A Protracted Sunset

By 4:30 pm I was in the gate lounge awaiting my 5:58 pm flight. This left right on time. After ascending to our flight altitude in late afternoon sunshine we flew at about Mach 0.79, chasing the setting sun for 5 hours. Much of the flight was over sunset pinked clouds, but I did get to see some oil rigs, wind farms, desert irrigation channels and mountains.

As our A320 Airbus began a long gliding descent towards Los Angeles we passed a snowy mountain then settled into darkness. I listened to air traffic control as they managed two parallel streams of descending aircraft, each precisely positioned and descent glide path controlled to within one knot (at one point I heard a controller ask a pilot to slow down by that much).

Eventually we were gliding for what seemed ages over the illuminated suburbs of Los Angeles. Then we flared and were on the ground. Not once did the pilot have to gun the engine to adjust the glide slope.

As we turned off the runway to taxi towards the terminal I could see two parallel streams of dozens of aircraft landing lights stretching up in a ruler straight line into the far distance, all equi-spaced along that line.

The advantage of flying the same airline on both the US and transpacific legs of the journey now evidenced itself. I didn't need to change terminals or collect baggage - merely stroll from one boarding gate to another.

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Text, images and audio Copyright to Andrew Rennnie, 2010