Boeing 787 Dream Tour -- DTV Movements Trip Reports

Sharm el Sheikh 26/4/12 - 4/5/12 (Dave Rose)

It was time to shake off the winter blues so visiting Sharm again seemed a good option. My last visit was 2 years ago and I was interested to see how the resort had responded to the troubles in Egypt. Recent reports suggested it was getting back to normal so off to Newcastle for the 5 hour 15 minute flight on B738 G-FDZT, routing over Frankfurt, Budapest, Sofia, Alexandria and Cairo. On arrival it seemed quite busy with 3 Orenair B738's, a Nordwind A321 and a UTAir B734 as well as a splattering of the TOM fleet, so a good start.

Airport Overview

Sharm is situated on the Sinai peninsular, its basically an Oasis in the desert!!, the airport has 2 parallel runways 04 / 21 Left and right which roughly hug the coastline. 90% of the time 04 is in use other than some afternoons when the sea breeze picks up, this means you need to stay to the south east to maximise your spotting. Naama Bay is the main resort and is the best base for a mixture of sun and spotting, its basically 3 miles from touchdown!! and the closest to the airport the more chance you have of bagging it. One word of warning, you need to be discreet, the Egyptians are paranoid for obvious reasons and the airport itself is under military control, so don't get your bins or camera out anywhere close. During my stay only O4R / 21L was in use due to a full re-surface of 04L / 21R, when fully operational, 04L / 21R is the main landing runway and fitted with ILS and this would put the approaching aircraft slightly more north than they were, but I don't see this as a problem as the runways are very close together.

Movements

It was quieter than my last visit, but I expected it to be. Its not a busy airport but steady and the movements are generally of good quality, dominated by the Russians and the ex-communist states. Transaero usually has between 3 and 8 daily flights, utilising a mixture of B743, B744, B772 and B773. Orenair base 3 B738s here and Nordwind are daily visitors, along with VIM B752s. Egyptair naturally dominate the scheduled carriers, with up to 15 E170 movements daily mixed with A320 and B738s. Other interesting schedules are from Saudia with regular E170s, Jazeera with A320s and Royal Jordanian with daily E190s. Petroleum Air Services DHC7s visit most days (nice) along with the 2 Smart Aviation DH8Ds used for Oil workers, the beauty of Sharm is the un-predictability!! You need to stay alert! Naturally you start to get repeats, I have not included these in the logs below along with the "regular" UK IT stuff.

SBS

I wanted to try out my SBS "Dongle" so took my netbook and aerial. I was really pleased with the performance, the main bonus is a northbound airway directly over the Sharm VOR out of Saudi Arabia. This airway can get fairly busy on some days and nothing on others, but the kit gave me adequate notice of anything within 75 miles so I didn't miss much. Hurghada is only 50 miles away on the mainland and stuff from Russia is descending over the top of Sharm and if you miss it you have another chance on departure. Again, be discreet, I had my SBS running by the pool everyday and the Barman and towel man were inquisitive but I explained it away as "Satellite Internet" and they left me alone. One drunk Scottish woman did ask if I was a "Inspector from the Social" but I told here I was "Special Branch"!!

Sonesta Beach Resort

I chose this resort based on excellent reviews on Trip Advisor and its location at the eastern end of Naama Bay. Blocks 2800 / 2900 / 3000 (not ground level) are best for spotting, the balconies are big and you can set up your SBS here in the late afternoon and bag a good few. Its all inclusive so you need to resist the temptation to get smashed by lunchtime!! The atmosphere around the Cactus pool is excellent, and planes pass overhead your sunbed, what more could you ask for? By the way, I did "own up" to the pool guys on my last day and they were "intrigued" by the SBS and sat gazing at it for ages!! Great guys.

Some photos from the pool and room balcony

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