PLANETFLYER

Welcome to the Planetflyer website, with flying-related stories from being a passenger to being an aviation nut and geeking out in museums. You can also click on the map below to see where in the world they took place.

All flying-related articles:

Iljushin playground
Returning back from Budapest, Janne and I found a small but remarkable aviation museum next to the Ferenc Liszt airport. A different museum, at least from our point because it featured more of the eastern aircraft than the western ones we've seen more often. Iljushin, Tupolev, Yak, etc.
Full story

August 2019, Budapest Aero Park, Budapest, Hungary
Flying; Travel

Welcome to KAINUU
Quiet place, green grass, views, a rocking chair... at an airport. Hard to believe, but there is this lounge at HEL called KAINUU.
Full story

June 2019, Helsinki-Vantaa, Vantaa, Finland
Flying; Travel

Hot as HEL
Well, it isn't really a sauna, except that it is hot, it is packed with people. And it is a decorated bus at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, affectionately known as HEL.
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June 2019, Helsinki-Vantaa, Vantaa, Finland
Flying

The new A220
I had a chance to fly the new Airbus A220 plane the other day. Wonderful, efficient, hi-tech plane! And new airplane smell!
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April 2019, Helsinki-Vantaa, Vantaa, Finland
Flying

Keflavik airport
The Keflavik airport in Iceland had a very beautiful roof.
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March 2019, Keflavik airport, Keflavik, Iceland
Flying

Building HEL
Building the future of HEL... yeah right. It is hellish right now, as the traffic to the airport and parking arrangements are pretty unbearable.
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March 2019, Helsinki-Vantaa, Vantaa, Finland
Flying

Not MAX
Two crashes within few months have put the Boeing 737 MAX airplanes into doubt. I'm flying today, not on a MAX due to a world-wide grounding of the plane. I sometimes flew MAXes, as Norwegian flies them between Helsinki and Stockholm.
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March 2019, Helsinki-Vantaa, Vantaa, Finland
Flying

Check-in Moomins
Love the new luggage tags Finnair hands out, not to mention the Moomins in their Tokyo check-in desk.
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January 2019, Narita Airport, Tokyo, Japan
Flying

Tampere Muumi Airport (TMP)
Today I flew to Tampere for the first time, and was happy to find out that they've decorated the airport with Moomin pictures. This makes total sense, given the world's only Moomin museum is in Tampere. Nice!
Full story

November 2018, Tampere-Pirkkala Airport, Tampere, Finland
Flying

Frankfurt is an alien space station
I got stuck at an elevator in Frankfurt the other day.
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October 2018, Frankfurt Airport, Frankfurt, Germany
Flying

Bromma Airport
Many things are better in Sweden than in Finland. Take their appreciation of small city airports, for instance. Bromma is a small but thriving airport in Stockholm. Whereas in Finland... the idiots are tearing down a historic airport.
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April 2018, Bromma Airport, Stockholm, Sweden
Travel; Flying

Back in the U.S.S.R. -- Aeroflot
We got a chance to fly Aeroflot on our trip to Kazakhstan... I was hoping for a real historic Soviet experience, and Tupolevs. Or at least a Sukhoi Superjet. But no, sadly I was disappointed.
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February 2018, Almaty Airport, Almaty, Kazakhstan; Sheremetyevo Airport, Khimki, Russia; Helsinki-Vantaa, Vantaa, Finland
Travel; Flying

Convair CV-990
Janne and I visited the Swiss Transport museum in Luzern, and were able to visit the Convair CV-990 "Coronado", in the cabin.
Full story

January 2018, Swiss Museum of Transport, Luzern, Switzerland
Flying

SIN to HEL
Made the classic "SIN to HEL" trip again.
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November 2017, Helsinki-Vantaa, Vantaa, Finland
Flying; Travel

Nextjet
The flights from Sweden were incredibly booked this week, so I ended up in returning home on an airline that I've never heard of before, 2N or Nextjet. And interesting routing, via Port. And there was an interesting rust on the airplane...
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October 2017, Arlanda, Sweden
Travel; Flying

Air Force One Classic
I never thought I'd visit a presidential library in the US. Couldn't imagine anything more boring. But, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library hosts a VC-137C SAM 27000, or more commonly known as the Air Force One.
Full story

August 2017, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California, USA
Flying

This is the 4th set of articles. The previous sets were set 1, set 2, and set 3. The next set is set 5.

The Planetflyer articles appeared originally in the Blogspot Planetskier series, at TGR posts, or at the Relaa website. See also the articles about skiing, caving, urban exploration, climbing, cycling, swimming, and saunas.