LONG BEACH — Yes, I could’ve called this post Video Blog: Circling Long Beach Harbor in a Grumman Albatross for the best possible search engine optimization, but let’s be honest, it was kind of lame. The irony of putting a nose bubble out the front of an aircraft means that you no-longer need any kind of electronic distraction. Lucky for Row 44, Southwest Airlines, Mango (South Africa) and Norwegian Air Shuttle, the only forward looking glass on their aircraft is reserved for the pilots.
That being said, Row 44’s Albatross rolled off the line in Bethpage, New York in 1951 and in a previous life served as a trainer for NASA astronauts. Today, the aircraft (N44HQ), which coincidentally has a near identically shaped crown as the 737, carries a Ku-band antenna and blister fairing to test the company’s in-flight internet technology. The aircraft has been outfitted with glass avionics and a host of other instrumentation to test the antenna.
For the brief flight over Long Beach Harbor, I grabbed my iPhone 4 and connected to the in-flight wi-fi, posting tweets and photos as we flew. This particular Albatross was fitted with a glass nose bubble for a nearly unrestricted view, including straight down. I’ll let the HD video I shot speak for itself.
This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.
This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.