The Allplane Podcast #1 - Pilot life, from the Maldives to Northern Ireland
In this very first episode of the Allplane Podcast we have a look at pilot life.
Sal Artigas, our guest, is a commercial pilot that, until just a few weeks ago, was flying a Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 pilot for Flybe. Prior to that, and before moving to rainy Ireland, Sal was flying the smaller Q300 and Q200 turboprops in the Maldives. He tells us how is pilot life like in these very different places.
But Sal is also an aviation entrepreneur that, when he was still studying to get his pilot license, founded a helicopter tours company in Barcelona. We’ll get that covered as well!
And last but not least, his youtube channel Sal Pilot is wildly popular in the aviation community. His most popular video, filmed during an approach to London City Airport, is close to getting a million views!
Sal is going to tell us about all of this and more in this episode, check it out!
In this episode we speak about:
-What it takes to become a commercial pilot
-How Sal founded and managed a helicopter company prior to becoming a pilot
-The expat pilot life in the Maldives
-Being a pilot at Flybe. What did the typical day look like?
-Being a pilot in Scandinavia
-How Sal got almost a million youtube views with his airport approach videos
Resources
Sal Artigas’ Youtube channel: Sal Pilot
And here’s Sal’s most popular video, with the approach to London city airport, that we talked about during the interview
Sal’s prior guest appearance on Allplane: “A pilot's tale: flying in the Maldives”
Podcast Music: Five Armies by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3762-five-armies
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Full Transcript - Interview with pilot Sal Artigas
Hello and welcome to the Allplane podcast!
In each episode, we're going to be talking with an aviation industry professional in order to learn more about specific aspects of this industry. Today's guest is Sal Artigas. Sal is a commercial pilot. And until just a few weeks ago, he was a senior First Officer for Flybe, flying a Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 out of Belfast in Northern Ireland.
Prior to that, Sal spent some years in the Maldives flying turboprops between the different islands...but he's also an aviation entrepreneur. When he was studying to get his pilot's license, he founded a helicopter tour company in his hometown of Barcelona, a business that he later sold to a larger helicopter operator.
In addition to flying planes. Sal is also a YouTuber. His Sal Pilot YouTube channel gets hundreds of thousands of visits, and his videos of airport approaches are particularly popular. So without further ado, let me welcome our guest today.
-Hello Sal! how are you?
-I'm very good. A lot of free time these days, Miquel!
-So, you were flying for Flybe until last month when, unfortunately, the airline was stopped not just because of the pandemic, but also because of further underlying financial issues, but we'll talk about these later...Let's start by looking at what does it take to become a commercial pilot? What was your path to becoming a first officer on a turboprop?
-Well, first of all, good morning everyone. My name is Sal. And as Miquel said, I've been flying for the last few years. Aviation is something I would say you carry with you since you're born. Basically I initially wanted to be funny enough, I wanted to be a train driver. But one day, my granddad took me to the airport to see planes taking off and landing and then, well, that was it. Love at first sight so since then I've always been interested in aviation...pretty much like you, Miquel.
-Yeah
-The passion was always there, I like to take planes as a passenger, just an excuse was good enough to take a plane there. And unfortunately, it's a very costly career. So a few years ago, I didn't have the means to be able to fund this because, as I said, it's a very expensive career as because you basically, there's a theoretical bit and then there's a practical bit though the theoretical base is no, not much different from any other university career, which is just attending classes, understanding what you're, you're studying and basically go through a few exams. In Europea you need to pass 14 subjects in order to get your commercial license and then you go for the practical bit which is the expensive one. So because obviously you have to pay to fly little aircraft, because it's the cheapest one. It's the cheapest way to get through the whole hours you need to build up in order to reach the minimum I believe at the time it was 170 hours. So every hour in Europe is pretty expensive. Between 120 euros and 180 euros, between that range of price, which in America is a little bit...a lot cheaper, I would say.
-So these are costs per hour (of flight)?
-Yeah, cost per hour.
-What did you do to study this? I mean, if you want to be a pilot, where do you go?
