Tag Archives: non-military aviation

On Jun. 6, 2011, the first (long awaited) Emirates Airbus 380 landed at Rome Fiumicino. It was a one-off trip to celebrate Fiumicino airport’s 50th anniversary, along with 150th anniversary of Italian unification. The Super Jumbo (A6-EDJ) replaced the usual B777 scheduled service on the Dubai-Rome route: EK 97 departing Dubai at 08.55 LT and arriving in Rome at 13.15LT (the A380 actually landed at 13.30LT). The flight left Fiumicino at 17.03 (scheduled time 16.45LT) with an expected arrival time in Dubai at 00.40LT on Jun. 7.

Emirates had initially planned the upgrade of the EK097/098 DBX-FCO-DBX daily flights from the Boeing B777-300 (B773) to the Airbus A380-800 (A388) in Dec. 2009.

Looks like the EK98 had to perform some orbits before landing at Dubai:

On May 1, 2011, I had the opportunity along with Giovanni Maduli to visit Ciampino airport that was the hub for the vast majority of State flights bringing to Rome authorities attending the beatification ceremony of John Paul II in Vatican City. The aircraft, military planes wearing national liveries and civilian registered ones used by the delegations, were parked in both the military apron in the “northern” part of the airport and, mainly, in the “southern” one, the civil one usually used for the General Aviation.
Among the most interesting visitors worth a mention the Mexican AF B737, the FAF A330, the Mexican Gulfstream G-V XA-CPQ, the Dassault 900EX VP-BEF used by the Angolan delegation, the Polish E-170, the Brazilian VC-99B and the Slovakia Government Tu-154M.

On Feb. 15, a Gulf Air pilot was hit by a high-power laser during approach to Abu Dhabi suffering “high light intoxication” on one eye. The pilot, that was hospitalized upon arrival, was flying the aircraft in the downwind for runway 31L when he observed the laser originating from nearby a car, in a desertic area. Investigation is  in progress. Such kind of events have become quite frequent all around the world and laser attacks against civil (and in some cases also military) planes during landing have been occurring almost daily.

In this video, Gulf Air pilot Mauro Redaelli, bring us on board a company’s Airbus 320 flying as GF567 between Muscat and Bahrain.

The following video, taken from seat 8F of the Airbus 320 EI-DSH flying from Rome Fiumicino to Cagliari airport as AP 5494, shows the final phase of the approach to RWY 32 in Elmas.