LA PAZ HIGH DRAMA

We are fully established in the cruise enroute to Ascunscion in Paraguay. Take off was delayed heavily at La Paz as the taxi way enters the runway at the wrong end and there was a lot of inbound traffic, outbound queues, frustrated pilots and controllers battling readability issues. On top of that we had enough warnings on the crew alerting system to fill a christmas tree all caused by the high altitude.

No matter, the sunset we were forced to sit and watch was truly spectacular at 13800 feet high. The shot below is as we sat at the holding point ready to backtrack as an American MD11 departed.

The altitude of the runway makes this arguably the most difficult departure for a 747 in the world. John and Malc coped admirably though there were some concerned glances when maximum thrust would not provide acceleration or climb between flaps 20 and 10 in the first 8 miles. Its a good job we had 4 big rolls royce engines underneath us. However John is such a competent pilot that nothing phased him and having survived the departure he continues to handfly the aircraft without any automatics for the entire duration of the flight. Malc picked up arrival planning and briefing and John executed a 15 minute early arrival.....

Speedbird744 pleased to be nearing Paraguay