Trip Report | Tokyo - Washington | ANA2/NH2 | B77L | (Extremely Picture Heavy)

[Aamir 2,907]

Hey all!

 

Time for the 3rd trip report. This one's a bit long, but I hope you lot enjoy it!

 

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Today's flight takes us from Tokyo's Narita International Airport (RJAA) to Washington's Dulles International (KIAD). This 6124NM journey is estimated to take us around 13 hours and 50 minutes, with our departure scheduled at approximately 11:05AM JST, and our arrival scheduled at 10:40AM EST. We will get to experience both my favorite times of the day, dusk and dawn, on this flight! Needless to say, I took a lot of pictures en-route!

 

Departure is going to be very bumpy, as there are strong winds in the region. Flight attendants will remain seated until told otherwise, we don't want any broken ankles today! Otherwise, visibility is good, there is a tad bit of haze, but that is to be expected from Tokyo. No precipitation to report, although there are scattered clouds along the way up to cruise. Nothing too horrible, it would seem. Weather on the other side of the world is similar in nature, except the cloud coverage appears to be slightly heavier. The same strong winds remain persistent, but should die down as we descend into Dulles. Descent is not expected to be very bumpy, with some potential light chop and nothing more.

 

Interestingly, today we have an ETOPS procedure in place, albeit with a single alternate airport, as the area is not large enough to warrant the need of an equi-time point. More will be explained as we set up the aircraft for this procedure. (Side note: I made a huge boo-boo with picking the alternate airport, as I did not check the airport prior to selecting it.)

 

Today's flight Information:

 

ANA2/NH2

B777-200LR | JA900A

ETD: 02:05z - 11:05am Local

EET: 12h20m

ETA: 15:20z - 10:20am Local (Scheduled: 15:55z - 10:55am Local)

Departure Airport: RJAA ( Tokyo Narita International Airport)

Arrival Airport: KIAD (Washington Dulles International Airport)

 

Our calculations have us arriving 35 minutes before schedule, as the average wind component for today's flight is 13 knots on the tail.

 

We arrive in the cockpit of our aircraft today, JA900A. She is waiting patiently at Terminal 1, Gate 27 for us.The Japanese, being the prime examples of ultimate efficiency, have the flight deck warmed up for us already.

 

 

We see ground crew swarming around the aircraft, preparing her for the lengthy voyage up ahead. Fuel (both for the passengers/crew and the aircraft) is being loaded.

 

 

While that is happening, and the F/O is out checking JA900A's airworthiness, I sit down, align the IRS and begin keying in information for today. I also load up the flightplan dispatch has prepared for us.

 

Today's route:

JYOSO Y11 MWE V11 IBURI Y112 ASIBE V7 AWE B337 ANIMO/K0920F310 B337 PAKLI/K0914F330 B241 ROCET/N0490F330 B241 ENEGU/N0485F350 B241 ENM J512 GAL NCA19 ALSAB/N0482F370 NCA23 YSF NCA22 YTH J521 YRL J513 YXL J596 YXZ J525 YMS J531 NNSIQ J95 BUF J220 SFK/N0482F360 DCT HAR/N0379A160 V265 BINNS V39 HYPER

 

Insanely long! Good luck if you're trying to read through that. If you did manage to get through it, you'll notice that we have 3 step climbs en-route. The first up to FL330, then after we've burnt some more fuel, we can go up to FL350, then finally FL370. We will start at FL310, because we're fairly heavy today!

 

 

Anyway, route is in and crossed checked, so we can begin initializing the aircraft's performance. As always, we must go over weight and fuel figures.

 

Zero Fuel Weight for today: 206576 kilograms, or, 206.6t.

This is the weight of the aircraft without fuel, and includes the weight of the 223 PAX + 8 Crew, and 30739 kilograms of cargo (baggage included!). This puts us at a load level of 95.3%. In case there is interest, the distribution of PAX is as follows:

 

Occupied/Total 

13/14 First Class

46/48 Business Class

164/172 Economy Class

 

Looking at the fuel, we're exactly 70% loaded, with 101839 kilograms, or, 101.8t of fuel.

