Hi gang.
Just wanted to tell you that the progress on my -7 named "Kermit" (guess why...) probably will speed up some from now on.
Reason; well; I celebrated my 55th birthday on the 25th of January and on Monday this week I landed the 737 for the last time as a commercial pilot. Tuesday was my first day as a "Early Retired Commercial Pilot", in other words; full time RV-builder.
I've flown the 737 (-2, -4, -6, -7 and 800 versions) for almost 24 years and close to 12.000 hrs now. In addition, I've spent 11 years of flying fighters in the Norwegain Airforce, (best time of my life!!) and that's enough, don't you think??
Ofcourse the retirement-pay would've been better if I had continued until I was 60 or even 65 years old, but as they say; "Life is no dress rehersal".
Besides, there's a chance that the early retirement possiblities in SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System) will go away soon due to the airline's ongoing cost-savings program.
Therefore, I decided to take it while I still had the right to do so.
On one of the very last trips, I flew down and picked up my wife in Milan/Italy who had been there for a longweekend with a few girlfriends.
Here a nice wiew from the "office": approaching the Alps on the way to Milan:
On the return leg, Cecilia ofcourse had to sit in the cockpit and I had the copilot take a pic:
Here; a couple of the "Trolly Dollies" and me when I had my last flight
to the Canary Islands: (that's the flights we 737-pilots call "long-haul; more than 5 hrs)
Here's the trusty -800 sitting on the ramp at Tenerife:
The day before my last flight, I flew up to Kirkenes which is WAY up north in Norway, close to the Russian and Finish borders.
Here we are inbound the the field for a circling approach:
And here's the -700 sitting on the ramp:
The sun has just came back into wiew after beeing below the horizon a couple of months. The pic below are taken at noon...
The copilot on this trip was a nice woman "Camilla C", who I've flown with quite a few times before. Here she's at the controls just after takeoff on the return leg:
And here we are back "home" on final to Oslo/Gardermoen (the main Norwegain Airport and my home base) a couple of hours later:
Note that the sun now is much higher even though it's two hours later. That's ofcourse because we've flown southwards for those two hours. By that time, it was dark in Kirkenes...
(continued)
Just wanted to tell you that the progress on my -7 named "Kermit" (guess why...) probably will speed up some from now on.
Reason; well; I celebrated my 55th birthday on the 25th of January and on Monday this week I landed the 737 for the last time as a commercial pilot. Tuesday was my first day as a "Early Retired Commercial Pilot", in other words; full time RV-builder.
I've flown the 737 (-2, -4, -6, -7 and 800 versions) for almost 24 years and close to 12.000 hrs now. In addition, I've spent 11 years of flying fighters in the Norwegain Airforce, (best time of my life!!) and that's enough, don't you think??
Ofcourse the retirement-pay would've been better if I had continued until I was 60 or even 65 years old, but as they say; "Life is no dress rehersal".
Besides, there's a chance that the early retirement possiblities in SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System) will go away soon due to the airline's ongoing cost-savings program.
Therefore, I decided to take it while I still had the right to do so.
On one of the very last trips, I flew down and picked up my wife in Milan/Italy who had been there for a longweekend with a few girlfriends.
Here a nice wiew from the "office": approaching the Alps on the way to Milan:
On the return leg, Cecilia ofcourse had to sit in the cockpit and I had the copilot take a pic:
Here; a couple of the "Trolly Dollies" and me when I had my last flight
to the Canary Islands: (that's the flights we 737-pilots call "long-haul; more than 5 hrs)
Here's the trusty -800 sitting on the ramp at Tenerife:
The day before my last flight, I flew up to Kirkenes which is WAY up north in Norway, close to the Russian and Finish borders.
Here we are inbound the the field for a circling approach:
And here's the -700 sitting on the ramp:
The sun has just came back into wiew after beeing below the horizon a couple of months. The pic below are taken at noon...
The copilot on this trip was a nice woman "Camilla C", who I've flown with quite a few times before. Here she's at the controls just after takeoff on the return leg:
And here we are back "home" on final to Oslo/Gardermoen (the main Norwegain Airport and my home base) a couple of hours later:
Note that the sun now is much higher even though it's two hours later. That's ofcourse because we've flown southwards for those two hours. By that time, it was dark in Kirkenes...
(continued)
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