January 11, 2017

VX 0050


Earl and I are sitting on Virgin America flight 0050 from HNL to SFO. We are back at the gate awaiting repair or replacement of the APU or Auxiliary Power Unit. Jamie chose to disembark the airplane and now they won’t let him back on until we are ready to get back underway.  The Flight Attendants have been accommodating by providing free water. I’m comfortable in my seat. I’ve used the bathroom, there’s no reason to disembark when I don’t have to.

This visit to Hawai’i has been awesome. We were to leave about 90 minutes ago, but this delay has us at the gate for at least another 45 minutes. I’m not concerned. We are not making a connecting flight today. The stress level is low. I’m just chilling out on an airplane and life doesn’t get better than that.

I was tempted to ask the captain if I could see the cockpit of this A320 but he is working with maintenance on the issue that is delaying us so I just observed from afar. I doubt that I’ll ever fly an A320, my interest is in staying in General Aviation, but seeing all the avionics of this Airbus is quite interesting to me. Technology used in this manner is interesting to me, much like auto automation and/or self driving cars. I would love to drive a Tesla someday. I hear the touchscreen is running Linux. That’s pretty cool.

For now, I’m just going to kick back, relax and enjoy this airplane.