lostcarpark | Entries tagged with flying

It's been a while since I've posted anything under this topic, but I've been busy. I guess part of the reason for this is that I've reached the point where there's not a lot to say about GUFF in general terms, and it's getting into the specifics of my trip. It's also hard to comment on the plans I'm making when it could all turn pear shaped when the trip actually starts. However, I feel for that very reason, now is a good time to talk about my intentions. Then I can see how they compare to what actually happens.

Part 8 - Planning

More or less the first thing I did after finding out I was the GUFF delegate was to check out the visa situation, since if there was likely to be any problem getting into the country. Fortunately, providing you're an EU citizen, it's pretty straightforward these days. For Australia, you must apply for a "eVisitor" online. This is free, and is normally granted in about 24 hours. For New Zealand it's even easier, as EU citizens can travel for holidays without a visa.

The next thing was to check I could get the time off work. There were raised eyebrows at me taking my entire year's holidays in a single block, but in the end it was no problem. I wanted to go to Au Contraire before Aussiecon, so a week an New Zealand followed by 3 weeks in Australia seemed a logical breakdown.

I also started talking to as many previous fan fund winners as I could, and got lots of helpful advice. Ang, Sue Ann and James Bacon in particular have been hugely helpful. I also got a number of offers of places to stay during the trip, which was also fantastic.

I felt it would be a good idea to get my main flights booked as soon as I could, so I at least had the main part of the trip nailed down. I looked at lots of options from various airlines. I did toy with the idea of trying to do a round the world trip, but that didn't seem to be practical, and these days it's best not to travel through the US unless necessary, as I really don't want to end up on the wrong side of Homeland Security.

There were some fairly cheap options for flights to Australia, but the tricky part seemed to be the New Zealand leg. In the end, the best deal seemed to be to book with Quantas as a multi-stop trip. While they were a little more expensive for an Australia only journey, they were a lot cheaper than any combination of flights I managed to find. It should also mean that if anything goes wrong with my flight connection, it's the Airline's fault and they have to look after me.

The next step was planning what to do when I get there. I'll go into my plans for the conventions later. For now I'll talk about what I'm doing around them.

Norman Cates, a former DUFF delegate, was very generous in offering to put me up when I arrive in Wellington. Hopefully I'll get to meet some of New Zealand fans in the run up to Au Contraire,

I would have liked to go to lots of places in Australia. Sydney is the obvious choice, though only really for touristy reasons. However, I was advised that the biggest fan community outside Melbourne was Perth, so a stop-over there seemed a must. I also felt it would be nice to catch up with old friends Damien and Juliette as their 2005 trip was one of the things that sparked my interest in GUFF. After that there really wasn't time for any more stop-offs.

Sue Ann suggest I come to the monthly meeting of MUGS, the Melbourne LEGO Users Group, so keen to forge more links between LEGO and SF fans, I readily agreed.

Booking internal flights in Australia was pretty easy, and reasonably cheap. I hope that JetStar are nicer than Ryanair (I think I've flown with Ryanair enough that I doubt anything will surprise me).

One thing I'm quite pleased about is that my flight on the way out is on a 747 (operated by BA - I hope they don't go on strike), while on the way back I'm on a A380 super-jumbo. I haven't been on either before, so getting to experience the two largest passenger planes on the same trip should be interesting.

I've outlined my itinerary below.

Sat 21 Aug: Arrive in Heathrow, depart for Wellington
I've a few hours in Heathrow. Anyone fancy meeting for a pint there?

Mon 23 Aug: Arrive in Wellington

Fri 27 Aug-Mon 29 Aug
Au Contraire

Tue 31 Aug: Depart Wellington, arrive in Melbourne

Thu 2 Sep-Mon 6 Sep
Aussiecon 4

Tue 7 Sep-Wed 8 Sep
Melbourne

Thu 9 Sep-Sun 12 Sep
Adelaide

Sun 12 Seo-Tue 14 Sep
Melbourne

Wed 15 Sep-Sat 18 Sep
Perth

Sun 19 Sep
Depart Melbourne

Mon 20 Sep
Arrive Dublin

I should be in bed. I was knackered earlier and fell asleep on the couch, and now I can't sleep.

Instead I've been thinking about the terrorist plot the UK Government claims to have discovered during the week.

From what I've read, a plot was uncovered whereby terrorists would smuggle liquid explosives onto planes and detonate them with batteries and paperclips. The police claim they knew who was involved, and that a "dry run" would have taken place within days, and would have been followed soon after by an actual attack that would simultaneously take down up to ten transatlantic flights.

Now if their intelligence is as good as they say it is, why not keep monitoring the suspects for a few days, and nab them as they board flights for the "dry run"? Then there would be solid evidence of an actual attack, not vague, and frankly somewhat fanciful, mutterings of a potential threat. Doesn't it sound just a little like the mobile bomb factories on backs of lorries that we were assured would be all over Iraq?

Nitroglycerin is quite difficult to manufacture. In purer forms it is quite difficult to transport. It may be desensitized, but then it becomes quite difficult to detonate. I'm not suggesting that an attack along these lines isn't possible, but there would seem to be lots of "soft targets" that a resourceful terrorist could inflict comparable amounts of death and destruction without going to nearly as much trouble. I haven't been able to figure out how much nitroglycerin you'd need to take down a plane. I suspect you'd need quite a bit to take down a plane, which is what you'd need to do to cause "mass murder on an unimaginable scale". Even an explosive decompression would be survivable by the majority of passengers.

Of course, if the terrorist aim was to cause widespread disruption to air services, then they have been largely successful.

I can accept a certain amount of erosion of my civil liberties in the name of protecting me from lunatics, but it had better be for good reason, and there had better be solid evidence of a real threat. Too many people have fought and died to win those liberties to give them up for anything less.

I can't help feeling that these restrictions are totally our of proportion with the threat as it is presented to us. Perhaps we will be shown the hard evidence in due course, but it's going to take some pretty compelling evidence to convince me that it's reasonable to force people to fly for ten hours or more without so much as a book or magazine to read.

I think the very least we must demand is a dramatic improvement in the quality of in flight magazines.

LostCarPark's Journal

Entries tagged with flying

A Rough Guide to GUFF - Part 8 of several

Percieved Threat

Profile

January 2016

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags