Flightglobal

Flight to Paris - Nous sommes arrivés

2013-05-13T14:46:04Z

The final leg begins.

The UK mainland seems incredibly developed and populated compared to the lands we've encountered thus far.

From 22,000ft, football stadiums, warehouses, and motorways litter the landscape. Our flight plan takes us close to London, although this is yet another sight clouded from view.

However as we pass over into France the cloud begins to break up and we're back in business. The northern French countryside has a different tone to the UK.

Like a patchwork quilt of yellows browns and greens, it is much more featureless countryside, flat and rural with the occasional motorway snaking through the fields.

And before we know it the business air lanes of Charles de Gaulle airport are upon us, giving us some air show filming practice as we pick out a landing Korean Air 747 in infrared from 10km away.

Paris is hardly an ugly city on a bad day but from 2,500ft in the late afternoon sunshine it's hard to imagine a more engaging sight.

I'm caught between the desire to sit back and drink in the whole vista, and to lean forward and search out individual landmarks I recognise from previous visits on terra firma.

But it's all over too quickly and within minutes we're on the ground at Le Bourget, and back to the reality of mooching about in search of a coffee and a bathroom.

So after 4 days, 6 countries and 4,000 nautical miles my first flying road trip is over.

Le PC-12 a atterri

I feel slightly emotional leaving the PC-12NG our trusty steed for the last few days. and more jealous than I thought I would of not carrying on with Ethan and Jim as they undertake their European tour.

They head off to London, Rome, Germany and of course back to Le Bourget for the Paris air show. It's been a more than comfortable experience and full of new places and perspectives.

Crossing the Atlantic in the back of an airliner is going to quite the come down next time I head to the USA.

The next time I'll see this aircraft again will be here of course will be in five week's time, where the Star Safire 380HD will be streaming live hi def and infrared footage of the Paris air show flying displays.

Till then ... it's a goodbye from me.

Michael Targett, Flightglobal, finally here in Le Bourget.

VIDEO: Flight to Paris - IRK to WIC

2013-05-12T17:07:25Z

No volcano.

It pains me to say it having built it up somewhat but Eyjafjallajökull might as well be the Mountains of Kong for me in terms of existing.

The thick, thick cloud over Iceland thwarts us as we follow our flight plan out of IRK.

Despite searching with the infrared for a volcano-shaped heat signature we admit defeat and raise the Star Safire back up into the fuselage to gain precious knots.

I even went to the trouble of learning how to pronounce the damn thing. Bah.

It's a welcome sight then to see that the weather is breaking up a bit around Wick.

Unmistakably British in its appearance both not just from the air but in the lounge in the Airport Operations Building - tea bags, freeze dried coffee and kitkats.

There's no place like home ....

Having said that, the hospitality of Andrew Bruce at Far North Aviation cannot be faulted. Free wifi and the gift of a pen.

Here he is striking a pose for Flight to Paris fans. After all he's much admired by women in Canada, or so he tells me, following an appearance on "The World's Most Dangerous Flights" by Nat Geo Canada:

Strike a pose. Vogue

VIDEO: Flight to Paris - YYR to UAK

2013-05-11T19:51:47Z

Well I needn't have worried about my shirt and jacket.

Poopy suits they call them. A contingency against making an emergency landing in freezing conditions.

Gumby or Poopy - which one is which?

Suits duly donned - a hell of a lot easier said than done - we depart the slightly disappointing Snow Mountains of Goose Bay en route to Narsarsuaq (easier to type than say).

A 95kts tail wind pumps our speed up to 366kts, so we make very good time indeed. Just as well as my poopy suit is beyond cozy.

Playing iceberg spotting passes the time until we're within visible range of our "target". Narsarsuaq Airport - previously known as Bluie West One in the North Atlantic Ferry days - was converted to from a USAF base to civilian operations in 1958.

Capt Ethan describes the approach to me as we begin the descent. "Today conditions are favourable," says Ethan.

He's telling me. It's nicest weather I've seen since leaving England - which is not a regular occurrence.

The lack of wind means we can fly directly into Narsarsuaq without the need for any maneuvers.

Descending rapidly after passing over a mountainous island, and landing right in the throat of a glacial valley. It's a stunning sight.

As is the rest of Greenland. Straight out of Game of Throne's Beyond the Wall. Snow, glaciers, icebergs and mountains as far as the eye (or the Star Safire) can see.

It makes one wonder why the Norse persevered with their Eastern Settlement for over 400 years (between c. AD 985 and 1408).

