Aerial Views

Confession – I fly places. I might claim my bicycles are my favourite means of transport and you can find assorted bicycle blogs on this site, including the story of my plywood Plycycle. I’m also a keen walker, in 2024 I’ve done the Three Capes Walk in Tasmania, Australia and I’ve completed the 184 miles (294km) Thames Path walk – here’s one of my Thames Path blogs and I’ll be putting up some more reports on my Thames Path walking before the end of 2024.

But if I’m flying somewhere I’m seriously unhappy if I don’t get a window seat. Here are five favourite views, I’ll post some more soon:

▲ In April 2024 I spent two weeks with Médecins Sans Frontières – MSF or Doctors Without Borders in English – at some of their sites in northern Nigeria. This is the view flying from Katsina to Kano in the MSF Beechcraft 1900.

▲ This is an all-time favourite view, it’s Mt Damavand, north of Tehran towards the Caspian Sea, and the site of Iran’s best ski runs. I was on the right side of the Fly Dubai 737 which took me from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to Baku in Azerbaijan in late 2018.

▲ It’s another favourite, in 2011 I was flying from Nauru to Brisbane with Nauru’s Our Airline on their 737 and again I was lucky to be on the right side of the aircraft when the Indescribable Reef came into view. It’s certainly wonderful as well as indescribable.

▲ it’s easy to see what this aircraft is, it’s a Tiger Moth and in 2007 we’re flying over Torquay, the surfing capital of the state of Victoria on the Great Ocean Road. My son Kieran gave me this Tiger Moth flight as a birthday present, but over the years I’ve made a few Tiger Moth flights, nowhere near as many as my father who was an RAF pilot instructor during WW II and flew Tiger Moths and Harvards.

▲ if you haven’t got a window there’s always the Moving Map to show you where you’re flying. In September 2024 I flew London-Delhi on an Air India Airbus A350.