Having recently secured a multi-million cash boost from Etihad Airways - and probably made its immediate future safe - we're sure that Air Berlin, the carrier behind this festive Boeing 737-800, is celebrating the holiday period with an extra spring in its lederhosen. The aircraft ws snapped at Berlin Tegel earlier this month.
Credit: AirTeamImages
Picture copyright Rex Features
Pilot lands Fokker Dreidecker aircraft on its nose at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, Cambridgeshire, UK on 12 July 2011.
Upon landing, the WW1 fighter aircraft was forced onto its nose after a sudden gust of wind.
Philip Tyler, an aircraft enthusiast and photographer said: "The Dreidecker did a display to show the sort of fighting that would have taken place during a typical dog-fight in the First World War.
"The plane has triple wings so develops a lot of lift and appears to float in the air when it is flying, which allows for some impressive manoeuvres in the air.
"But all that lift has a downside when coming into land as the slightest breeze can play havoc.
"On this occasion the plane landed when it must have caught a breeze which was just enough to unbalance it."
So, this is what happened, but what caption would you add?
oOo
Links
Flightglobal archive: Fokker search term
Flightglobal archive: Anthony Fokker obituary
The US Airways Airbus A320 Flight 1549 ditched into the Hudson River west of New York City after a departure from LaGuardia Airport in the afternoon of 15 January 2009.
The aircraft is currently on its way to being a permanent feature Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Read John Croft's article....
Burlesque star Dita Von Teese helped Sir Richard Branson celebrate Virgin Atlantic's 10th anniversary of flying to Las Vegas.
Dita has been immortalised as a one-off Las Vegas-inspired flying lady on the nose of a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400.
Dita and Sir Richard posed for pictures at Las Vegas McCarran Airport yesterday.
See the videos below. The first includes Sir Richard Branson
Picture credit: Fanny Eternod
(L-R) Flavien Guderzo (co-pilot), Tom Zorman (mission control), Riccardo Mortara (mission commander / captain) and Gabriel Mortara (co-captain)
Italian pilot Riccardo Mortara has set the world record for the fastest round the world flight in his 30-year-old Sabreliner.
They had to add a 12th leg to their trip, after plans to land in Keflavik, Iceland, were aborted due to a volcanic eruption.
The Sabreliner 65 jet, took of from Geneva at 06:12 UTC on Friday morning, flew east, and returned Sunday at 16:06 UTC, completing the 36,770 km minimum distance in 57 hours 54 minutes. The average speed around the world was 647km/h.
This journey beats pioneering pilot Steve Fossett's time of 67 hours and one minute, which was achieved without stops in the state-of-the-art VirginFlyer in 2006.
A secondary target was to beat golfer Arnold Palmer's 1978 record of 57 hours 26 minutes, which he set in a Learjet 36 - an aircraftin a lighter weight category.
The three-man crew, Mortara, 62, co-captain Gabriel Mortara, 28, and co-pilot Flavien Guderzo, 26, blogged and tweeted on their journey from Geneva to Bahrain, Colombo, Macau, Osaka, Petropavlovsk, Anchorage, Las Vegas and Montreal, and had to urgently change plans following a volcanic eruption in Iceland causing all of Iceland's airports to be shut down.
Mortara was forced to return to Canada, refuelling in Goose Bay, Labrador, before re-calculating the Sabreliner's route.
With the aborted leg not counting towards the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) minimum distance, the previous Keflavik-Casablanca-Geneva plan was ditched in favour of Shannon, then Marrakech, and finally home to Geneva. The total distance traveled was 36,900km.
Mortara said: "To complete this circumnavigation and establish a new record is a tremendous honour and the proudest moment of my career. Steve Fossett's time in this category of plane was a challenge to beat, but I was confident we could do so.".
"I would like to thank my plane. The aircraft is known as 'the legend' for a reason. She is a very special plane, and a great team mate. Very few aircraft can fly for 58 hours straight without experiencing any mechanical troubles. After this mission, she returns to her regular job as a luxury air taxi for my company, Sonnig SA."
This image of Guinot wing walkers on a 1940s biplane, a Yak, was taken by AirSpace user Aviatorlady at the World Aerobatic Championships 2009.
I found the Guinot wing walkers on the web. How much fun would it be....?
More from Aviatiorlady
Sir Richard Branson has chosen this image as Image of the Day. It was taken on 22 June 1984 before take off at London's Heathrow bound for Newark. Sir Richard is on the steps up to the Maiden Voyager, the airline's first aircraft, a Boeing 747, with an array of celebrities popular at the time.
From left to right: Sir Richard Branson, Christopher Biggins, pantomime dame and I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here winner 2007, Katie Rabett, British actress who appeared in tv's Minder, Bond film The Living Daylights, the journalist and television presenter Sir David Frost who was recently portrayed by Michael Sheen in last year's film Frost/Nixon, the late broadcaster, writer and politician Sir Clement Freud, British actress Suzanne Danielle who appeared in the Carry On series, Holly Johnson lead singer from the band Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Behind Holly is musician Julian Lloyd Webber who gave a live performance on his cello during the flight.
Virgin Atlantic will recreate that first flight this year on 22 June to celebrate the airline's launch 25 years ago flying on a Boeing 747-400. Many of the celebrities who were on the first flight, including former England Test cricketer Sir Ian Botham, will join in the celebrations marking a very special day in aviation history.
Northamptonshire's Silverstone race circuit is host international air sports event, the 25th FAI World Aerobatic Championships on 28 and 29 August.
The event, organised by Flying Aces in partnership with the British Aerobatic Association will feature along with the eighth round of the MSA British Touring Car Championship series.
French start-up manufacturer Lisa Airplanes is planning to launch a six-seat turbine-powered version of its Akoya ultralight seaplane within the next five years boosted by demand from its growing international customer base for a larger stablemate.
Details of the new aircraft are sketchy, but Troillard says the new family member will have similar features to the Akoya, including a retractable landing gear and the ability to operate from land, water and snow.
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