August 2008 Archives

The GB Olympics team lands back at London Heathrow following a successful Beijing Olympic Games in a specially painted gold-nosed British Airways Boeing 747.

An Itek Air Boeing 737-200 which crashed yesterday near Bishkek had sought to return to the capital's Manas International Airport because of a technical problem.

Sixty-five of the 90 people on board the aircraft were killed after it attempted an emergency landing near the town of Dzhangi-Dzher in the country's northern Sokuluk district.

To read more click here

This weeks AirSpace image of the week was uploaded by Brian T Richards . If you would like to upload your own images and have the chance to have them profiled in Flight International magazine, simply sign up and upload to your own free gallery.

E. P. Hetzel trying out the paraglider system of spacecraft recovery, then under consideration for Project Gemini .It was the first manned test of the recovery system at what became NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, California.

Read more on Hyperbola

208 Sqn Hawk from RAF Valley from the Welsh Valleys

Image courtesy of APG Photography

On AirSpace, we have snapped a Google Maps' image of ten International Airports around the world. Each week one of those images will be revealed, and the person who guesses the quickest each week (by commenting on week three's photograph on AirSpace with IATA code) will win an exclusive brand new AirSpace t-shirt.

TAM Airlines has taken delivery of the first of eight Boeing 777-300ER long-range widebody twinjets on firm order.

Read more on the Boeing 777

The airline has set 20 October as the date for its first Airbus A380 service, between Melbourne and Los Angeles.

Courtesy of http://www.pbase.com/orio/qantasa380

Inmarsat has confirmed the successful launch and acquisition of the third Inmarsat-4 satellite.

The satellite was launched on a Proton Breeze M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 18 August. (more from Mary Kirby's Runway Girl blog)

To celebrate 100 years of flight Le Mans Sarthe Aero Retro group staged an event at the Hunaudières race course in Le Mans marking Wilbur Wright's first flight in France on 8 August.

Pilot Jef Jacquelin took up the Wright Flyer Type-A replica (F-PMAN) managing two safe hops along the Le Mans runway, in front of a small crowd, said spectator Stephen Wolf.

A century ago the first flight lasted 1 minute 45 seconds, and was long enough for two circuits of the race course, demonstrating to the assembled crowd of onlookers (which included Louis Bleriot) that the Wright brothers had mastered flight. This feat sparked widespread aviation development, which continues to this day.

See more images of the Wright Flyer replicas in our gallery of images including one image of a German Wright Flyer replica hung from the church roof of Abbaye de l'Épau.
(Images courtesy of Stephen Wolf)

Finland's national carrier, Finnair has painted its latest Airbus A340 in a new colour scheme, designed to highlight its membership of the Oneworld Alliance. The Airbus A340-300E carries the livery which prominently features the "Oneworld" name on the forward fuselage and includes the fin designs of Finnair and the other nine alliance members towards the rear.

Picture credit: Yannick Delamarre

The second Boeing 777F has joined the flight-test programme for the new all-cargo twinjet. The aircraft, one of the five ordered by launch customer Air France, is the first to appear in the carrier's colours.

AirSpace member erwan_ei uploaded an artistic image of an Air Mauritius A340 taking off from Tananarive, Madagascar's capital.

See erwan_ei's gallery on AirSpace

Testing has begun for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner Gear swing tests replicate the extension and retraction of the landing gear, as they would function on a regular flight. Successfully swinging the landing gear into a stowed position and back down into a landing position verifies the installation and functionality are working as expected. (more.....)

The B-17 affectionately known as Sally B has been grounded until 2009 due to engine trouble. The air show stalwart will not appear at any UK shows this year until its engines have been repaired.

To read the full story click here

This weekend International Bristol Balloon Fiesta celebrated its 30th Anniversary. Over the last three decades the Balloon Fiesta has been a summer event that attracts about 500,000 visitors.

On this day 70 years ago a Lufthansa Focke-Wulf Fw 200 made a non-stop flight from Berlin to New York, via Hamburg, Glasgow, Newfoundland, and Halifax, taking 24hrs 36minutes for the trip.

Having amassed 25 flight test hours since its first flight on 3 July, the Cirrus Vision SJ50 V1 personal jet test vehicle is being prepared for a rigorous test campaign to validate the technology needed to develop the general aviation aircraft manufacturer's first jet.

Cirrus has so far flown the aircraft to 16,000ft (4,880m) up to speeds of 208kt (385km/h) and as slow as 78kt with partial flaps in straight and level flight, says Mike Van Staagen, vice-president for Cirrus Design's Advanced Development Group. "> (more...)

RAF C-17 unloading a Royal Naval Sea King MK4
C-17
Sea King MK4

Emirates Airline is currently showing off its new Airbus A380 during familiarisation flights in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Emirates' new aircraft was greeted on touch down at a water cannon ceremony at San Francisco International Airport on 4 August.

The familiarisation flights followed the inaugural flight of the aircraft from Dubai to New York JFK on 1 August and yesterday the residents of Los Angeles saw the A380 at the Flight Path Museum at Imperial Terminal, LAX.

North Carolina-based Antilles Seaplanes is to restart production of Grumman's iconic G-21 Goose Amphibious flying boat, over 70 years after initial production ... 

This is a screen grab from the BBC's new series "Britain from Above". This image shows the GPS traces from all air transport traffic in a 24 hour period within UK airspace.