I was at the Heathrow Terminal 5 trial today. I think today was perhaps a bit different to other trials. Perhaps not. (Above pic is of the Concorde at the BA Cargo centre, I took it on my new Digital Camera, last years FujiFilm FinePix F40fd).

The terminal is impressive in the check-in area and in the shopping mall with gates area (aka departures). There are some spectacular view of the end of the runways, but being at the end rather than the middle is not as good as I expected, perhaps it's better for T5B (which I didn't visit). The shopping area is very nice, fairly high-class, and today a few shops, restaurants and coffee places were completed (and open) and many others had the logos up and were being kitted out.

I was in a group of 40. We were told hold luggage was not being tested in our group. Instead we were to have 2 pieces of hand-luggage (including any bags we had with us). I was a frequent flyer going to Edinburgh. As I had hand baggage only and my notes said I had checked-in online, I and others went straight to security. The line at security was atrocious. The reason for this was only a few desks were open, but also, they were testing out the new finger print biometric security system:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/08/uk_biometric_air_travel/

It seemed like each person took at least 1 minute to be processed. You have to press 4 fingers of your left hand, "firmly" onto a green scanner and hold them there for several seconds (I understood this, since I understand the English spoken to me...) Then they take your picture, as well as doing the other checks. I think it took me around 20 or 25 mins to clear security - BAA needs to fix this before go-live. The x-ray on the other side of biometrics though was very clever, well the tray system was. Everything was sensor driven, even the rollers were powered and the trays automatically cleared away once you had removed your stuff on the other side (and not before). Those to be searched manually were automatically filtered off on separate rollers to the security person. Mine got stuck at the roller junction for this, blocking the trays behind, so there are perhaps some bugs to work out.

Through to 'air-side' and it's all...shops, loos and gates. Nice and airy, like an upmarket mall, but no time to admire much as I had to go to the gate since it was open for boarding. We went to gate 4, which either is unfinished or is really meant to be just a loading point for a remote stand. Anyway, fingers were checked again (no sign of FF fastracking...) and a bunch of us squeezed (yes it was packed) onto a Citaro bus. We drove around the terminal and ended up...at a remote stand where a BA A320 was waiting for us. (yes!)

We boarded normally, and there was a sandwich, apple, tiny bottle of water and a Nutrigrain bar for each of us, for lunch. I know we're meant to take photos of the in-flight meals for trip reports, but we were told no photography. Boarding took a LONG time but the crew were playing along with the pretence that it was a genuine flight to Edinburgh, even the captain, who sounded authentic. Once the flight was full, the doors were closed, the crew did the safety demo, and I got that tingle in my stomach, from the excitement of being about to fly. We pushed back and taxied backward about 20 metres and stopped.

Dunno what it is about the A320 series, but at that point I snoozed off. Far to easy to sleep on those planes, although this was was a bit tatty. I woke up to the seat belt sign coming back on and we were told that we have just landed at Heathrow, and we have just been on a flight from Manchester. We roll back to the stand and we de-plane, all maintaining the pretence.

I have now become a lady, and I am connecting to a flight to New York. That all goes fairly smoothly (I noted a few potential snags), and ended up at the gate, where there was, this time, no plane. Then we were given a third scenario, which was a fire drill in the immigration area. That was a bit chaotic, but that's the point of tests I suppose. Something else, the place was crawling with Police, apparently there were doing security checks necessary for T5 to be classified an air terminal.

At the end I must say I was exhausted. But it was a great experience, and I'll definitely try and fly from there once it's open in April.

Tags: Planes

Well, I was going to restart this last weekend, but I didn't get round to it.

First a quick re-cap: the hub gear was fine once I reversed the lock nuts. No idea why. However in doing to the wheel had to move forwards, and being a hub with out a chain tensioner, this gave me a slack chain. I cocked up the chain shortening exercise, but was saved by Halfords selling chain connectors (but only after I'd bought a new chain...). All was fine till after Christmas when I sensed a tugging sensation on the rear wheel. Here's the cause:

Not only broken in 2 (almost), but most of the teeth had ripped off too. Geniunely worn out! Looking at the chainwheel, I could see that that was worn too and you always need to change the chain too, so, I replaced the lot:

Steel is our friend is what Dr. Moulton says, so it seems appropriate to have replaced the softer aluminium chainwheel with a Surly made from stainless steel with matching Stronglight cranks. £100 all-in and either its the 1 extra tooth on the chainring or the 5 less millimetres on the crank length, but it feels great, easier and more powerful.

Such was the feeling that I decided to ride all the way to Slough last Sunday.

Above is the signpost just before Slough on the edge of the Heathrow perimeter of the A4. I was and am amazed to have completed the 30 mile journey in 2.5 hours. Excellent additional news was that Viewranger have updated their GPS software, and for the first time, the N70 managed to maintain contact with the GPS for the whole journey - no lost signal, no lost bluetooth, no reboots needed.

All they need to do now is port it to the iPhone. Best. Phone. Ever! Well, it's not the phone that makes it great, it's still not a fully featured mobile (no MMS, no video recorder), but the iPod, Safari and little apps make up for it in a big way. It is still (I got it the day after it came out), a pleasure to use, and even when I had the GPS'ed N70 on this trip, it was the iPhone with it's 'locate me' feature that I used when I needed a map to confirm how to get to the A4 after Chiswick.

Finally, I'd like to introduce my new DAB radio. With some vouchers from work, I visited John Lewis this January and have acquired the best mobile DAB I've had yet. I didn't find a proper review on YouTube, so I made one myself:


But wait, there's one more thing. I'm back with a bang because I was travelling to Ikea by tram to get a foot rest to help with recovery after my foot operation next week (a story for tomorrow perhaps), and we're somewhere around Black Horse Road, at a traffic light controlled crossing, and I see this Mini Cooper approaching from the right, and I think, that's getting a bit close - shit!! BANG!

The car drove straight into the tram and bounced off. The tram was shook up, but thankfully stayed on the rails. In fact, when we got out and I had a look, I couldn't see any damage to the tram at all. The tram was mostly empty, I suppose I was nearest to the impact, and yet the interior of the tram remained undamaged as well. There was a funny smell though so I stepped back till I could see the car engine was turned off. Remarkable. The driver was calm, and gave the driver of the car a hug (yes everyone survived unscathed). The Mini driver admitted going through a red light. Twit. Oh well, poor car, looks like a writ-off maybe. Anyway the tram driver seemed to go into training mode and everything was calm and by the book and we were directed to the nearest bus stop and told which bus to catch. Very professional, slightly surreal.

Tags: GPS, Moulton, Crash, DAB, Bunion, iPhone