-If you just want to become a pilot, my recommendation to everyone who's not very sure of a big investment or doesn't have the means I would say, you can have a license to start with. You can have the very light aircraft the ultralight aircraft, which is just an aircraft that you can have in your own grass strip, for it you don't need many licenses, you need a few but it's very quite cheap, relatively cheap to have. The other one is a private pilot's license, which you can get in any flight school worldwide. I am talking about Spain because that was my case. I studied in Spain in a place called Sabadell and that was the airfield where I studied. It was a flight school called top fly that unfortunately went bankrupt before I finished.There I finished my theoretical and then you do the single engine which is basically the cheapest bit and then the last bit of your practical career is on a multi engine aircraft, which happens to be a propeller aircraft with two engines and then you practice the IFR flight which is instrumental flying rules flights which are the ones that you can get into a cloud or follow procedures that are not you're not digital with the terrain necessarily. And you did a few more instruments and when you fly visual, flying visual basically as you take your map with you, you take your Cessna or Piper whatever and you take it to the air and then just follow the routes just follow the rivers the coastlines, you identify the towns and then you just like make a map…
-Maybe like 1920s pioneers…! And how did you end up in turboprops...and the Q400? Is there a specific choice you made? Or is it something is a set of circumstances that led you to to focus on these types of aircraft?
-Basically, it’s light aircraft that you fly in the flying school. Then it's sort of a generic title you get there, it's called the single engine piston-engined aircraft. And I believe it's up to a certain weight and certain amount of passengers. But I think I'm not very sure of this, but I think it's any aircraft after or above the weight of 5700 kilos or 19 passengers, something like that. Then you need a specific type rating for the aircraft. So you get your commercial license, that's the generic one. That's let's say, in terms of driving a car would be you pass your theoretical bit, and then you pass your practical bits of your driving license. So the aviation would be the same, you pass those bits, and then you get your private license. With your private license, which is the one you get for driving your car, you cannot make money out of it. So that's why it's called the private one because you can take your plane and fly yourself but you cannot make money on that license. You want to make money with your license you need the commercial license, which then would be the taxi driver license sort of thing. So then when you get the commercial pilot's license, is when you can start making money out of it. You can apply, you can apply to any number to an airline, actually, yes, whenever you get your commercial license, then you basically start applying to any other airline. Or if you're lucky enough to have your own plane, you can build up your hours there. But that's the most critical bit and the step where most of the pilots fell off and never stand up again, because it's quite difficult to just jump out of the Flying school with the minimum hours, you need to get into the market. But no airlines look at you because you don't have the experience, but they don't give you the chance to get the experience. So it's a little bit that's the most critical bit I would say if you get over that bit, then you should be fine. More or less. There's a bit of a catch to me. Unfortunately for me, that I finish my license in 2011 and that was the here in Spain we had the big prizes that we're still carrying from 2008 were airlines were still going down a little bit the options were very limited so that's why I started up the helicopters company with my with my mate from the flying school. He was a helicopter pilot and I was a plane pilot but we were going to a few subjects together like methodology or procedures and stuff like that, because it's the same performance, although some things are obviously different. So he was studying in a separate class for helicopter, but in a few others it was a common subject so I started up that because the the high end market was going up in Spain but there were no plane pilot jobs anywhere pretty much for four years so it took me a while to get my first job the first airline I got a positive answer from was in the Maldives. So, basically, took it and what the company had there were Q200s and Q 300.
-Let me stop you here one second because we will be going to get back to the Maldives... But first I just would like to dig a little bit deeper into the helicopter thing. So you founded a company, if I understood correctly, that you provided helicopter tours around Barcelona. You didn't do the flying because you are not a helicopter pilot. Your friend and co-founder was.
-Yeah
-What type of helicopter did you fly? and what type of flights did you do with this company?
-We started off with Robinson 44, which is the Cessna 172 of the helicopters has four seats, including the pilot seat so it's three passenger seats and and the pilots. A single pilot with three passenger seats, let's see. The Robinson 44 is one of the most sold helicopters in history because it's very reliable and it's been there forever. Probably before I was born, the Robinson 44 was already flying. It was more or less cheap to operate and it had a good performance. So yeah, my colleague was a helicopter pilot, he was flying the passengers because he needed to build up his hours as well. So that was a win win. And he took my tourism management experience because I did a tourism management degree before becoming a pilot, as I said, I needed to save some money for that and make sure that's what I wanted to do.
-And you were doing the paperwork and stuff
-Basically, I was the grumpy one in the office. Yes!
-Okay.
-Yeah.
-One of the best products I sold was here in North coastal Barcelona, in my hometown, Barcelona is not too far. It's actually known worldwide now because we've got an NBA player called Ricky Rubio.
-Yeah. It's about 10 miles north (of Barcelona).
