Shanghai to Taipei

Departing Pudong airport, Shanghai, China, for Taoyuan airport, Taipei, Taiwan. Nice view of Shanghai's large international airport behind me, as I'm turning on course for Taipei.

My Dad Captained the Boeing 727 into Taipei many times, when he was temporarily based in Tokyo, and his current friend Rich often crewed with him, as the Flight Engineer. They share one of those "lucky to be alive" stories, when they were climbing out from Yokota one dark night on their way to Taipei, "under an overriding typhoon." They were climbing through smooth air, until they reached 2,500 feet, and ran up against severe wind shear. They were buffeted by severe turbulence, barely able to keep the aircraft right-side-up, and a sudden onset tailwind made them unable to maintain the airspeed necessary to climb, even at takeoff power, with a mountain range higher than their altitude, somewhere not that far ahead of them. This was in the days before GPS and moving map displays, so they were, to some degree, just guessing at exactly where they were, and how far they were from the mountains. Exciting story.

Turning to intercept the final approach course for runway 23R. The broken cloud layer that was reported in the ATIS at Taoyuan airport is visible out the windscreen.

On final approach to Taoyuan airport, with the external spot plane view showing the landing gear down, the northern end of the island of Taiwan in the background, and the afternoon sun reflecting off the East China Sea below me.