Cute chick on a flight deck visit

[Overload 91]

Thought this might get a bit of interest... :wink:

 

 

 

 

The Background

Back in the olden days (2001), I was flying Shorts 330's/360's for a freight company operating out of Luton UK (EGGW) - for our younger viewers, they looked this:

The actual 330 used for the flight. Affectionately known as the "Flying Shed" - for obvious reasons.. 

 

One of the companies 360's.

 

Not many around theses days.

From time to time we'd do a “Chick run”, transporting thousands of new born chicks around Europe. For the first 24hrs the chicks are living off the remains of the egg sac so are fairly low maintenance, but are very sensitive to temperature – so for the purpose of monitoring the chicks, the chick company supplied a guy called the “Chick Master” - honest -  who's job was to use temperature probes to monitor the temperature in the boxes of chicks, and he'd peer into the boxes to check they looked happy enough. Too cold and they'd huddle together, too hot and they separate and pant, getting it just right took constant temperature adjustments to the Shorts rudimentary temperature control.

So the Chick master decided one of his charges would like a Flight Deck visit, and that's the story of the pictures.

The flight in the 330 was from Luton (EGGW) to Angelholm (ESTA) in Sweden – good tailwinds, took 3hrs 20mins, 4hrs 20 on return into the wind, with a fuelling stop at Groningen (EHGG) Holland, even empty, non-stop was outside the Shorts range.

7 hours 40 mins flying all told - all in daylight – unusual for freighters – all hand flown, no autopilot in our 330's, a nice days flying..

Eugene

 

 

[tttocs 301]

Good story.  Thanks for sharing!

 

"Flying shed" indeed.  :wink:

 

Scott

[RamonB 449]

Great story, thanks for sharing.

 

Ramón

[bic 44]

Nice click bait One of the airlines, Mesa I think it was, flew the Shorts 360 in Arizona.  Nice big wide plane, interior looked like a regular plane with lots of head room, not like an ATR in which the seats seemed very skinny.

[Bunkie 43]

...and to think I've spent my entire life thinking Chickens can't fly

[akmatov 4]

enjoyed the story and the pictures

[nealmac 260]

Probably the biggest clickbait thread title ever seen on Avsim  :smile:

[Overload 91]

Thanks for the kind comments guys.

Watched "Flying Alaska" last night on UK Sky, the company run the C23 Sherpa variant of the 330, almost identical except for a large rear cargo door.

Great to see it's still flying, forgotten how roomy the cockpit was, it's huge compared to most...

"Flying Alaska" is worth a view, lots of different G.A. type aircraft in it, although the voice-over over does the drama, as to be expected, there's no doubt they fly in challenging conditions...

"Flying shed" indeed. 

 

 

Reminds me of when I was taxiing out at Saarbrucken, Germany (EDDR), the tower controller said "Streamline 450 I have a question" - this is normally bad news - somethings dropped of the aircraft, the company have screwed up the flight plan, or a million other possibilities..

" Streamline 450 go ahead"

"Why do they call you Streamline?"

A German with a sense of humour! Well I never...

Quick as a flash I retort:

"Ah, this isn't the original aircraft - this is the box it came in"

We both had a chuckle...

Eugene

[tutmeister 695]

Keep it up Eugene, loving the stories!

Bringing a smile to my face, I love hearing flying stories.

 

Chris

[JWNoctis 4]

Pretty amazing nobody made any Shorts joke yet.

 

But yeah, day old chicken..are cute! Pretty messy with powdery fluff though, if what I read in another forum is true.

 

Amazing story, too! Thanks for sharing!

[ViperPilot 81]

"Bad, Naughty Zoot!"

 

I admit... I was drawn in by the Title. It's Friday, you know.

 

Alan  :smile:

[Flyin_thong 2]

Yeah I came here just to see a hot sexy 'chick' in the cockpit. Instead all I got was a stupid chicken.

 

 

Just kididng.

[HighBypass 2,339]

"See, Mum! I TOLD you I can fly!"

 

Alan - is the Zoot reference from Monty Python? (.. & the Holy Grail) 

[ViperPilot 81]

Mark... of course!

 

:smile:

[KSATRoadWarrior 91]

 

 

Reminds me of when I was taxiing out at Saarbrucken, Germany (EDDR)

 

 

Eugene,

Great stories....thanks.....

Did you ever fly into Zweibrucken (EDRZ).......NATO when I was there.......

 

Bob