-Yeah, there's a region where we grow a lot of strawberries and also we have wine. Then I knew someone in my hometown, next door, which is called “Alella”, there is a vineyard. I was in contact with them. I proposed to them the chance to do some helicopter tours landing there and then the passengers could get off the helicopter like Hollywood stars, do a tour around the vineyards. Yeah, and then they will end up with a lunch overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and Barcelona at the far end and obviously, getting very happy with the wine tasting…
-Sounds great. Are they still working with this company?
-No, I sold the company to a bigger helicopter company called BG helicopters. So they have now they when I left, they had four le copters they had a jet Ranger based in Tenerife. In addition, they had the Eurocopter 350, which is a big machine. And then they had the Robinson 22 and then Robinson 44. Okay, I miss the flying bit.
-Oh, yeah, I guess you were getting to fly the helicopter from time to time though.
-Yes, Every time there was a spare seat, I was there.
- Okay, so then you got your commercial pilot license and you moved to the Maldives, right?
-Yeah. And that was in 2014. Okay. Yeah, it was August. And I was there for Maldivian, which is one of the flight carriers. Actually, it's the governmental airline there that does regional flights in the islands. So you connect in the main airport, right. Yeah, that was Male to all the different islands. Other resorts in the different islands, right. Yeah. And we also had a destination in India. That was the Dash-8 because then as I was there, we welcomed also A320 and A321s as well. But only the oldest pilots move to the Airbus. I was still kept in the Dash because I was quite new.
-So you were flying...typically your flights would be from Male all the way to all the different islands. They would be how long?
- The shortest one was eight minutes.
-Wow!
-Yes. And the longest one was off to India. Obviously that was nearly depending on the winds would make it in one hour, 45 minutes flying, obviously all the time over the water.
-So, what's the destination in India or you're flying to? in the south?
-Thiruvananthapuram... shortly known as Trivandrum.
-Yes, yes. I know. I've been there actually. And in the south west coast of India.
-Yeah. not far in the near the tip of India. Not far from Kochi.
-And how is it like to live the pilot life, the expat pilot life in the Maldives. I guess you were based in the capital, right?
-Well, not really. I was based in the island where the airport was built. Because Maldives is is a very, very, very strange country to start with, it has one around 1200 Islands. The actual country is made up of just islands, there's no terrain. So, like three or four square kilometers just so that's the capital is the most congested capital in the world because 350,000 people live there. Yes, every without any building so it's just very, very congested. So the the airport was built in a nearby island called Hulhulé. So that was just initially, a runway built on top of an atoll. It’s only 1.8 meters high in the country...you are pretty much taller than me Miquel...so you can say you're taller than anywhere in the country…! The airport island was called Hulhulé and I was initially just a runway with a few hangars around. And then as the time when they started gaining terrain, claiming terrain to the, to the water, so they are building up if we if we go and use Google Earth, and if you feel it's a very interesting place to have a look because it's very interesting. Now they initially were giving me my reporting time. They said, I used to have to come one hour before the flight. And they were the night before they always called me. “Salvador. You've got ferry time tomorrow, quarter past 10 in the morning”. So they were giving me the ferry time I should take from Male to go.
-Ferry time? Was that an actual boat?
-Oh, everybody there used to take boats for everything. But now they've built a bridge between the airport Island and Male. I haven't been there yet. So I haven't seen that. But yeah, so at the time I was there, there was a ferry connecting the airport with Male every five minutes.
-Okay. And so you took the ferry whenever you were told that you had to be on duty?
-They gave me the ferry time, but I was living in the same airport Island because as I said, they claimed some land from the ocean. And they started making new apartments because they couldn't expand Male anymore. It was literally congested...if you take an image from Google, you'll see how congested it is. It's very visual.
-Oh, I’ll check it out. Definitely.
-Yeah, so I was just taking a bus from Hulhumale via the north tip of the island to the airport to the airport. In between those buildings and the runway there was a lagoon that they were using for the seaplanes
-True that there are a lot of sea planes in the Maldives as well. I guess there are islands that don't have a runway right and resorts where people can only fly there by seaplane, but you were flying I guess to larger islands.
