Thursday, June 26, 2008

My car for sale

After over 5 years it is time to get refreshed. My Proton Satria GTi is now for sale.



I am asking for RM40k for this 2003 model. It was a second car, with only 42000 km on the odometer. It is generally in good condition.

I'm getting a more practical second car, a Toyota Vios to supplement the Toyota Camry.




Note: SOLD! Looks like the car will move to Terengganu....

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Malaysia Airlines to replace the B737-400 with B737-800

It was reported quite a few months ago that MH will replace the B734 with B738, with the B739 as a possible option.

A good move. For us spotters, there will be more variety as AirAsia (AK) has over 100 A320 on order, with almost 40 delivered. Also, that closed the possibilities of AK trying to sell their surplus A320 to MH. Given their political connection, that has always been a possibility, and f that happens someone will make a tidy sum of money, at taxpayer and MHs employees and passangers' expenses, of course.

MH used to wet-lease 2 B738 from Travel Services in 2006 as their long-range narrow-body program. The lease lasts only for about 3 months. The aircraft were OK-TVC and OK-TVD.

Anyway, many airlines has been operating the B738 to KUL.

This is a Hong Kong Airlines B738, photographed in KUL this morning. Over the years I've photographed quite a number of this type, in KUL as well as in other stations. This is my collection of B738 on Airliners.net.

Click here for more info on the B738.

Malaysia Airlines B737 seats

They used to look like this for business class. Then they changed to the purple seats and now they're changing again to bright red seats.

For the economy class, the classy-looking greenish seats is being progressively changed to a mixture of colors.

Some people lik it. I don't. What do you think?

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Of fuel price and related items

So petrol price has been increased to RM2.70 per liter.

Is it fair? Depends. Not in the current situation. Actually I don't mind paying market rate for petrol. The problem is that I don't pay market rate for cars, the tax is too high and the road tax is just plain illogical.

If I have my way, I'd go with a token amount of tax for cars, maybe 10% of the selling price. Road tax should be abolished and replaced by fuel tax. Our current road tax is not fair because it is based on engine capacity. I'd say it better be based on fuel consumption. So those who use more petrol should pay more, not those who happens to have a "big" capacity engine. A fuel guzzler should pay more, not subsidized more. Those who owns big capacity-engined cars are not necessarily rich and those driving cars below 2000 cc are not necessarily of lower income. Compare between a 10 years old Camry or Accord against Mercedes-Benz C200K or BMW 318i.

Of similar note, the RM625 rebate given by the government for cars below 2000 cc (or 2500 cc for pickups) is one of the most unfair and stupid decision made by the current government recently. Again, poor people drive a MB C200K, rich men drive a Camry 2.2?

Somebody must be sleeping.....

Intro

Something about myself.

My name is Mohamad Radzi Desa. I am a B737 pilot with Malaysia Airlines, being a captain on the B737-400 fleet since 2000. Yes, it has been a long time but I still enjoy the hectic life of the B737. I would like to go to a widebody fleet but....

A330: I don't like the flight pattern.
B777: No vacancy.
B747: Nice fleet for now, but in a few years it will be a purely cargo fleet. Been there once (on the B742), and once is enough.

My hobby is photography. Namely, aviation and macro photography. I am not good at photographing people.

For aviation photos, you can see my works at Airliners.net and Jetphotos.net. My macro works can be seen at Flickr.

That's all for now.....