This time we record enough footage to sink the final dregs of memory left in my MacBook.
Time for a clear out ...

VIDEO: Flight to Paris - The Gumby Suit Challenge

2013-05-11T01:42:54Z

Much has been made in the lead up to our trans-Atlantic crossing of the "Gumby Suit", aka "Poopy Suit", aka "Cold Water Immersion Suit".

I was intrigued.

I need not have been.

Imagine The Hulk's wet suit with alien finger holes and having to put it on inside a child's wardrobe and you'll get a feel for the process:

VIDEO: Flight to Paris - ASH - YYR

2013-05-11T00:35:16Z

Continuing our flight in FLIR's PC-12 from Virginia to Le Bourget in time for the Paris air show, here's my take from the latest leg of the journey:

We depart Nashua on time, fog and geese on the runway both tackled without issue.

As was unnecessarily pointed out to me once by an ex-colleague, it's always a nice day above the clouds, but today I find the sight of our aircraft pulling through the low fog into the clear New Hampshire air especially moving.

But maybe that's just the early start and growing strain of trying to pronounce odd Nordic names.

Today we're following the North Atlantic Ferry Route - a route defined to support the transport of military aircraft from USA to Europe for WWII.

Ethan is in good spirits at the hanger. "It's 30F and there's snow up in Goose Bay," he says seemingly with relish.

Oh - I look depressingly at my shirt and light jacket. Still the promise of seeing and filming some of the fabled Goose Bay Snow Mountains is attractive.

Apparently, they just run out of places to put it so it just gets piled up between the aircraft ramp and the runway.

Starting to feel more at home on the aircraft now I have my own pair of Bose noise cancelling headphones and a "jet lunchbox", I settle in for the 3 hour flight to the edge of Canada.

En route Jim programs the Star Safire with our "targets". Lat and long inputs mean he can call up them up at any time and have the sensor slew round and start tracking.

His forethought is wasted with Goose Bay though as another encounter with low cloud inhibits our chance of footage of the extremely long runway.

Goose Bay is as desolate an airport as you're likely to encounter. Snow, ice, tarmac, biting wind and not much else, so the FBO is a welcome sub-artic oasis of warmth and wifi.

Goose Bay - nowt but snow and ice

But time and tide (or rather the jet stream) do not wait for us as they did not for Erik the Red and his fellow Norse navigators who allegedly plied these waters some 800 years ago.

The Norselands beckon.

Flight to Paris day 2 - preparing for the Atlantic

2013-05-10T01:44:46Z

Despite my delusions of becoming a modern day Livingston, flying an aircraft such as this across the Atlantic is not all that uncommon.

Plenty of small and medium-sized aircraft deliveries take the route from the USA to Europe and vice versa.

FLIR operate two PC-12NGs, both based in the USA.

However as part of their regular customer demo tours each aircraft travels from North America to other continents at least twice a year. Ethan - our pilot - has made the trip himself four times prior to this one.

This journey marks the start of Ethan and Jim's month-long European customer tour, hence it will arrive in France some time before the Paris air show begins.

However, the fact that it's a fairly well trodden path doesn't detract from the need to suitably prepare for an extended flight across the vast tracts of the North Atlantic Ocean.

So with a new sensor on board and the weather looking more promising for recording footage and stopping in Greenland, I'm hopeful for some great video during the 2300 nautical mile trip to Reykjavik.

VIDEO: Flight to Paris - negotiating the storms

2013-05-09T15:07:40Z

Yesterday's flight from Manassas, VA to Nashua, NH gave witness to some of the challenges of flying through busy airspace while contending with some extreme weather.

Once we had permission to take off Capt Ethan's route was dictated by ATC directions - with airliners descending to our East and large super cell storms to our West.

To his credit we avoided much of the worst of the weather, but every now and again we experienced some cheeky turbulence.

Here's an interesting clip which I was recording as we routed around one such storm, which shows what it's like flying in those conditions in an aircraft the size of the PC-12NG.

VIDEO: First leg of the Flight to Paris (HEF - ASH)

2013-05-09T15:03:36Z

Here's my video of the first leg of the journey, including negotiating some challenging weather and amazing views of Boston from the air:

And they're off ... eventually (Flight to Paris: HEF - ASH)

2013-05-09T02:59:37Z

And so our adventure to describe a GA aircraft's transit to the Paris Air Show begins.

