PilotsEYE.tv

Lufthansa Captain Jürgen Raps greets all viewers interested in experiencing an entire flight in the cockpit. Since 9/11, PilotsEYE.tv is the only possibility to enjoy this experience. The authorities… With all the exhilarating and wonderful moments such as the preparations for takeoff on runway 26R at Munich Airport. After a perfect westerly takeoff, the plane banks right heading north, which – as chance would have it – takes us directly over Captain Raps’ home town. Susanne Parusel – on her maiden flight as Senior First Officer – enthuses about being a pilot. Laid-back, humorous, but always in full control, she assists the Captain in his every duty.

The Maldives – a dream destination, not only for our guests in the cabin, but also for us in the cockpit. An exemplary takeoff from Düsseldorf’s runways 23L heading south. Via the so-called takeoff route KUMI T1, we then head towards Frankfurt and, as we set course for Vienna, the sun starts to set in an unreal deep red only known from kitschy Hollywood films! Over eastern Turkey, it’s time for a nice slice of Sache chocolate cake and a freshly brewed cup of coffee, while copilot Stefan Kater gives us a detailed explanation of the navigation display and its readings. He elucidates, for example, the calculations needed to allow for wind shear from different directions and why a second aircraft on the same route has been flying for so long directly beneath us (600 meters). Joe Moser gives us a brief introduction to kerosene prices while Stefan prepares meticulously for the approach… the landing in Male. The single runway looks from a distance like an aircraft carrier because the airport engulfs almost the entire island. After the flight, we are rewarded with a five minute circuit flight over the archipelago, the TwinOtter of the local Maldives Airtaxi company also being piloted by our captain Joe Moser. And as the icing on the cake, we get some unique footage of the aircraft landing in Munich: the helicopter – piloted by another LTU captain Peter Thoma – was able to cover the landing Airbus as it approaches and sets down on the runway, showing Munich Airport from a fully new perspective. Düsseldorf – the Maldives, a unique experience! Please be seated!

Turn this plane around! In addition to the captivating aviation documentary viewers have come to expect, this PilotsEYE.tv episode features a special „highlight“: a rare technical malfunction, forcing the Crew to abort their flight from Zurich, Switzerland, to Shanghai and return to the airport.

As close to the yoke as it gets: PilotsEYE.tv’s newest episode shines with smog-free, high-definition pictures of Los Angeles – and a very intimate glimpse into the cockpit – as legendary Lufthansa Fleet Commander Norber Wölfle “has the stick” for one final time after 38 years of service.

Perfect weather, average temperatures and a cheerful crew – that’s how PilotsEYE.tv takes off this time from runway 34 of the Vienna airport VIE. For the first time, a takeoff of a PilotsEYE.tv flight is shown from three perspectives – from the cockpit, from a witness’ point of view next to the airstrip, and from the tower. A couple of minutes after takeoff Captain Fritz Strahammer, AUA chief pilot and his co-pilots Tarek Siddiqui and Josef Trattner will change from the Vienna air space to Bratislava Control. The manoeuvre to another air space will be repeated a couple of times until the Boeing lands in Tokyo – however always with different dialects. It’s a dream flight: calm weather and an amazing sun rise as it can only be seen over the clouds. A highlight that makes astonishing impressions possible, is a coincidental rendezvous over the Russian Taiga with a Lufthansa 747-400, which flies very close underneath the 777. This is one of the spectacular PilotsEYE.tv moments which contributes to the success of the series.

Düsseldorf… early in the morning. Captain Joe Moser and his copilot Sascha Mertens prepare for a round trip to the North Pole, 6 hours away. His “baggage”… 300 passengers who have booked this maiden flight and will enjoy a live image feed directly from the cockpit. Filmed in high definition of course.

This PilotsEYE.tv adventure takes us from Vienna to Barcelona with an Austrian Airlines’ A321 above the entire East-West route of the Alps. Captain Hans Klikovich and his young co-pilot Conny Ollinger fly the passengers of the OS397 – thanks to a public holiday and „helpful air traffic controller” – at a particularly low altitude (7000m) from Vienna over the expanse of the Alps, along the Côte d’Azur, ending ultimately in Barcelona.

The flight leaves from Frankfort over the North Sea. The plane continues across Greenland over the most northern alternate airport Thule. The route travels over the fascinating ice landscapes of the Canadian Archipelago, and on to Cambridge Bay, south of Victoria Island. The weather allows for an extensive view of the Canadian North-West territories, as well as its capital Yellowknife. Sunlight glances off the snow and glacier of Mount Robson, the highest mountain of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. After passing by Whistler Mountain, the former volcano Mount Garibaldi Vancouver appears.

One out of three passengers does not feel secure during a flight. The team at PilotsEye.tv had the opportunity to accompany 12 participants of a Lufthansa Aviophobia workshop during the entire training. These workshops have been successful for the past 30 years. The trainer, psychologist Antonia Arboleda-Hahnemann, works together with the participants for the cause of the uncomfortable feeling between takeoff and landing. “Flying Relaxed – Overcoming the Fear of Flying” views the flight to Hamburg from three perspectives: from the cabin, from the technology, and from air traffic control.