-At the time I was there, there was another regional carrier that was using ATRs called Villa Air, that now has become Flyme and Maldivian which was my company and didn't have any seaplanes, but now they have at least five or six. By the time I left they had four but I believe they have more than eight now, so it's basically an expanding business. Maldivian was covering the furthermost destinations from Male, the ones that were unable to be reached by seaplane because our longest flight was crossing the equator from Male to an island called Gan. It was a former British military base where the planes used to stop on their way to Australia. So that was a long runway but that flight was about one hour and 30 minutes crossing the equator line...so, that on a Twin Otter! it was a little bit...So basically, the flights we were doing with Maldivian were the further destinations that couldn't be reached by seaplane, that's why Maldivian was built, because they couldn't make it on a seaplane for three hours. So you are twice as fast as the Twin Otter more or less.
-You flew Q200 and Q300s, right?
-Yeah, the same day you could actually fly them both. Start with a Q200 and finish on a Q300. Or the other way around.
-And the difference is basically the size of the aircraft.
-Yeah, the Q200 has 37 seats and the Q300, 50 seats.
-Okay.
-Extra 13 seats and the performance is the same, exactly the same engine, the Q200 had slightly better performance because obviously it's the same engine with less weight. It was a little bit faster.
-By the way, I take the chance here to say that on Allplane.tv, we do have a guest post written by Sal a few years ago where he talks about the experience about when he was flying...you wrote it when you were still in the Maldives, actually!
-Yes. You mentioned it.
-Yeah, I remember it was a popular blog post and there's some information there about the different airports you can come across in the Maldives and a bit of the private life there. So, anyone interested in this, can go check. I'm going to post it anyway. I'm going to post the link on the write-up of this call. But just wanted to mention it now...How long did you spend in the Maldives?
- From...I did my type rating in October, sorry, in August 2014. in Oslo, that was a whole month, which was the type rating. I think I didn't finish explaining this...but basically type rating is you get the generic license with a commercial pilot's license. But then if you go to complicated aircraft, or heavier than 5,700 kilos, you need a type rating, which is basically that you learn the exact systems for that aircraft, and how to handle it, because, obviously, as you may be aware of, it's not the same two player 380 then a dash obviously
-Yeah, of course!
-My type rating lasted for about a month and then you do some obviously technical reviews and you learn the aircraft systems and then you end up with a simulator. So once I finished that, I moved to the Maldives in September 2014. And then I was there until November 2015.
-And then you move halfway across the world to Northern Ireland. Right?
-Yes, this is why this accent, hehe..!
-You move to Northern Ireland to take a job at Flybe. So how was it like? You just jumped on this chance to move back to Europe? You then change aircraft, right, to the Q400. The same family of aircraft, just a bit larger?
-Yes, the powerful sister of the 4 Q-series. It is the same type rating. So you just need to learn the little differences between all three with the Q400 was conceived as an aircraft that initially was expected to be having the same type rating. So we jump into a Q400 cockpit and will see the power livers condition livers flaps and all that is pretty exactly as it was in the...as we call it...the “baby Dash”. The “Baby Dash” is any of the other three. When I say “Baby Dash”, I'm referring to the Q100, 200 and 300, but then Bombardier realized that it was a much more powerful aircraft. The Q400 is a beast. Talking about propellers it's probably one of the few propeller aircraft that has similar performance and a jet. So the give !400 was very, very interesting for regional carriers such as Flybe itself or Air Canada or even Wideroe, in Norway. It's the perfect aircraft for thinner routes where you are not going to be putting an Airbus or a 737 or even an Embraer, in the region of one hour flights. The cost of flying a Dash for one hour is probably around half of what an Airbus would consume for one hour flight including the takeoff on the approach and all the consumption. So, the Q400 has 78 seats and flies not as fast as a jet obviously, but within one hour range, the difference would be just five minutes compared to an Airbus
-Because you were flying out of Belfast, mainly to…?
-My base was Belfast City Airport which is the smaller airport in Belfast, Belfast has two airports the both were used during the World War.
-The George Best, isn't it?
-Yeah, they call it recently they name it as George Best Belfast City Airport. Very short name for a big big massive airport like Belfast City. The runway is very small and it's a small terminal. But it was, I think, for three years in a row named the most convenient airport in Europe. Top airport in the UK in terms have been close to the city center being easy to use, good security screens, no lines and very convenient honestly it was just three miles from Belfast City Centre.
-What's your professional routine in Northern Ireland? Is it very different from what you used to have in the Maldives in terms of the number of sectors flown every day? All other aspects?
