Looking out from the terminal building at the Port Lincoln Airport, in South Australia.

My wife and I had travelled to Port Lincoln by bus from Adelaide in 2002 , via Port Augusta, Whyalla, and Cowell. We had enjoyed spending time in all of these places, as well as Port Lincoln. If you look at all of those destinations on a map, you would see that the total trip so far amounted to travelling along two sides of a very large triangle. We planned to return to Adelaide by aircraft, and so travel just the third side of the triangle to get back to our starting position. The flight time was going to be just around 50 minutes, and take us over the Spencer Gulf, York Peninsula, and then the Gulf of St Vincent before landing at Adelaide Airport.

When we checked in for our flight at the airport, we were surprised to see that it looked like the pilot was actually checking and recording the weight of each piece of luggage, as well as performing a range of other seemingly menial tasks, such as taking the luggage out to load it on the aircraft. As it turned out, it was the pilot doing all of these things.

An Airlines of South Australia Brazilian-built turbo-prop Embraer EMB-110P1, after its engine tests, and waiting for its passengers to board. Note the pilot standing next to the refreshments trolley, ready to give out refreshment packs to each passenger, before they got on the aircraft.

This was taken from my seat on the aircraft. I had quite a good view of the pilot, the instrument panel in the cockpit, the view out the front of the aircraft, and a clear view out of the window next to me. It was a thoroughly interesting spot to be in. I was so glad the crew hadn't closed the curtains in front of the passengers completely, because this allowed me to see into the cockpit and out the front of the aircraft.

Even though the photograph looks as though I may have had difficulty in seeing the readings on the instruments in the cockpit, I could actually see them pretty well. I took particular interest in reading the altimeter (which shows the aircraft’s height above sea level).

This was seen through the window on my right as we climbed out over the Spencer Gulf just after takeoff. We continued to gain height, up to an altitude of 8,500 ft, somewhere over the Spencer Gulf, before we got to York Peninsula. I knew our height, because I could read the altimeter in the cockpit. As we got to a point that was above and almost at York Peninsula, I remember being able to get an excellent look at the peninsular (out of the window to my right), as well as look way back to the coast of Eyre Peninsula where Port Lincoln was (where we had left from), plus look out the windows at the front of the aircraft and see the coastline of Adelaide (where we were going to). That felt amazing and very privileged to see!

View of the coast showing the Henley Beach coast, the River Torrens outlet, the West Beach coast, and part of Adelaide Airport as we prepared to land. We are travelling to the left at this stage, probably at about 1,000 ft up. We have just passed a point where we look straight down the cross runway at the airport. We continued on towards the left past the start of the airport and then turned 90 degrees right, and then 90 degrees right again to land on the main runway (runway 23) towards the coast.

Overall, it was a sensational flight, and the aircraft was excellent!

I was very lucky that my wife allowed me to sit in the window seat on most of our flights. She knew that I really enjoyed the views out of the windows. I know that she would have also enjoyed the views, but she always gave me the best seat.