San Francisco - Los Angeles / Boeing 747-400 / IFR

I haven't flown the Jumbo Jet in ages, so this morning I flew from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the 747-400, a trip of only about an hour. I flew as Virgin America 924, even though Virgin America only flies the Scarebus, as far as I know.

Everything went smoothly, starting out at gate 93, then off 01L on the PORTE3.AVE. Oakland Center signed on as I reached 17000, so they were with me until AVE. I took myself down through the SADDE6 arrival. The only anomaly I had was trying to stay at the speed that Virgin had filed for the real world flight, which was 405 KTAS; it's hard to keep the Jumbo Jet moving that slowly, so I finally gave up and accelerated to 485 KTAS. A 50-knot tailwind helped even more (the same wind that got in my way when I departed Phoenix on my last trip).

I parked at the Tom Bradley terminal because I wasn't sure off-hand which gates in the other terminals could accept heavies. Just before I left the aircraft I watched a 767 and a JAL 747-400 take off.