Anchor Blip

Sometimes I develop an anchor blip that establishes a return to a certain place without any doubt, certainly for me. We used to have one of a mosque across the way from our hotel in Cairo when we stayed there in the early years. This seems to be my anchor for Abu Dhabi - there's not a lot else to blip on an after dark arrival.

It was an incredibly smooth flight considering it was such a big plane, maybe because it was such a big plane - an Airbus 330 for plane spotters. The throttle-up to cruising height from Rome was velvet smooth and almost silent and if the runway on touch down five and a half hours later had been the cot of a sleeping baby, the wee thing wouldn't have been parted from its dreams such was the feather touch with which we retook land.

Dd followed the flight real time on a fancy app we have including the take off and my overflying of Bulgaria and, later, the high mountains of Afghanistan. Only I saw them cast in the red glow of the setting sun, however.