Tim Byatt

@g7soz Alas no, not my personal plane ! 😄

@Tim_the_Pilot Great photo! Was that G-STBB you were flying?

Dawn. We beat the sun….😎

I was lucky to be able to fly one of our more unusual seasonal trips recently, to San Jose, Costa Rica. Operationally challenging, given the altitude & terrain, but what a beautiful country. We visited the unique Rio Celeste in the Parque Nacional Volcán Tenorio🌋. No filters !!

@scottiebateman Warm rain is always nicer than our rain ! See you tomorrow evening ! 📖

@Tim_the_Pilot Grand Turk is an awesome place to visit… even when it’s raining.

Heading into the North Atlantic portion of the flight, having overflown Grand Turk, we were greeted by this active line of CBs to deviate around, near the Miami FIR and NY OCA boundary.

@mikehunt211H Too heavy for FL380 in a -300ER at this point in the flight. FL380 was only achievable over Western Europe several hours later. Unlike the -200ERs, the -300ERs cruise much lower with full payloads.

@Tim_the_Pilot What about 38

Full moon over Georgia (the Caucuses, not the state). Being held down at FL340 by traffic above.

@otabil_fernando Yes, flown her several times since then, most recently in Sept 2025. She had a major interior refit in Feb 2023, including removing First Class, fitting Club Suites, different WT Plus & WT configuration and the installation of overhead flightcrew rest, hence the recertification.

@Tim_the_Pilot Have you been on it after 2023?

The one off “special” liveried BA B777-200ER, G-YMML, has just returned to LHR after being repainted, and is no longer wearing the “GREAT Festival of Creativity” livery she’s worn since early 2015. Thanks for the memories…

@otabil_fernando As I say, you could not have travelled on G-YMML then, as it was fitted with Club Suites not later than 27th Feb 2023, and these seats all face forwards, at a slight angle. The seat you are describing was the older “ying-yang” so you must have been on a different hull, not G-YMML

@Tim_the_Pilot This looks nothing to what i was on i was in the seats where you have to look at someone for the whole flight unless you put the divider up and that to me is ancient when i flew to ghana in 2012 that is what i was on and to still have those types of seat in service 14 years later

@otabil_fernando You said you flew in business so you flew in the new Club Suites on this aircraft. Obviously everyone’s view is subjective, but the Suites have been very well received & I’ve never heard them being referred to as “ancient”. The a/c was re-certified in this layout on 27th Feb 2023

@Tim_the_Pilot This was the exact aircraft i flew on the 29th of july to Toronto and the cabin was ancient.

@otabil_fernando No, there was only one a/c in this livery, and it’s LHR based. All the LHR based 777s now have the new business class seats fitted and G-YMML has had them since at least March 2023. Maybe you flew on a 787, as some of those don’t have the new Club Suites fitted yet ?

@Tim_the_Pilot Flew on it to Toronto in august in the ancient business 🤬 unless theirs 2 772 with this livery

@otabil_fernando She already has the latest cabin, including Club Suites, as do all the LHR based 777s. External repaints are done separately to heavy maintenance checks and cabin refurbs.

@Tim_the_Pilot I hope they’ve upgraded the cabin also!

@JamesZlosnik We have in the past, clearly, and it’s not too late to have one final genuine retro livery again…..😉 @British_Airways

@Tim_the_Pilot That’s a shame. I remember seeing the last Wunala Dreaming at DFW just days after it had been repainted QF standard. I’m surprised airlines don’t do more spectacular one-off liveries. They must be some of the most photographed. BA could do something spectacular if it chose.

More details about the rescue mission this launch will undertake below, to lift the NASA gamma-ray space telescope to a higher safe orbit, hopefully in time, before its orbital decay causes it to re-enter and burn up in late 2026. The clock is ticking. space.com/space-explorat…

This is what we like to see, a future Pegasus mission in the pipeline, keeping the ‘Stargazer’ L1011 TriStar active as a launch platform. Her last launch of a Pegasus rocket was on 13th June 2021, but her next is scheduled for no earlier than (NET) June 2026…. #L1011 #TriStar

@mkopkins Yes. From 60mins/400Nm from Bali until within 60mins/400Nm of Adelaide, so for quite a long section of the flight, both over the ocean and the remote outback part of Australia.

@Tim_the_Pilot Do you use ETOPS on any part of this route?

A first for me, needing to reroute due to a large volcanic eruption of Mount Semeru, in Indonesia. Our original route is shown on the first two charts, planned 6hrs before departure. Then the major eruption occurred, showing the initial ash cloud to FL540 overlaid, and reroute.

@MaxK_J @autopilot_chill @ABentWrench DLC was particularly useful for (pitch) stabilised final approaches into airfields without ILS, where you had no glidepath guidance beyond PAPIs and Mk.1 eyeball, as was not uncommon at quite a number of the holiday (charter) destinations the TriStar was flown into by Caledonian.

@autopilot_chill @ABentWrench I took these pics of DLC in action aboard a BWIA TriStar 500 back in 1999, showing the inboard spoilers roughly in the "null" position during the approach and then fully up on touchdown. @Tim_the_Pilot can talk from first-hand experience about how effective the system was #PFM

@B777Mats @ABentWrench @autopilot_chill It was called “active ailerons”. It wasn’t on the original-500s delivered to BA, but I believe was retrofitted, though I might be wrong. I understand the Pan Am -500s were the first to have it in service.

@ABentWrench @autopilot_chill Yes, the -500 had slightly longer wingspan/wingtips than the original long body versions. The load alleviation function took care of the extra lift created during turbulence. This was needed since the wing spar wasn't beefed up. Clever Lockheed engineering. My favorite aircraft!