-Yeah, it was, it was different because the Maldivian civil aviation has different rules compared to the European so once which is in terms of flying a certain amount of hours. Your maximum hours you're allowed to fly per month per day, every three days. Every week you have different limits of hours you can fly and the European one is a little bit more restrictive compared to the Maldives. So in the Maldives you could easily fly six sectors a day. A sector is just from A to point B. So if we go from Belfast to Manchester and back that's considered to be two legs or two sectors. A typical day in Belfast would be four sectors that the standard would say, if you were lucky or just doing two sectors or if you're unlucky, as weren't quite lucky in the summer! it was six sectors or a double London City Airport. It was a that was the longest day we had in Belfast, it was a triple, triple whatever, Leeds, Bradford, Manchester Birmingham or compare combined with all that we could do is East Midlands then back to Belfast, then Edinburgh back to Belfast and then Leeds and back to Belfast...that would be one of the most tiring days so always a big sector six sectors or a double London City Airport. That day in Belfast would be the longest and in the Maldives, the longest day I did was nine sectors
-And always back to base?
-Not in the Maldives and the model is we were doing triangles...I'm gonna say island names I know it's not gonna sound very good to you, but I was doing Male-Hanimaadhoo, then to Dharavandhoo and then back to Male, so sometimes we're doing triangles okay got to Kooddoo and then back to Male or four sectors. Doing that was quite a common one, as was Male-Hanimaadhoo-Kaadedhdhoo-Male, for example. We were doing four sectors away from base and the last one was back to base...yeah it was depending on the needs of the market or whether it was very busy in the Maldives.
-And you did also some flying in Scandinavia also well while at Flybe
-I was lucky enough...we had a mini operation for Scandinavian Airlines. So the planes were painted in Scandinavian colors. It was an ATR...I think at the end it was five ATR based in Arlanda in Stockholm. And it was a wet lease contract with Scandinavian Airlines, but it was operated by Flybe. Swedish rules say that pilots are entitled to three weeks off in the summer. So every summer, we're bringing a Dash-8 from the UK empty up to Stockholm, and then we're flying for them just to cover the lack of pilots for the summer.
-Okay, so you were still flying with a Dash-8?
-Okay, we're putting in an extra Dash-8 painted in Flybe colors operated for Scandinavian Airlines. That was quite funny to see the passengers jumping on the planes. They thought it was Scandinavian. The announcement said, “welcome to the Scandinavian Airlines flight to Stockholm, and then there were people even more lost!”
-So and then and then you were flying domestic in Sweden with these planes?
-In the summer we were setting base in different places because Stockholm was quite expensive. So the summer I went there we, our base was in Vaasa, in mid north of Finland. in the west coast of Finland. It's a Finnish city, but everyone spoke Swedish there.
-Yeah.
-So yeah, we're basically doing every day, it was an easy operation. I could do that again and again, no problem. It was Vaasa to Stockholm and back to Vaasa. We were doing some of the ATR routes. So I managed to do Stockholm-Helsinki one day and then I managed as well to do Stockholm-Visby twice in one day.
-So you were replacing ATRs with your Dash-8 whenever you needed to fill the gaps
-Basically we filled the operation that was left out without pilots. The aircraft weren’t a problem, the aircraft were okay in numbers, but there weren’t just enough pilots for the summer. So basically we flew the Q400 around and it was funny because it was much faster than the ATR. So every time we're leaving 10 minutes late out of Vaasa for whatever reason and we are still making it 10 (minutes) early into Stockholm...because the flight times were set for the ATRs!
-And then Flybe unfortunately has been in the headlines for quite some time. It's not something new that let's say let's put it this way. The announcement that was stopping was not an unexpected thing because it had been in the headlines already for some time about this very critical financial situation. There was even a takeover by some investors. I think there was an Irish group...
-Yeah, Stobart...or Stobart Capital...I don't know exactly the exact terms but it was basically Stobart, Virgin and Capital Group behind, so it was a conjunction of three capitals joining together to buy Flybe
-There was even talk that they could become a sort of feeder for Virgin Atlantic
-Yeah, we were actually on the path to become...well we're officially called “Connect Airways” and were expecting like in America for example, you can fly with Horizon Air, but the Dash 400s are painted in Alaska color. So we’d be sort of a similar thing, we would be Connect Airways officially, but our livery would have been Virgin Connect
-But you would be connecting with Virgin where?
-Yeah, the plan was to become Virgin. So the the Dash-8 would have been painted in Virgin colors so that effectively for the general public would have been would have been Virgin the the main goal was to connect, yeah, to to help connectivity at the main hubs that Virgin had at the time, which were Manchester, Gatwick and Heathrow and I believe Gatwick is not going to be in the list anymore.