The calculation for the release fuel is as follows:

 

                         FUEL           ENDUR

TRIP                91979  ........  12:25

CONT 5%        4599  ........    00:42

ALTN KHEF     1313  ........    00:10

FINAL RESV    3298  ........    00:30

MIN T/O           101189 ........ 13:47

EXTRA             0       ........     00:00     

TAXI                 650  ........      00:25       

RELEASE        101839 ........ 14:12  

 

If there is a problem at KIAD, such as an airport closure, or inclement weather, we will be alternating to KHEF (Manassas Regional Airport), which is 24NM away from Dulles. ANA dispatch has not allowed us any extra fuel, as we are not expecting any bad weather en-route. We must take-off with 101189 kilograms of fuel in order to be above the legal requirement upon landing in Dulles. Our final gross weight is 308.4t. Due to the high load factor, and the large amount of fuel we are carrying, we will start our cruise at a lower altitude. Today, we will start at FL310, gradually stepping up in increments of 2000ft when the aircraft is light enough to do so. We're expecting an average tailwind of 13 knots, but we're also going to run into some very serious headwinds during the course of our flight, therefore, we are going to use a cost index of 250.

 

Everything into the FMS nice and neat!

 

 

It's a relatively cool day (OAT: 21 degrees Celsius), however, we are quite heavy at take-off, so we will only be derating by 20%, to 91.8 N1. These brutal engines should still haul us up into the air relatively easy.

 

 

Flaps 5 for take off, as in our SOP. No V1, Vr, or V2 values yet, given that we haven't contacted clearance yet. 

 

 

That's the aircraft ready to receive clearance. I'm going ahead and resetting the Electronic Checklist (ECL) so we have a fresh set of tick-boxes. As I'm doing this, we're calling for clearance. 

 

 

I complete the pre-flight checks as clearance has us on standby. The F/O and I decide that 16R is a likely option, coupled with the JYOSO5 SID.

 

 

I go ahead and key in the Runway and SID. We're quite sure this is the one for us.

 

 

Here it is on the ND, not yet activated. 

 

 

The departing JAL flight 2 slots in front of us has just departed on the exact same SID and STAR, so we go ahead and activate the SID and Runway, and begin cross-checking the Legs page with our charts.

 

 

Cross checking performance and activating our V-Speeds for take-off, as we prepare to depart from Gate 27.

 

 

D'oh! Clearance gets in touch with us, we've been assigned RW34L! Wind shifts around Tokyo are such a pain! Luckily, JYOSO5 is still valid from this runway, and will actually serve as a bit of a shortcut. New SID on the ND. ARIES -> TOADS instead of the longer route from 16R.

 

 

Activated. Much cleaner departure.

 

 

Looking at the winds, you can see that we are now taking off with a 11 knot headwind.

 

 

Pressure set at 997hPa.

 

 

MCP set, and ready for departure.

 

 

Time to trim her up, FMS wants 3.75

 

 

In order to trim up the aircraft, we've got to first pressurize the hydraulics. We've got to make sure this is cleared with the ground crew first, as during pressurization, some flight control surfaces may move, causing potential injury. We're good by the ground crew, so let's get-a pressurizing!

 

 

Trimming.

 

 

All good, just got to wait on the cargo doors to close before checking off the beacon and starting the APU.

 

 

 

Doors to automatic, cross-check! JA900A all sealed up for the next 12h+

 

 

APU to Start.

 

 

Tracking the start using the STAT synoptic.

 

 

APU Running, we're good to disconnect from ground, push and start! Here we're starting R-Engine as we're pushing back from Gate 27. We've pushed 3 minutes early, at 02:02z.

 

 

R-Engine stable, L-Engine start.

 

 

Checking out the fuel synoptic, making sure both engines are drawing from the tanks. In this case, all fuel pumps are on, but the aircraft is automatically drawing from the center tanks ONLY.

 

 

Quick exterior shot of our push!

 

 

PAX on the port side of the aircraft say goodbye to Narita T1.

 

 

Okay, before taxi-checklist!

