Private E-Jet

We weren’t below the belt but we were certainly below the Equator. And we were certainly over the jungle in our jet. Specifically we had just flown from São José dos Campos to Manaus in our 78-seat Embraer 170, Belle-Issimo Blue.

Manaus in the Brazilian jungle is an interesting place at any time; one expects savage Indians, curare tipped darts and the odd anaconda, but all we had was a hot and humid airfield at the intersection of two great rivers.

Flying into Manaus we thrilled at the sight of the brown turbid Amazon. . .

so huge we could not see the banks on either side. Cossetted in our classy red and a blue leather airline seats we felt strangely removed from it all, but down there people were still shooting at each other with bows and arrows.

As we taxied in an old Fairchild Packet parked up against the fence was being reclaimed by the jungle. An invasive green lichen was already taking over the nose and fuselage.

Shades of Flight of the Phoenix.

The bright red Virgin Blue Embraer 170 had launched from the factory in São José dos Campos and was given a noisy send off by a Brazilian drumming band composed of reformed street children.

Keith Neate, Virgin Blue’s CFO, accepted the aircraft on behalf of Virgin.

“This aircraft enables us to match capacity and demand on a flight by flight and route-by-route basis,” he said. “It gives us the ultimate flexibility across the entire network. ” The Embraer factory is humming with lots of new aeroplanes in many liveries.

Alitalia is flying 190s in Europe and so is Flybe in England. We glimpsed the new Phenom light business jet, the Legacy executive jet and on the production line the second Virgin Blue E-170.

So to the journey. Last year I had travelled from England in a Qantas Boeing 707 which was nearly 50 years old (see the report in March issue AA). Now I was in a brand new aeroplane made by a country which 40 years ago would have been regarded as third world.

Your correspondent hails from the country which produced the Viscount, the Comet, the VC10, the Britannia, the BAC 1-11 the Trident and the Concorde.

Now Great Britain does not build a single airliner, just the wings for large Franco-German ones. So good luck to the Brazilians, now the world’s third largest manufacturer of commercial jetsThis year it plans to deliver 170 aircraft to its customers and is in the process of hiring another 3700 employees and implementing a third shift at its plant in São José dos Campos.

The Embraer E-170 is many things but it does not have legs – least of all the ability to fly the Pacific with enough reserves if things go wrong. So our flight back to Australia was to circle the Pacific with stops in Brazil, Texas, Washington State, Alaska, Russia, Japan and Guam.

Only 12 of the 78 seats were occupied.

The 170 behaved like a classy Brazilian lady. For 14,000nm it purred along at a steady Mach . 78 at 37,000ft. Its flightdeck to which we were frequently invited seemed spartan, but our crew were singularly impressed with its ergonomics.

Paul Considine, our captain, had many miles flying Virgin’s Boeing 737s and had flown the E-Jets in Europe with Alitalia.

He now has around 100 hours on type including time on the simulator at Swiss Aviation Training in Zurich. He likes the flightdeck layout.

“The ergonomics are excellent,” he said. “Everything is to hand. ” First Officer Andrew Glover, whose experience includes the RAAF’s P-3Cs but also fast jets like the F/A-18, was similarly impressed.

Externally the 170 is quite different to the 737. Our long delivery flight took us to many exotic places and everywhere it seemed the aircraft was a novelty. In Curacao in the Dutch West Indies we parked at nightfall on a ramp which usually only saw Boeings.

It is splendidly self indulgent to bring a factory fresh aeroplane to a remote airport, especially when its ultimate destination is Australia. . . so far away! “Nice plane,” said a Carib engineer.

“What is it?” From Curacao we overflew Kingston, Jamaica, on a track which took us 160nm northeast of Cancun in Mexico to Brownsville in Texas. The crew had sensibly chosen Brownsville rather than Houston, and we quickly refuelled, cleared immigration and were on our way. Next stop Boeing Field in Seattle where we over-nighted two nights. This of course is Boeing territory, the delivery centre for the 737, and we taxied in past rows of factory fresh aircraft in the colours of just about every airline in the world.

But as Embraer is keen to point out the E-Jets have already made serious inroads into the American market.

Republic Airways has bought 80 of them. At Boeing Field the E-Jet created a lot of interest although it looked diminutive parked next to cargo jumbos and the odd 757.

Seattle had been warm but Anchorage was cooler. Alaska is the Northern Territory of the United States. It still has a frontier feel to it and is full of men in plaid shirts who drink beer and shoot bears. We taxied to the far side of the enormous airfield to a hangar with MillionAir written on it. This was our ground handling company. It was 20 minutes before they found some stairs which reached up to the door of the aeroplane.

There were apologies all round but to make us feel better we were all presented with a jar of smoked salmon.

After over-nighting in Anchorage, we left early the next day for our longest leg, heading out across the Bering Straits to the Kamchatka Peninsula and the remote town of Petropavlovsk.

The weather was not good in Russia and at one point there was a possibility of us diverting to Nome to take on more fuel.

As it happened the weather improved.

I sat in the jump seat for the landing.

Petropavlovsk is surrounded by snow capped volcanos, some still active, so the view was spectacular.

The field is shared with the military and we taxied in past rows of shabby looking MiG-25 Foxbats, an An-12 Cub transport and what appeared to be a Beriev Tchaika amphibian which had been rudely shoved off the runway into the scrub. The runway surface was atrocious.

The Russians would not let us off the aircraft so after refuelling we pressed on to Osaka-Kansai, another 4 hours 45 minutes. In Osaka we took on near 7000kg of fuel before setting off on the final two legs to Guam (3hrs 25) and Cairns (4hrs 45).

The E-170 proved comfortable, well appointed and quiet. As far as the travelling public are concerned, it represents a quantum leap in regional operations. o With thanks to Jodi Boyce, Andy Glover, Mark Clark, Jeff Lynch, Scott Roworth and Scott Entwistle.