Virgin America Inaugural

Wed

Aug 8
2007

listen

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!

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.

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.

Find the screaming baby.

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

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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Comments: 10

Chris Wong [08.08.07 06:44 PM]

omg it's doom!! I remembered I was so addicted to doom back in the days when I was in grade school. Did you get a chance to try out the cheat code?

Show Entire Map and Enemies
Cheat code: IDDT (while looking at map)
Note: Enter the code once to show the entire map, enter it again to show the enemies.

All Keys And Weapons
Cheat code: IDKFA

All Weapons
Cheat code: IDFA

Automap
Cheat code: IDBEHOLDa

Berserk Pack
Cheat code: IDBEHOLDs

Display Location
Cheat code: IDMYPOS

Get Chainsaw
Cheat code: IDCHOPPERS

God Mode
Cheat code: IDDQD

Light Amplification Goggles
Cheat code: IDBEHOLDl

No Clipping
Cheat code: IDCLIP

Plays Music From Episode #, Mission #
Cheat code: IDMUS##

Radiation Suit
Cheat code: IDBEHOLDr

Temp. Invisibility
Cheat code: IDBEHOLDi

Temp. Invulnerability
Cheat code: IDBEHOLDv

Warp to Episode #, Level #
Cheat code: IDCLEV##

Paul Joyce [08.08.07 06:45 PM]

After your first post I was thinking about flying just to play with all of the fun toys. Now that I have gone to the VA site and discovered $88 round trip fairs between SFO and LAX -- and found them in abundance -- I can't wait to visit the southland.

The deals are almost as amazing as the A320. $44 each way SFO to Vegas, $139 each way to JFK, 7-day advance, no weekend stay required. Now that's a product launch.

Artur Bergman [08.08.07 06:57 PM]

The fares are awesome. And the First class fare one way to newyork for $400.

Also, the wireless onboard was apparently named Walruss.

Brad Fitzpatrick [08.08.07 07:25 PM]

ETA of 2:35 am? Clocks set wrong?

Artur Bergman [08.08.07 09:55 PM]

Yeah, some bugs in there too! I am going to file some bug reports.

Tecsible [08.09.07 03:06 AM]

I wanna fly now!

Lars [08.11.07 01:03 PM]

Dang, that's really impressive!

Is there internet connection aboard as well (for e-mail) or is this "just" a local system??