Nueva York
The dateline is in Spanish because I have yet to hear any English spoken here in the Bagel, and I landed in some style more than 24 hours ago. Never mind. Flying at 47,000 feet at close to 500 knots per hour on a G550 is as close as it gets to perfection in travelling. The G550 is the Mozart-Beethoven-Schubert-Schumann-Edward Hopper-Degas-William Holden-Burt Lancaster-John Wayne-Papa Hemingway-F. Scott Fitzgerald-Lew Hoad-Roy Emerson-Robert E. Lee-Hasso von Manteuffel of airplanes.
There, you get my point, dontcha? Way up there, close to the angels, there ain’t no turbulence. The plane glides like a giant bird, and silently to boot. And it still has tricks up its sleeve. The cabin is pressurised at 3,000 feet, a bit like lunching up at the Eagle club, whereas the peasants are pressured at 9,000, where throats get dry quicker than a Bill Clinton lie, pregnant women are known to give premature birth, and drink gets the better of men and women of the lower persuasion.
Two American ex-fighter pilots and a Greek engineer are in the cockpit, two very pretty ladies serve us lunch and dinner and some fine red wine, we read the papers and before we know it we’re over land and closing down on a Statue of Liberty that seems to be shining in glorious colour as the sun sets in the west. We’re up over West Point and follow the Hudson south down to Westchester airport, open to private planes only, natch.
My host Peter Livanos had me sit up in the cockpit as we crossed the American coastline. What struck me about the G550 instrument panel was its simplicity. There is even a three-dimensional map that can guide the plane around forests, hills and tall buildings if need be.
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