Men At Work
After a hopefully pleasant weekend off in Sydney, the Honeywell crew were hard at work this morning preparing for their first Test Flight out of Sydney. From a few minor adjustments to the satellite antenna
on top of the fuselage, down to cleaning the cockpit windows, it was all hands on deck preparing for departure.
The original Flight Plan was for an 1100L departure, returning at 1205L, however there was a delay, and the flight plan was amended to a 1210L departure, arriving back in Sydney at 1305L. Qantas Tug Red
Sierra towed N757HW out onto Taxiway Golf for engine start, and the long 5.5Km taxi out to the Tango 6 Holding Point on Runway 34R.
The Test Flight was up quickly from Runway 34R and tracked out to Auckland, before turning left and heading back into Sydney for a Runway 34R approach. I was all setup at the Port Botany launching ramp,
when ATC offered them Runway 34L - you can't always win.
Honeywell's Flight Test aircraft arrived in Sydney mid afternoon on Friday, after operating sectors from Macau via Darwin. The aircraft is a 1983 build Boeing B757-225 (22194) originally operated by Eastern
Airlines as N504EA until 1995. The unique feature of the aircraft is the pod mounted high on the fuselage just behind the cockpit, which can take a third engine for flight test purposes. On this mission Honeywell
are testing inflight WiFi.