 

Recall: Checked

Anti-Ice: Auto

Autobrake: RTO

Flight Controls: Checked

 

 

Ground handler waving us off, I guess that means we can check off Ground Equipment Clear too!

 

 

Our taxi route for today is as follows:

Tail West onto O -> U -> M -> M2 -> A -> A11 holding point for RW34L.

 

You can follow along here:

 

Narita sure has some complicated intersections!

 

 

Seen from the ground (luckily we only needed to pass straight through):

 

 

*ding* Cabin Ready!

 

 

Cleared for take off, ease her onto the runway, Landing Lights, Runway Turnoffs and Strobes all go on.. Swing the nose around and roll 'er into position before pushing the throttles forward to 60% N1..

 

 

Power-set, cross check.

 

 

Off we go to Dulles! 

 

 

 

A small look at a portion of Tokyo before we ascend into the clouds.

 

 

Dark, angry looking clouds!

 

 

Just power through them, it's not like you have two of the world's most powerful turbofan engines in the palm of your hand or anything..

 

 

More horrid clouds. You can see that we haven't even reached FL130 and yet we've got a 52 knot headwind smashing into our nose.

 

 

Among cotton candy of doom!

 

 

Big ol' white clouds just ahead and above us. Scary!

 

 

At least we're getting past the grey stuff..

 

 

Banking right and accelerating as we try and escape the now 67 knot headwind!

 

 

Now 92 knots on the port side of the aircraft. She's bouncing around a bit now, but I'm quite impressed with the way the auto-pilot is handling the situation.

 

 

Nearing cruise altitude, we hit a 100 knots on the port side, causing insane amounts of crab.

 

 

 

Tail camera shot of the view ahead. Scattered clouds..

 

 

Now that we're nice and set up in cruise, we begin inserting our ETOPs information. Our alternate for today, as selected by PFPX and myself, is a little airport, UHMD. I decided to google it, just to see where I'd be going if I were to have an issue with the aircraft. Bad idea. It's just a dirt strip. *sigh*.

 

Anyway, here we are planning out our ETOPS on the ND. 453nm circle drawn around the alternate. We only have one alternate as the area we're crossing under 180 rules is tiny. If something goes wrong within the 453 mile circle, we will be diverting to UHMD.

 

 

 

Still a few scattered clouds, a couple of hours after departure..

 

 

Approaching our ETOPs entry point.

 

 

Once inside our ETOPs area of operations, the center tank starts running low. All pumps are on, but the aircraft will only draw from the center until it is near depletion. At this point, with 1000 kilograms of fuel left, we switch the pumps to OFF, but even then, the aircraft will sip fuel out of the center tanks throughout the course of the journey, until it is empty.

 

 

 

There is an incredible sense of nothingness when you can't see any land...

 

 

The sun is setting, dusk is on the horizon. What a lovely view! (Thanks REX4!)

 

 

Last light of dusk, transitioning into night now.. 

 

 

And the sun rises again! First light!

 

 

8 hours and 13 minutes in, dawn is now becoming more defined as we scythe through the air toward Dulles..

 

 

Okay, enough staring at the pretty bits of flying. Time to get back to the technical stuff and prepare our arrival into Dulles. We originally expected RW30, but our EFB is telling us the 01C is a more likely option. So, we begin preparing for RW01C, as the winds are indicating that this is the correct option..  HYPER4 is the STAR we have selected, and it requires us to vector onto final.

 

 

As you can see from the image above, after TICON, we will be vectored to intercept the ILS at CARRY.

 

 

Here it is in the FMC, no transitions required.

 

 

And you can see that the T7's FMC actually recognizes vectors in a STAR. Good stuff!

 

 

On the ND. You can see the aircraft will hold it's heading past TICON.

 

 

128 knots of wind off the nose!

 

 

117 knots almost directly on the nose, but for some reason the autopilot would not reduce thrust, so we got up to M.86 at one point. Top of Descent coming close now!

 

 

We needed speed brakes on descent, the aircraft was in her stride and really didn't want to slow down..

 

 

Transitioning onto the STAR..

 

 

Forecast was quite accurate!

