Sir Richard Branson honoured his bet to serve as an AirAsia X cabin crew, by donning the low-cost carrier's red uniform - which includes a skirt - aboard a charity flight on 12 May.

The founder of Virgin Group had his legs publicly shaved at a cocktail event the evening before the flight, which operated from Perth to Kuala Lumpur, says AirAsia.

Branson and Fernandes wagered a bet on which one of their Formula One racing teams would finish in the best position in the 2010 Formula One Grand Prix season, with the loser to serve as a female cabin crew aboard the winner's airline.

Fernandes' team finished two spots ahead of Branson's team in the final rankings.

"This has been a real first for me but I have enjoyed the experience and I have nothing but respect for what our fabulous flight attendants do every day to keep us safe," says Branson.

AirAsia X will donate proceeds from the charity flight, including inflight sales and duty free merchandise, to Australian charity Starlight Children Foundation. It estimates that it will raise over Australian dollar (A$) 200,000 ($199,800) for the Foundation.

A brief ceremony also took place at the low-cost carrier terminal in Kuala Lumpur, where Branson was awarded the AirAsia cabin crew graduation certification along with the airline's crew uniform and shoes.

AirAsia X's chief executive Azran Osman-Rani also posted a video of Branson performing the inflight safety demonstration on YouTube.

Pictures credit to: AirAsia. 

Video credit to: AirAsia X chief executive Azran Osman-Rani

Last week at the Avalon air show I had a unique opportunity to fly aboard the RAAF's new KC-30A while it conducted the air-to-air refuelling of two F/A-18C aircraft.  I was super busy at the show, so only now do I have the chance to post my photos and a video of the trip.

Riding the KC-30A (AKA Airbus Military A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport) is, well, like flying in an airline. Aside from the lack of IFE, the interior is identical to that used by Qantas in its A330s. 

Immediately below is a video of the takeoff that gives a good perspective of the Avalon show: static park, chalets, and the C-17 used in the flying display. Just below this is a clip blogger Mike Yeo (@thebaseleg) put together that shows the refuelling itself.  He also wrote a great blog entry about the trip. 

Satellite imagery firm GeoEye has produced an image of what appears to be the Xian Y-20 strategic transport at China's Yanlian air base.

The image shows the aircraft situated on the base's runway 06 L, surrounded by what appear to be support vehicles and personnel.  The resolution is sufficient to discern the aircraft's yellow prototype colour scheme, its twin-tail, and four engines.

GeoEye says the image was taken using the company's GeoEye-1 satellite. 

Last week, Beijing actually confirmed that it is working on the Y-20, a big surprise given that they are normally tight lipped about this sort of thing. 

I must admit that these images really gave me a boost on what it the first working Monday of the year. With luck, GeoEye will one day send some photos of J-20 happenings at Chengdu and of the Liaoning at sea with several aircraft aboard. 

I recently happened upon Kingfisher's first class lounge in New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport.  Though the carrier seems adamant about resuming service at some point, its abandoned lounge presents a gloomy, run down prospect. 

I swear: I didn't steal the missing letters for souvenirs.

Cool chairs. Will there be a liquidation sale?

Any chance of a free Kingfisher beer?

Hope springs eternal. 

Singapore's Changi Airport is normally on top of the game, but it has endured a frustrating wait for its first Boeing 787 commercial flight.

That ended on Sunday when Japan Airlines (JAL) started operating the 787-8 to Singapore on the Tokyo Narita-Singapore route.

A loud round of applause broke out when the 787 finally landed around 17:00h local time, and there were smiles all around from the Changi airport and JAL executives who were waiting at Terminal 1 for the aircraft.

The carrier will initially operate the 787s three times a week on services from Narita and Tokyo's Haneda airport, before increasing that to twice daily from Narita and daily from Haneda on 28 October.

Credit: Japan Airlines

Flightglobal also got a tour of the aircraft in Singapore. The in-flight product was impressive, and this will also be rolled out on 13 of the airline's Boeing 777-300ERs that will be used on its long-haul services.

And the excited Japan Airlines executives were all dressed up for the occasion, including one who wore her 787 pendant just for the occasion. Here's to seeing more 787s here in Singapore over the coming months!

Credit: Siva Govindasamy/Flightglobal

Received a cool email earlier today from the RAAF. They recently held a charity event to raise money for the Special Olympics where 20 teams of 20 people hauled a Lockheed Martin C-130J over 10m.

The objective was to pull the 40-tonne aircraft 10m in the fastest time possible.

The quickest time of 11.68s was recorded by a team from RAAF Richmond in the heats, but the ultimate winner were riot cops from the New South Wales Police. They won the championship trophy with a time of 12.42s.

I'd be curious to see them haul the Boeing C-17. This monster has an empty weight of 128.1 tonnes.