Trained in a flight-simulator every three months but rare in real life. Shortly after take-off from Zurich the oil temperature of Engine 3 is showing twice as high as allowed. For the next fifteen minutes, Flight Captain and Fleet Manager Thomas Frick and First Officer Manuela Durussel devote their full attention to getting a handle on this critical situation. To no avail. Co-pilot Manuela: “I’ve been flying for 17 years now and today is the first time I’ve had to turn around.” Luckily the passengers are able to transfer to another plane and PilotsEYE.tv meets the crew six months later to fly the same route – this time successfully. This unique insight into an “abnormal procedure“, an unscheduled incident, is part of the feature film. The bonus material shows the entire procedure, including the original checklists. Private communication is strictly forbidden on the official radio frequencies. For this reason, co-pilot Manuela is all the more surprised when a man’s voice calls “Manu” out of the speakers. They quickly share a few friendly words knowing that probably a couple hundred colleagues on other airplanes and on the ground are grinning broadly. The flight captain jokes “Never fly with women – they always flirt with the entire airspace” shows that despite all the stress, the crew still enjoys their work. Due to ongoing treaty negotiations, Russia cannot be flown over this day. The alternate route sends the crew south over Romania, Georgia and Kazakhstan to China. The additional fuel for the 1,000-mile detour is still cheaper than the fee Russia charges for flying through its airspace. But this is just an everyday occurrence for the crew of HB-JMD “Liestal”, named after a town in Switzerland.

The location of the latest PilotsEYE.tv is the cockpit of a Boeing 777 “freighter”. The flight promises a reunion with a familiar face from the Maldives and North Pole episodes (LTU): Joe Moser, presently Chief Pilot and Director of Flight Operations at AeroLogic, a joint venture of DHL Express and Lufthansa Cargo. Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong’s airport, was opened in 1998 and boasts the world’s largest freight terminal. Among passenger airports it is the 12th busiest in the world, with 53 million passengers a year. For the foundation of the airport, an adjacent island was leveled and joined via land reclamation. With more than 1,000 takeoffs and landings a day, the airport is on par with Frankfurt.

The 12th episode shows for the first time the entire round-trip flight in an A380-800 during the final flights of the highest-ranking Lufthansa pilot, Jürgen Raps.

In Episode 14 „Lady’s trip to the closed strip“ PilotsEYE.tv shows the last mission to one of the world’s most difficult airports. For the first time from the flight deck of a rare Lufthansa McDonnell Douglas MD-II.

PilotsEYE.tv presents Episode 15 “AirLounge ONE – The Aviation Lounge” For the first time in the series: 80 minutes of “Aviation Ambience”. If you ever spent a significant part of your flight gazing out the window, you will be familiar with the “AirLounge ONE”-feeling. For “AirLounge ONE”, a total of 6000 hours of aerial footage were sighted, only the most beautiful and moving shots chosen, and then combined with a selection of soothing music to create something truly extraordinary.

In this episode: PilotsEYE.tv captures the production, pick up and delivery flight of a brand new Boeing 777F from Seattle to Frankfurt, Germany. It’s the most efficient and economical cargo plane of our time. The Boeing 777-“Freighter” combines the advantages of a short fuselage with the large wings of its passenger version, enabling a record breaking payload of over 100 tons for the first time on a twin jet aircraft. For three months PilotsEYE.tv bore witness to the birth of this newest “giant of the skies”: from its production to its sale to its ferry flight out of Seattle for the plane’s new home airport in Frankfurt, Germany. With additional information and commentary by both flight cap­tains in regular flashbacks, this newest PilotsEYE.tv episode offers the rare opportunity to experience at first hand the most impor­tant waypoints on the flight path to a brand new plane: the D-ALFE, the fifth family member of Lufthansa’s growing Cargo Fleet.

PilotsEYE.tv Episode 17 “Goodbye, Boeing” accompanies one of the last airberlin Boeing 737 flights from Munich to Egypt’s Red Sea Coast She’s the most produced commercial airplane in the world: the legendary Boeing 737. Since her inaugural flight in 1967, over 9000 models have left the assembly line, taking countless passengers up into the skies. But in several German airlines, the venerated 737 is looking at her well-deserved retirement. Before the end of the year, airberlin will have finished their gradual, two year-long phase-out of their complete Boeing fleet and, for economical reasons, operate exclusively with Airbus planes from then on. PilotsEYE.tv had the opportunity to join one of the last active 737s on her trip to sunny Egypt.

The PilotsEYE.tv 10th Anniversary Episode – No. 18 “Licence­ to Fly – Flight School with a Seaside View” joins SWISS fleet chief for a visit to their Florida pilot-training-facilities. In celebration of its ten-year anniversary, PilotsEYE.tv dedicates this newest and longest entry of the series (2: 30h running time + 60min bonus) to the education and training of those that have made the documentary series into such a success: the pilots. Fans of the series may already be familiar with flight captain and SWISS fleet chief Thomas Frick from the episode “Shanghai – Engine Overheat”, in which PilotsEYE.tv was able to document a real emergency for the very first time. In their latest episode, PilotsEYE.tv accompanies their old acquaintance on a four-day-trip to the United States.

Gone forever are the days of four-engine jets made of aluminum. The latest episode of PilotsEYE.tv introduces its audience to the new Airbus A350, a marvel of commercial aviation, produced using the most advanced construction methods and materials yet. The A350 brings numerous advantages in its reinforced carbon-fibre frame, but most significantly, it boasts 20% less weight and 25% lower fuel consumption. The episode’s “main man” is Lufthansa head of the fleet Captain Martin Hoell, who allowed PilotsEYE to accompany him on his visits to production facilities in Hamburg and Bremen and even to the final assembly line (FAL) in Toulouse. From the A350’s cockpit on the maiden flight from Munich to Boston, Captain Hoell describes the individual stages of manufacturing needed to make the first of the 25 aircraft, for whose phasing in he is responsible. For the first time in the ten years of PilotsEYE.tv’s existence, it was possible to film the “holy grail” of aviation documentaries: an acceptance flight. What might sound mundane is actually one of commercial aviation’s biggest challenges, as, for the example, all hydraulic systems necessary for actually steering the plane are turned off during the testflight. A real “high-level emergency test”.