Air Koryo Ilyushin 62

I wake up. A morning like many others. At a first glance there is nothing spectacular about it. But wait! I look out of the window and the same view comes to my eyes, the sight of Pyongyang city. The day has come. The day that most of us anticipated most. The day of flights. The day that I am going to hop on 5 flights, on 4 different planes, all of them being my first time. The Ilyushin 76, Ilyushin 62, Tupolev 154 and the Mi-17 helicopter. The 18th day of September 2014. A date I surely will remember, not only for the reasons stated above ;)

After we have deboarded the Ilyushin 76 we took the bus for a short ride to the plane that was standing next to us. The Ilyushin 62. I have been looking towards this flight for the last days. Once it was possible to get it on the flight to/from Beijing, but since China banned them from flying to their country now only the T204 and An148 do the flights. Also that type was once the backbone of LOT Polish Airlines Intercontinental fleet. It carried the crane to almost every continent! Later replaced by the Boeing 767. Boarding proceeded smoothly and I managed to get a decent seat. Row 28, seat F. The last row, just beside the engines. Oh my god, how great do they sound in real life! even better than on film. Listening to them spool up before takeoff was incredible. During the short flight, everybody could freely move around. While doing so, one thing being easily noticed is the difference in sound level throughout the plane. Up front it is quite, nearly like on a Dreamliner or a A380, at the back, some would say it would be impossible to go through a full transatlantic flight. After the flight, I couldn't go by the opportunity of taking a couple detailed shots of the interior and a cockpit shot. Later, before boarding our next airplane a short walk around the plane and I had to say goodbye to this beauty. Luckily the weather was on our side.

Before boarding

Boarding

Air Koryo Ilyushin 76

I wake up. A morning like many others. At a first glance there is nothing spectacular about it. But wait! I look out of the window and the same view comes to my eyes, the sight of Pyongyang city. The day has come. The day that most of us anticipated most. The day of flights. The day that I am going to hop on 5 flights, on 4 different planes, all of them being my first time. The Ilyushin 76, Ilyushin 62, Tupolev 154 and the Mi-17 helicopter. The 18th day of September 2014. A date I surely will remember, not only for the reasons stated above ;)

But step by step. First things first, after breakfast we arrive early in the morning at the airport for our first flight of the day. It surely is going to be a flying start of the day! The Ilyushin 76. A plane designed to transport freight. It is massive. It has a strange design. It requires more crew. It has only a couple of windows on the entire lenght of the fuselage. We are sited sideways to the direction of movement. But I should go so quickly forward. At first, after arriving at the ramp we get a quick photo shoot from the outside, later we board the plane and sit at our convenience (almost, we had to have a seatbelt). And here we are, sitting side to side, face to face, listening to the engines starting, looking around at all the controls visible in the main cabin (one crew member has his station here) (detailed shots are available down below). You can easily feel the movement when inside. The sheer power moves us aside during takeoff. A strange feeling when having almost absolutely no windows. In the air, when we get the appropriate signal from the crew we can start moving around. And as one can believe, jumping, taking pictures with the equipment and crew, walking around, all that took place. After we "smoothly" touch downed (this time on the main gear, I've seen plenty of videos and photos when they land in the front wheels first :D ) reverse thrust has been applied and we taxied slowly to our designated parking position. We later got a chance for a very quick visit in the cockpits for a couple of photos, as the schedule was tight. In all the rush, I took a couple of decent photos. Unfortunately not exactly what I wished for. But hey! You can't have it all at once! Can you?
After the cockpit visit and again, a short session from the outside a bus took us to our next ride. About the experience on it I'll write a different entry some time soon. Now have a look at the Il-76 photos and videos.

Air Koryo Ilyushin 18

My last entry left us in China. Now lets jump a bit to the east to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or as some prefer simply North Korea. As some of you might know, Air Koryo (the national airline of the DPRK) owns some pretty old metal. Planes like the Ilyushin 18, the Il-62, the Tupolev 154 or the 134. All of them combined are a dream for many aviation enthusiasts.  About the process of entering and exiting NK I shall write a different entry in some time, when we get to the end of the trip.
Back to the point though. The first flying part of the visit was a return flight from Pyongyang to Samjiyon. The goal in the itinerary was a visit at Mt. Paektu. Both of the flights were operated on the Ilyushin 18. The plane registered P-835 has been build in 1966 and since then is flying for Air Koryo. Currently only domestic routes. A film review of the inside is available at the end of the entry.

First flight: JS3501 FNJ-YJS.
I woke up early, or should I say we, as it was a group. At the airport we've arrived around 7:30am, 1,5h before the flight. We had to wait a bit for boarding but that is not a problem if you are surrounded by a group of people with very similar interests. Time flew by very quickly and soon we were already on the bus to the plane. Boarded quickly and soon the engines have been turned on and taxiing commenced.