-Yeah, well, actually, that's one of the things that I was wondering because it makes sense on paper, because Virgin Atlantic is one of the few airlines, one of the few long haul airlines of a respectable size that doesn't have a feeder operation. It's mostly point to point
-Yeah, we were a sort of feeder, for at least, that I'm aware of, for a good three years...we had codeshare agreements with them. And that's why at Flybe we were doing the Aberdeen-Heathrow and the Edinburgh-Heathrow. I've been lucky enough to play both of them and it was really interesting.
-But that's the thing. I mean, Heathrow has a very limited capacity because of the constraints and capacity right now. I'm not sure how this connection thing would work at Heathrow. Gatwick and Manchester possibly fine, but Heathrow if you want to put in more connections there with smaller planes. It's a bit of a challenge, isn't it?
-That was one of the most discussed subjects in the takeover thing. Well, when you fly, you have a lot of time to talk and see it and obviously are with your colleagues and discuss things. And I remember talking about this so many times because at the time of the takeover, apparently Delta Airlines had placed an order for 70 CSeries, and apparently these were to be deployed to Delta quite quickly....So that's that's all rumors...I'm not sure if that's true or not, but the rumor was that delta will receive the CSeries so quickly that they weren't capable of training the pilots and the crew and, you know, set all the things you need for a newer aircraft arrival quickly enough to actually deploy the aircraft on the road. So they were talking as Virgin is partly owned by Delta. The talks were there to bring some CSeries for Flybe, especially for those routes where you would need a lot more capacity because having us load into Heathrow is difficult enough, as you said, bringing a Dash-8, with only 70 passengers is quite a loss, isn’t it. That's what I think at least. I would make the biggest aircraft I could bring in if your main goal is to fit a bigger aircraft. We used to have that route for a while at Belfast City Airport, at Flybe we used to have it on an Embraer. And it was overbooked every single day. Then Aer Lingus came, I guess backed up by BA, it came into Belfast City and started doing that route. So obviously our loads went down dramatically. And then we had to sell those lots in order to keep up flying. So we sold the slots at Gatwick for about 20 million. So the Belfast City route was pretty much given to Aer Lingus all of a sudden. So the Belfast City-Gatwick route was not there anymore. So they were talking about Virgin doing that. Because honestly, it was a very busy route. So that was another question we have: if Virgin was to take us over at Flybe, we would probably fly the CSeries to Gatwick. That would have been a good idea, I think. But obviously, I wasn't there to see the numbers. So it's easy to give my opinion without seeing the numbers.
-Well, it's clear that it's not really gonna happen now.
-Yeah. And instead of that, we're doing Belfast City to London City Airport six times a day.
-Actually, London City, it's good you mentioned it because I would like to say as well that Sal is also a very popular YouTuber. And you can find him under the name “Sal pilot”, on youtube and some of your videos have got close to a million views. Particularly a popular one is an approach to London City Airport, right?.
-Right. Yeah. Because it's like a hate-love feeling with London City because it was a special airport. Not many pilots, I think they can say they've been to all London airports. Because, usually, if you fly into Heathrow, it’s because you fly a big plane or if you fly to London City because you fly a small plane, but in my case I've been to all of them. Well, the main ones obviously, I haven't been to Farnborough or the other one in the south...Manston? I can't remember...Yeah, there's another one. I can't remember now. Well, it's basically used by private planes and private jets and stuff like that. But yeah, I've been to Luton, Gatwick, London City Heathrow and Stansted...Flybe was quite a versatile airline. That said, unfortunately, from Belfast, it was quite a long flight. So if you were doing a double London City, we used to hate it. Because it is a very long flight, especially in winter because if you were doing the afternoon rotation, you would check in about half 11 in the morning, I call it morning, some people call it afternoon already, and he would be back in base by half nine. If you were lucky with slots. Because Sunday is a very congested airspace, London airspace is very congested.
-And it's very challenging to land at London City?
-Yeah, it is challenging. Flybe used to allow captain's only to land. So technically I haven't landed there...I'm not going to say more than this.
-What is clear if you took a very spectacular video
-Yeah, I was enjoying the views.
