scope would have led them that way. It was bumpy, sometimes extended periods of low G flight but not more than attention grabbing as opposed to peeling your first born off the ceiling.

 

We had three periods of "seat-belt-sign-illuminate-dosis" all justified and all after the catering was served. Oh. Nobody seemed to have any culinary accidents although the guy on the olter side of the aisle next to me seemed to not be able to find his mouth. I doubt that had anything to do with the weather. To keep busy I started on my backlog of podcasts and fired up OzRunways with the GPX file tracking turned on. My fellow passenger took an interest for a few minutes until I pointed out that we kept slowing down and turning away from our course (strong gusty easterly). She said she was worried because she had never done the trip before only on fan jets. I replied somewhat cheekily that the pilots knew what they were doing, already had plently of opportunities to kill us and flew through the same weather on the way down. That wasn't reassuring apparently.

 

For the record, our track over ground was 230~240 KTAS and the course was ~001 magnetic. Our maximum heading deviation was 014 magnetic. Someone might like to put that into their whizz wheel to find the cross wind component.

 

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Once we crossed the border into Qld we zipped by a few more clouds with a glorious sunset colouring in the tops and Toowoomba was in sight. It was a nice scenic trip for the last 20 minutes looking over the flooded Condamine river and mile after mile of green grass or ploughed field as we neared the ground.

 

45 minutes late. Great service under bad conditions and no driving from Brisbane to look forward to.

 

Recommended.

 

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[willedoo]

Thanks for a great report, mnewbery; good to see you kept your sense of humour as well.

 

Looking forward to doing that flight one day, hopefully under better conditions.

 

As regards, ' Where do the commuters get these ideas? Someone help me out here!', my theory is that they see the fifo workers automatically removing their steelcaps, and it's a case of monkey see, monkey do. I've never had a belt buckle register, but had a small alfoil wrapper set it off once.

 

Thanks again for a very entertaining report.

 

Cheers, Willie.

 

 

[red750]

At YMML I have been sent back and asked to remove my belt and shoes. Many shoes have a metal arch support which sets off the alarm. I also have a fairly large belt and buckle, which also spooks them, not to mention loose change in your pocket. The worst bit is collecting all your bits and pieces and getting dressed again after you have been cleared through.

 

 

[Guest David C]

I must admit I always remove my belt .. Why ? ... just a force of habit I suppose .. Ive been through hundreds of scanners now and apart from at LHR where I was asked to remove my belt I can't ever recall being asked anywhere else ... I just do it ..

 

Dave C