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In 2006 it was an A310 from Denpasar to Zurich and a Dash 8 from Munich to Port Moresby, while last year it was another Dash 8 from Exeter to Dhaka by way of an emergency landing in Cairo.
This year there were a number of flight that I was supposed to go on, but it being so busy, I just couldn't afford to be out of the office for any length of time.
Finally my chance came with the delivery of the latest F100 for Skywest in Australia, number 8 for them. We'd already flown the aircraft from Tegel to East Midlands for paint, and then to Woensdrecht for the final preparations before delivery.
Tuesday 7 October
The VH-FSW before departing Woensdrecht.
Surprisingly enough, we managed to get away relatively on time. However, the ferry flight curse that haunts me struck as we were starting engines after our fuel stop in Liege (Last time I was on a ferry, we had a major oil leak, inflight shutdown, and emergency landing in Cairo).
This time there was a generator fault, and we ended up returning to Woensdrecht in order to fix the problem.
Our next-door neighbour in LGG.
Wednesday 8 October
The third F100 for Contact Air waiting to depart on its acceptance flight.
This time we got away without any major problems (although there were plenty of minor bugs that gave us trouble for the rest of the ferry), we skipped the stop in Liege, and were heading straight for our first night stop in Larnaca.
That was until Athens told us that Larnaca didn't have any parking space for us. So we ended up going to our alternate Pafos to spend the night.
Thursday 9 October
Our "girl" looking fabulous in the Cyprus sun.
1000 departure is pretty late for a ferry, but this was going to be a long day, so the sleep-in was welcome.
First leg of the day was to Al Ain, a familiar stop for me. The aircraft parked next to us there was also fairly familiar:
PH-MCN in AAN
The friendly South Africa guys on the tower said that they weren't doing much flying unfortunately.
Resting in a cool (38 degrees) Al Ain.
The next leg took us into the night to Colombo, during which we had to dodge some 'beautiful' looking thunderstorms over India. Colombo was a longer stop, as we didn't want to arrive at our next stop before sunrise, so the opportunity to work in a mouth and eye-watering curry was welcome.
Another interesting neighbour, this time in Sri Lanka.
Looking as good in the dark as in the bright sun.
2am local time we were off again, this time to a remote speck of land in the Indian Ocean, Cocos Islands.
Friday 10 October
It's always beautiful, flying into the sunrise, and the approach into Cocos was also pretty impressive. Our wheels touched at 0715, and by 0900 we were in our bungalows getting some rest. I did take the chance to explore the village, but that only took 10 minutes!!
Fox Sierra Whiskey all by herself on a quiet Cocos apron.
We had planned to depart again at 1300, but Melbourne Center made us wait for the arrival of the flight from the mainland. Once that was in, and the RAAF Orion that was visiting had turned up unexpectedly, we were on our way on the final leg to Perth.
The twice-weekly flight to Paradise.
Arrival in Perth was a bit of an anticlimax, a small welcoming committee from Skywest, a remote stand, and a quick beer with the pilots before they headed home.
As for me, I spent a couple of extra days in Perth to relax (including a fun-filled beer and wine festival with a group of cabin crew from Alliance Airlines), before flying home via Singapore and London.
Definately another memorable trip!
Yorden
I bet you would want to tag along.
Definitly a nice exclusive trip 
