Air Europa Leg Series 3

Alright, time for the return leg.

Find leg 1 here and leg 2 here.

Departure time was 10.35 and taking into account my late arrival to Almeria I had only 20 minutes to get the aircraft set for the trip to Paris.

145 passengers boarded here, bringing the total number to 173 with the 28 previously boarded at Alicante.

Anyway, putting aside the confusion with the numbers my take-off weight was a hair over 161K lbs.

Return leg route

Take-off was from runway 08 following a SORBA 1B SID. The winds had slightly changed at LEAM, now blowing from 124 at 12 and few clouds at 3000. The temperature had risen to 25C by now.

I was parked next to an Easyjet A319 which I found out on its clearance delivery was off to Gatwick.

Easy 5164 pushing back


My parking spot was just next to the runway providing a great view on the arrivals and departures.

The weather hadn't changed at Paris so I set the FMC for a runway 26L approach. Arrival was going to be KEPER 1W if the winds wouldn't shift to the north.

Easy 5164 to Gatwick


I was ready to go by 1030, saving me 5 precious minutes. Time is money in the airline business, hehe...

Cleared to go


The take-off roll took forever as rotation speed was around 150 knots due to heavy loads.

Sorba 1B departure


The return flight route took me over the same places as before but over Agen I took a left turn to fly over Poitiers and approach LFPG from the west, thus the KEPER arrival.

A reason I chose this route was because it passes close to Toulouse where I spent a great deal of my life. I used to look up in the sky and see the contrails of passing aircraft, wondering where they were headed.

Pyrennees on the retun leg


No changes on the arrival route and I was cleared to the ILS 26L. Winds were reported to be 243 at 6 with clouds 4500 scattered.

Coming from the west, the long downwind leg was a real pain to fly.

Final 26L


Not surprisingly, the airspace was crowded over Paris with arrivals and departures everywhere. I was third on final but with good spacing ahead I wasn't concerned.

Landing


Flaps 30 this time so the touchdown was much easier, I was able to grease it, the pax would have barely noticed it, it was that good.

Back at LFPG


Block time for this last leg was 2 hours and 30 minutes. I shut down at Roissy six and a half hours after releasing brakes that morning.

Doing multiple legs is huge fun, however, next time I'll probably keep the legs under 400 NM so I could do more at a time.

The latest visitor country on the blog was Latvia so next flight is into or out of Riga.

Thanks for viewing