Finally, after almost a full year of line flying, I found the time to send a couple of new photos. This picture is of me in the cockpit of an MD80, flying over Zurich, Switzerland on the way from Brussels to Milan. Alitalia's 90 MD80s are used on the European network, and the longest stretches are flights to Amman and Cairo in the Middle East, Moscow up Northeast, Casablanca to the Southwest and Dublin and Edimbourgh to the Northwest. There are 97 destinations for MD80s. This pix was taken turning final to Rwy 33 at Reggio Calabria, in the South of Italy, where a straight-in approach cannot be used because of hills to the South and the East just outside the fence.
Captains require special training and a rating to land there.
The PA 42 is a wonderful airplane, and the configuration at the school reflects the one we could find on MD80's or Airbuses, though not those of the last generation. Fabrizio Magnatantini pictured with his Alitalia PA42 trainer . We are based in Alghero airport, Sardinia, Italy. Our flights take us all around southern Europe, to peek at the typical flying environment we will experience as line pilots on MD80's or A321's. We are supposed to have fun, but actually we are so busy trying to keep everything going straight while the instructors are having FUN cutting engines, starting fires, pulling breakers, closing airports etc.