Virgin America Inaugural

Today I had the pleasure of going on Virgin America’s inaugural ‘California Dreaming’ flight number VX0846 from LAX to SFO. It was a pretty fantastic experience altogether, starting with taking off from the Imperial Terminals Flight Path Museum at LAX and ending with a reception by Mayor Newsom. I will post a bit more about the technical details later, but I wanted to first share some photos and initial thoughts.

Doom on a plane!

Doom on a plane!

To sum it up, I will use a word that the pilots used in thanking us for the flight: awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever heard ‘Thank you for an awesome flight’ on an aircraft before.

Google Maps on a plane!

The inflight entertainment system (IFE) is really cool. I ended up chatting with Xeni, listening to music and playing doom. For the journeymap, they use Google Maps.

Chatting on a plane!

Find the screaming baby.

Turn off your electronic devices

Instead of a stupid non-smoking sign, they have one that says “Please Turn Off Electronic Devices.”

Landing at SFO

For the final landing, the pilots of the inaugural flights from LAX and JFK synched up and landed next to each other at SFO.

** Update **

Pictures of the Inaugural

For the real airplane geeks out there, here are the pictures from the tandem landing.

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