-Yeah, you can, that's one thing for sure. You've got nice views getting there and and you've got quite a few approaches on film on your YouTube channel. So if you go to Sal’s YouTube channel, you will find approaches to quite a few airports. Lots of video shot from the cockpit there. What are your favorite airports in terms of approaches? because of the beauty of the approach. What would be your top five?
-I love some of them, obviously...some I haven't flown. I mean, I would love to go to Innsbruck...Flybe used to go to Innsbruck, was doing ski charters in winter. And it's one of those flights every year you ask, you try to poke people at operations and try to tell them “Is there any work left for Innsbruck? No, no, no…”
-You haven't done it yet, though?
-No, I haven't done Innsbruck yet, even though is in my wish list. But definitely my top five would be London City, runway 09. Now it is the is the one that faces towards the east. You fly from the north and then you go, you fly. Just to make it simple. You fly from Belfast to the Isle of Man from the Isle of Man to Wallasey, which is in Liverpool. And then you go to a couple of waypoints called LISTO and PEDIG, not far from Cambridge. So then you continue flying to the east coast of England, and then you start flying at a very low level, and people...a lot of people after landing in London City, a lot of passengers are asking why we made it to the east coast of England. London is much more West. It's because we have to go at really low level to allow all the traffic is going into Heathrow, as I said, it's a very congested airspace. So the approach didn't make sense at all because we're making so many extra miles we're making all the way so you could see Stansted on the right hand side coming in from the north.
Then we're making it to the east coast of England and then we're basically following the River Thames at somewhere in between 6000 and 3000 thousand feet. So once there then we're if you're going to runway 09, which is the one that always draws a smile on your face when you're hearing “runway 09” and then you're like “Yes, good news today!”. Then we're flying south of Greenwich Park, and you can see that on my videos, as you mentioned before, that's the one that's most watched on my channel.
-Yeah, I'll put a link to your YouTube channel on the transcript
-Yeah, there's many many other videos online but mine at least says the highlights of the approach. You basically then you follow...You fly West one westbound towards River Thames, south of it and then you take a right hand turn over the London and the parliament building. And basically you just follow the river back to the Docklands, you fly over the Tower of London you can see the City of London on the left and the display over the all the big buildings...Canary Wharf…
-It’s a panoramic flight
-Yeah, the airport is right after those buildings you just basically drop without power almost on the Thames, that was a very tricky approach as well. As a first officer it was very very difficult to get distracted. You could see the captain sweating, because, in Flybe’s case, at least, you could not fly the approach with an auto-pilot, so we had to fly manually, without flight directors as well, it had to be flown “old-school”. Flight director is the little purple cross you get in the primary flight display. It makes it a lot easier but if you don’t have those bars it becomes a lot trickier, especially when there are winter storms, stuff like that..very tricky! I have seen very experienced captains sweat a lot. It was very tricky, it was quite difficult.Some of the captains let me fly the approach but never the landing, I have to admit.
-You are now, like everyone in this industry, kind of waiting for the storm to pass. What plans you have in store? Are you looking for other airlines to fly for at the moment?
-Yeah, unfortunately I had a couple of interviews...as soon as Flybe went bankrupt I started to apply to airlines, let’s say, to airlines that I always liked or simply airlines that I like the airlines that they fly. I have done my bit in turboprops, I have flown the Q400 and the Dash family but I want to experience flying a jet, which is quite a different thing...and I would like to try the long haul as well, I am not sure it will be my cup of tea, but I think I wanna try at some point in my career. Ideally I’d like to try it now but obviously, you have an idea and life puts you on the other side of where your idea was. So, basically, I have a couple of interviews lined up after the collapse of Flybe but these have now been postponed until further notice. Now there’s gonna be more pilots in the market, so it’s gonna be quite difficult…
-In any case, if there are any airline managers in the audience, feel free to get in touch and we’ll put you in touch with Sal!
-3,900 hours!
-In any case, it’s been great speaking with you, Salvador. We’ll be watching your youtube channel, hopefully soon with more approaches. I think you have a backlog of videos that you are now uploaded, right?
-Yeah, I have lots of videos from the past years and I am now uploading about one video per week, or two or three, depending on my free time, not uploading them all at the same time.
-So you are using well your time…
-Yeah...what can I do, I like aviation...recalling the good times with Flybe, which was a great airline to work for
-And hopefully getting back you here on the podcast with some updates on more airport approaches…
-Yeah, and hopefully already with a new aircraft!
-Thanks very much! Stay safe!
-You too! Stay safe from the Covid”
-Yeah