PilotsEYE.tv

Kapstadt

"Head up - nose down" (The lost files)

Flight description

With PilotsEYE to the southern hemisphere for the first time

A heavy bird flies low

With a take-off weight of 238t, the A330 is one of the “heavy birds” in long-haul traffic, which sometimes presents our crew with difficult tasks. It is not always easy to meet the strict air traffic control requirements in Europe’s dense airspace. Captain Moser is calm and has confidence in his aircraft. Nevertheless, the passenger announcement is not forgotten and leads to South Africa with interesting facts. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking…”

Of football-playing air traffic controllers and empty tanks

With 30,000 flight hours and 39 years of active service, Joe Moser is one of the longest-serving flight captains in the industry. During this time, of course, you experience a lot: In a humorous way, Captain Moser tells of his experiences in Africa. Things don’t always go as smoothly as they do elsewhere: for example, some air traffic controllers may well feel disturbed by the arrival of a plane in their soccer match on the apron. In other areas, however, you are on your own, because here there is no radar control at all and pilots have to coordinate directly with each other.

Faster than Lufthansa

There is also congestion above the clouds, which leads to a spectacular overtaking of a Lufthansa aircraft. The reactions of the crews and air traffic controllers are recorded in audio and video. At an airspeed of 84% of the speed of sound, every move has to be right.

The magnificent play of colors in the Libyan desert

The flight over a part of the Sahara Desert provides fantastic views from the cockpit. Sand dunes as far as the eye can see and a play of colors from orange-red to pale yellow tempt to wanderlust. The cockpit crew enjoys the view with curd strudel and coffee. Even pilots have to eat sometimes.

Slalom around the thunderstorms

PilotsEYE.tv crosses the equator for the first time. The giant tropical thunderstorms in this region are a special weather phenomenon. For the pilots this means work and so detours have to be taken. The captain explains how one of the most important instruments in his cockpit works: the weather radar.

Nostalgia…

…is evoked by the flight’s call sign. Since the mid-fifties, the “LTU” brand has been associated with vacations by many people. In 2009, LTU was fully integrated into Air Berlin’s flight operations and has since disappeared from German skies.

The route

Dusseldorf(DE)-Frankfurt-Zurich(CH)-Milan(IT)-Genoa-Elba-Lampedusa-Tripoli(LY)-D’Jamena(TD)-Brazzaville(CG)-Kinshasa(CD)-Windhoek(NA)-Kape Town(ZA)

Sunset above the clouds

Nothing is more beautiful than flying and PilotsEYE.tv shows why: As the sun slowly sinks into the horizon, bathing the clouds below the plane in rich red, even the co-pilot is amazed. The subsequent night landing in Cape Town, however, leaves no room for poetry and, after more than 11 hours of flight time, once again demands the full concentration of the crew.

You know what you have done

says Captain Joe Moser, referring to the stress of long-haul flights. His longest flight lasted almost 14 hours. It’s only too easy to understand that it’s not straight back to work after that. The crew has a one-day break and PilotsEYE.tv accompanies them with impressions of Table Mountain and traditional South African sounds.

Head up and nose down

For the first time, the Primary Flight displays (PFD) can be experienced as an overlay on the forward view. This way, you can see the displays simultaneously with the flight attitude at the so-called “final approach” in Cape Town.

This episode is only available as Video on Demand.

Flight data & Crew

  • Flight no.: LTU674
  • Aircraft: A330-200
  • Run time: 60 min
  • Chief Pilot & Captain |
    Joe Moser
  • Sen first Officer |
    Nicolai Ohff

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Subtitles

EN

Highlights

Ein schwerer Vogel fliegt tief

Von Fußball spielenden Fluglotsen und leeren Tanks

Schneller als die Lufthansa

Das prächtige Farbenspiel der libyschen Wüste

Slalom um die Gewitter

Nostalgie…

Sonnenuntergang über den Wolken

Da weiß man was man gemacht hat

Head up and nose down