- Hi Sam, welcome on board of the 747-8.
(dramatic music)
- I'm not surprised to see a fully loaded 747.
- Today we are flying to Amsterdam.
- I'm the only passenger here.
Cargo plane's the best.
(dramatic music continues)
The captain's serving me.
- We have a gift for you from Azerbaijan.
- You have your little bunk bed here.
- [Captain] As you can see,
the weather radar's full of colours.
- [Electronic Voice] Minimum, 50, 40, 30.
(intense music)
(jet engines roar)
- How's that? A 747-8 just landed.
This is Samir my neighbour,
but also my father in Azerbaijan here.
(Samir laughs)
- Welcome to Azerbaijan.
This is 747-8, by the way,
just landed from your home country of Hong Kong,
and you know what?
Excitement, another one is landing in three minutes.
Let's run for that. Let's go. - [Sam] Let's run.
(energetic music)
(jet engine roars)
- Sam, the one behind me is coming from Chicago.
The previous one was from Hong Kong and we as the Silkway,
are right in the middle, connecting the world.
(engines power down)
My video director, Sam,
have you ever seen Boeing 747 smiling?
He's going smile at you right now.
(energetic music)
Sam, welcome to the cargo centre,
and you are here for a treat.
Look at this massive spider over there.
This is the future of cargo aviation.
Welcome to my treasure cave.
It's like "Alibaba and the 40 Thieves" eh?
Sesame, open.
- [Sam] Sesame, open.
- [Samir] Let's go in.
- [Sam] What is this?
This is you treasure.
- This is minus 18. It's bloody cold in here.
- This is perfect for a guy from Dubai.
- Yeah?
- I'm cooling down. I'm cooling down.
What kind of treasure you normally have?
I think people have stolen everything here.
- Well, frozen meat is first. Any frozen product,
and then the ice cream.
Here you go my friend.
(Sam laughs)
(intense music)
- Hi Sam, welcome on board of the 747-8.
I am the captain Rasheem. Today we are flying to Amsterdam.
Let me show you the inside.
- [Sam] Whoa, already fully loaded.
- There is no space.
- [Sam] No space. My God.
Every inch of space is cargo.
How many tonnes of cargo we have, sir?
- It's about approximately 120 tonnes.
- [Sam] 120 tonnes.
- Yes.
- [Sam] How much cargo can a 747-8 carry?
- Oh, it's... - [Sam] Maximum.
- Maximum, about 140 tonnes. To be exact, 137 tonnes.
- I'm not surprised to see a fully loaded 747.
In fact there's so many, 747s in the world right now,
flying day and night, moving cargo to the world.
- The loadmaster operates the loading by this switch.
By moving this switch,
the cargo is just moving on its own.
- [Sam] You say rolling by itself right?
- Yes. It's rolling by itself to the dedicated position.
(machinery whirs)
- Sam, my son, I finally can get rid of you.
I am sending you here to Amsterdam with our cargo.
Please take care of our cargo and buzz off.
- I can't wait to get rid of you as well,
'cause I want to fly the 747. So long my father.
(door clanks)
All right, door's closed.
I'm the only passenger here looking after all the cargo,
and let's check out the upper deck now.
- Today we're flying to Amsterdam.
Flight time is 4 hours, 55 minutes.
We will cruise at initially a flight level 320,
and then we'll climb later 340,
and we will be lighter,
and the speed will be at cruise, mark 85.
First officer Ambrose.
- [Sam] What's our takeoff weight, sir?
- Ah, our take off weight almost 400 tonne.
- [Sam] 400 tonne? Just a four hour flight to Europe.
- Yeah.
- [Sam] That's heavy. We're heavy.
- Yes. That's heavy.
- Here I am. I'm the only passenger.
Cargo plane is the best.
Two pilots flying and I'm the only one around behind them.
(energetic music)
- [Control Tower] Cleared for takeoff,
runway 17, Silkway 203. Thank you.
(pilots murmur indistinctly)
(energetic music)
- Today our route goes through, to the west of Azerbaijan,
then we are crossing the border to Georgia,
after Georgia, Turkey, over the Black Sea,
just lower than the Ukraine border,
and after Turkey, we will enter Bulgaria,
then Romania, after Romania is Hungary,
then Slovakia, Czech Republic, then Germany,
and up north to Holland.
(energetic music)
- So beautiful. The world is pretty at 30,000 feet,
sitting in a comfort upper deck, looking through the window.
- Now on the right side, we can see Caucasus Mountains.
Very beautiful, they are always snowy,
and we are approaching the border
with the Georgian Republic.