 

Properly heavy clouds on the starboard side of the aircraft.. Hmm.. 

 

 

We tick over to 12 hours in flight..

 

 

Well that's quite green now isn't it! Following the STAR..

 

 

Dulles, now about 20 degrees off the right of the nose.. Autothrottle was disconnected because the aircraft refused to slow down..

 

 

Localizer captured!

 

 

Landing checklist complete! We're close to capturing the glideslope at this point, too..

 

 

Established for RW01C.

 

 

15 knot crosswind, but it's variable. Made landing quite fun! Here we are drifting right, but that was rectified with a kick of the rudder..

 

 

There's nothing like "drifting" a $250m aircraft!

 

 

There it is folks! 12 hours and 19 minutes in the air!

 

 

We will be taxiing to Concourse B, as that is where ANA docks regularly. We've been assigned gate B40. We will get there by exiting the runway from Y2 then following the route below:

Y -> Y7 -> C -> Gate B40

 

Here we are on Y, turning onto Y7.

 

 

I have to say, Flightbeam did some utterly stunning work with this airport. The textures are crisper than Kentucky's Finest Chicken!

 

 

Finally the big beasts can get some rest, engine shutdown..

 

 

Shutdown checklist complete, tired and weary crew can finally get off JA900A.. We made it to the gate at 14:40z, which is approximately an hour before our scheduled arrival! How we did it, I will never know  

 

 

Last thing to do, hook her up to the ground power and shutdown the APU.

 

 

One last shot of the flight deck..

 

 

 

We leave her parked at the gate, for the crew of ANA1 to take her back home.. For us, it's off to the hotel and time for some R&R! I hope you guys enjoyed following me along for ANA2, I had a blast compiling it for you all!

 

Regards,

 

Aamir

 

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Addons used:

PMDG 777

Flightbeam KIAD

Mogwaisoft Shade

PFPX

FTX;Global

ActiveSky Next

REX4 Texture Direct

Aivlasoft EFB

[daveygurm10 60]

Brilliant, great shots and a great read, congrats.

[Aamir 2,907]

Thanks! I'll be compiling another tomorrow, probably! Still trying to decide which flight to do. Or maybe I'll toss it up and do a 737 flight

[Biologically 0]

Very good! This could be awfully helpful to a newbie serious about getting into flight simulator, have you ever considered a youtube channel helping people with this topic?

[Aamir 2,907]

Very good! This could be awfully helpful to a newbie serious about getting into flight simulator, have you ever considered a youtube channel helping people with this topic?

 

Hmm, could be something to take a gander at! I'm not excellent at editing or any of that though, but one can always learn!

[BadKarmaPT 48]

Great post! Thank you for sharing! 

[Aamir 2,907]

Great post! Thank you for sharing! 

 

Thanks! I'll put up another soon enough..

[Jim Young 2,356]

Make sure you comply with our Image Posting Rules (only 20 per post). We will be removing topics that exceed this rule in the future. I recommend you split your topic up into Parts (i.e., Part I, Part II, Part III etc) so that you will be in compliance with our rules.

 

Best regards,

[Aamir 2,907]

 

 

Make sure you comply with our Image Posting Rules (only 20 per post). We will be removing topics that exceed this rule in the future. I recommend you split your topic up into Parts (i.e., Part I, Part II, Part III etc) so that you will be in compliance with our rules.

Best regards,

 

Jim, I was under the assumption this only applied to the screenshot forum, my bad.

 

Thanks for the heads up.

[Captain Kevin 586]

Nice, but I'm really curious as to why you selected the arrival alternate that you did. Having a quick look, looks like the longest runway is only 6200 feet long and 100 feet wide.

[Liner45 0]

I read the whole post, very interesting, thank you for sharing it. I really liked it...

[Aamir 2,907]

 

 

Nice, but I'm really curious as to why you selected the arrival alternate that you did. Having a quick look, looks like the longest runway is only 6200 feet long and 100 feet wide.

 

I actually had 3 alternates but didn't list them all..

 

 

 

I read the whole post, very interesting, thank you for sharing it. I really liked it...

 

Thank you for reading :-)