barry burton

the Flight

I write from thirty thousand feet. It feels like 2:30 AM to me, but in just an hour it will be 11:30 AM the previous day. I guess I will sleep good tonight (or is that last night?). The Singapore Airlines 777 I am on is set up in a 3-3-3 configuration, and though I was lucky enough to procure an aisle seat, it is in the middle 3 seat set, and the air conditioning vents all seem to be pointed at this middle column of seats (though perhaps they are all merely directed at me). I am currently braving the cold to type. So far I have slept for a few hours and watched a movie while eating the two meals we were served. I watched more movies on the way out. Probably because I was more fatigued then. Each seat back has a little video monitor built into it so every passenger has an individual screen, The side of the armrest contains a corded remote, and there are multiple channels of music and movies, including the great in-flight information screen which shows current altitude, ground speed, a map of the planes trajectory, etc. This trip I think we are taking the great circle path, veering slightly to avoid North Korean and Chinese airspace. On the way out we flew much farther north, over the far eastern part of Russia,

I think it would be considered Primorsky, as well as southern Alaska, I guess to avoid flying directly into the jet stream. In both directions we mostly flew over lots of water in the Pacific and various connected seas. But back to video screens — the best part is the interactive music, movies, and television — the system allows the choice of 1 of about 50 movies, 50 television shows, and some amount of music, which starts playing on demand, and can paused, rewound, whatever. I think that all airlines should have this — now if they could only get internet up there too :) It was 12 hours to get to Korea and it should be about 10 hours getting back, so keeping people entertained is important!