Packing Is Going To Be Tricky...
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We have an evening flight, so no need to spend the night at the Premier Inn, and no big rush to get there. Amanda, of course, is supposed to be taking the day off work but that doesn't actually mean she can not log on to the office and have a day of leisure.The drive to Heathrow seems a bit more fraught than usual for no obvious reason, and then we don't help ourselves by repeating a mistake we'd made previously and ending up in the wrong part of the short-stay car park. We need level 4 to drop our car with the meet and greet service, but we've put ourselves in the lane that only gives access to levels 1-3, so we have to pay eight quid for the privilege of driving round in a circle. Bugger, next time we'll get it right.
At least it's a quiet time at the airport and we are through bag drop and security pretty quickly.
Now, after our rather disappointing experience at the not-Seafood Bar in T2 at the end of 2024, what has T5 got to offer us?
It seems Fortnum and Mason have taken over here. Still second-mortgage prices, but much tastier!
Amanda has definitely cheered up.
Here's to us!
No delays, boarding is good, next stop Santiago.
Our plane has electrically darkened windows, not blinds, and the captain hasn't given us control of them as the sun starts to rise, so we get this brilliant purple effect.
Hmm... When we can see out properly, the first thing we notice is all the peeling tape that seems to be holding the wing together! I'm sure that's not what it's for, but it doesn't look terribly confidence-inspiring.
And this isn't the place you want to have to do an emergency landing! Pretty, though.
But clearly we have lived to tell the tale, and so after the fact, I can do some research. Turns out it's called “speed tape” and it's a regular thing for protecting degrading paintwork before repainting. The 787, which is what this plane is, seems particularly prone to flaking paint because the wings are made of a carbon fibre composite that is quite new to the industry and has proven a bit difficult to get paint to stick to. It's not quite a purely cosmetic problem, because UV light can damage the composite if it's not blocked by paint. It's literally like sunburn.
A Google search for “787 speed tape” will find you any number of pages describing the issue, although I have to say that literally none of the other photos I've seen show it peeling away like this.
Interestingly, at cruising speed and altitude, the torn edges look absolutely rigid, with no visible motion at all, but when we land and hit the thrust reversers, suddenly they're blowing all over the place!
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