(energetic music continues)
- We are stabilised at the cruise,
and now the Captain will serve you the food.
- [Sam] Yay, Captain serving me. This is an honour.
- Yeah, this is where we...
- [Sam] What do we have?
Red and blue here.
- Yes. Just to know the blue one is always fish,
and the red one is a meat.
- [Sam] Makes sense.
- Beef of salmon?
- [Sam] Beef please.
- Beef? Okay. I will serve you the beef.
Well we can put you on medium steam at 20 minutes.
It's a standard.
If you like, we can make it low steam or drying.
What would you like?
- [Sam] Oh, let's do a medium.
- [Captain] Okay. We'll stay at medium.
- [Sam] Ah, you can cook the beef medium. Very nice.
- This is here.
- [Sam] Captain serving me.
- Look.
- [Sam] Yes. Wow. This is big.
- Red caviar here.
- [Sam] Whoa, huge.
- We have a gift for you from Azerbaijan.
This is a very famous thing.
- [Sam] Ooh, caviar.
- Yeah.
And it will join you to the first class service then.
- [Sam] Caviar on the cargo flight,
first class cargo flight.
- Yes, first class.
- Excellent.
The people are really nice in Azerbaijan
They love to feed you. They gave, this is a huge amount.
This is two portions. They love to feed you.
Thank you Captain. Thank you so much.
- Welcome, and bon apetit.
- Thank you.
I think this is just as good as a first class meal.
People are so generous.
They really want to feed you and keep feeding you,
and I have to keep losing weight now,
because the more cargo flights you fly,
the bigger you become.
Very smooth. It tastes like a first class caviar.
Excuse, I don't have a pearl spoon.
I'm using a plastic fork.
- Tea time.
This is a famous tradition of Azerbaijan.
- [Sam] With a lemon please.
- Yes, that's exactly how.
- [Sam] Thank you Captain.
- Very welcome.
- So why I love cargo flights?
After a big meal you have your little bunk bed here
coming for a rest.
And this is unique to the 747.
Thanks to that bubble on the upper deck,
we have all this space,
and now I'm going to take a little nap.
I'll see you after an hour.
(energetic music)
Hey, just woke up,
after an hour's good sleep in this first class cabin.
Feels like a train cabin right?
Now I'm going to check up where are we flying right now.
- Sam, actually, you have a very good life you know.
You ate a good meal and had a good sleep comparing with us.
We are cargo pilots.
We were flying continuously throughout the pandemic time.
All these years, we were delivering cargo,
and in the hotels, we were just going to the current
in hotels where we were locked inside,
and we couldn't go outside, because it was prohibited.
Now we're cleared for descent,
and we're starting descent for 140,
and the weather as you can see, in Amsterdam, is not good.
It's bad weather there.
- As you can see, the weather radar is full of colours.
We are expecting bad weather into Amsterdam.
(tense music)
- [Captain] Tower hello, Silkway 203, ILS,
runway 27 and speed to 165.
- [Tower] Tower, Silkway 203 you are number two.
- [Captain] Number two, 203.
(dramatic music)
- [Tower] Tower West, 203, 27 clear to land 27, 0-10 knots.
- [Captain] Clear to land, runway 27, Silkway 203.
- [Electronic Voice] Plus hundred.
Minimum.
50, 40, 30, 20, 10.
- It's raining pretty hard here.
I haven't had an exciting landing like this.
About a thousand feet we saw the runway,
and then because we're very heavy,
we have 120 tonnes of cargo in the belly,
so we roll all the way to the end,
and then left the last exit out of the runway.
(energetic music)
- Hello Sam, welcome to Amsterdam.
Looks like we have a traffic jam here.
As you can see today, weather is rainy and a low ceiling.
Once I landed here on runway 18 right,
with a strong cross wind and rainy weather,
and that time the spotters caught me.
From the air till touchdown,
I had a full deflection of the rudder for the landing,
but today ATC was kind to us.
The active runway was 27 with no,
and we did a good landing.
So welcome to Amsterdam,
and thanks for flying with Silkway West.
- What a journey.
From Azerbaijan to rainy Amsterdam, just coming out.
Well Captain, thank you so much.
I think what we don't see normally,
is the hard work cargo pilots puts in.
Really, there's a lot of hard work,
and there's a lot of loneliness, alone flying the plane.
No passenger, no one to talk to,
but it's been a great ride with you.
Beautiful day in Erbil. My first time in Iraq.
Back to a five man, soviet designed aircraft cockpit.
(dramatic music)