It's hardly worthy of Captain Cook, but journeying to seven different countries in four days is probably about as close as I'm ever going to get to a prodigious navigation experience.

Pilot Ethan Lewis and Sensor Operator Jim Woznica wear knowing smiles as they greet me at Manassa Regional Airport. "It's gonna be a long flight," are Jim's opening words.

Good job too as otherwise one could debate what the point of flying 3800 miles in the wrong direction is, just to fly back again.

However what took just seven hours in a Virgin Atlantic A330-300 is set to take us the next four days in a PC-12NG to readdress.

Our aircraft is primed and ready to go as we gather for a photo call on the tarmac. However darkening skies hurry us on board - the emerging met report for the Washington DC region is for heavy rain, lightening and coin-sized hailstones. Lovely.

Alas - our efforts prove futile. As we sit under power on the taxiway waiting for clearance, ATC call in a ground stop and we return to the stand before legging it for the shelter of the FBO building.

An hour and half later and we're back underway - this time there's no stopping us. But the same nasty weather system means we're not clear to fly low enough to record footage of our passage up the Eastern seaboard.

An early blow. Bah humbug. Cook didn't have to deal with traffic restrictions ...

Cook did have to deal with the weather though, as do we. " ... it's going to get bumpy for a bit," says Capt Ethan on more than one occasion as we negotiate our way around super cells at 21,000ft.

Good news at last as the met clears in time for us to capture footage of Boston. This is timely - but in a somber way.

FLIR's Star Safire is the same product that recently took to the Boston skies for a very different reason - when used to document the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, and to track down the terror suspects with its infrared capabilities.

Jim's footage from today shows the effects on the city still in evidence. A mass of flowers form a memorial to the victims, while the race finish line - deliberately left painted on the street - is clearly visible from our vantage point.

On a lighter note we film some of Boston's sunny sights including Downtown and Fenway Park - home of the Boston Red Sox.

A smooth touch down in Nashua (ASH) follows - thank you Capt Ethan - which is our base for the next two nights as we prepare for the Atlantic crossing.

Flight to Paris - the itinerary

2013-05-06T21:54:29Z

Tomorrow I depart for Washington DC for a layover before transferring to Manassas Airport, VA and hitching a ride on FLIR's PC-12NG back to Le Bourget in Paris.

Here's my itinerary - not the usual Trans-Atlantic crossing. Very excited. Obviously.

8 May: Depart - Manassas (HEF)
Flyover - Washington DC
Flyover - Philadelphia Flyover - New York
Flyover - Boston Overnight - Nashua (ASH), NH
9 May: Prepare for transatlantic crossing
10 May - Depart ASH
Fuel stop - Goose Bay (YYR), Canada
Fuel stop - Narsarsuaq (UAK), Greenland
Overnight - Reykjavik (IRK), Iceland
11 May - Depart IRK
Flyover - Eyjafjallajökull Volcano, Iceland
Fuel stop - Wick (WIC), Scotland
Land - Le Bourget (LBG), France

Here's the flight map:

View Flight to Paris in a larger map

Flightglobal rides shotgun on FLIR's PC-12 en route to Le Bourget

2013-05-03T13:37:25Z

As Flightglobal regulars will know, we team up with FLIR Systems once a year at Paris / Farnborough to film and broadcast footage from the air show flying displays using FLIR's Star Safire imaging technology.

This Paris Air Show is no different, but we thought it would be good to whet the appetite of air show fans by hitching a ride on board FLIR's Pilatus PC-12NG as it journeys in dramatic fashion from USA over to Le Bourget, Paris.

FLIR takes its aircraft over to the big aerospace shows to perform customer demos as well as to provide live air-to-air footage as at Farnborough last year.

The flight path of the single engine turbo prop takes it around the North Atlantic refueling at various locations over several days before finally landing at Le Bourget, Paris.

In order to give fans of our live air show coverage some insight into the camera technology we'll be utilising during the flying display, FLIR has invited Flightglobal to travel on board the PC-12NG, blogging the flight and publishing some of the Star Safire infrared and full spectrum footage taken of the sights encountered on the way.

Highlights will include flying over Washington DC, New York, Greenland, Iceland, the UK and Le Bourget airport.

You can follow the flight on our dedicated Flight to Paris page, which is part of Paris Air Show preview content.

There's also a competition to win $200 Amazon vouchers if you can successfully guess the total number of flight hours clocked up between Manassas, VA and Le Bourget Paris.

Details of how to enter will be available soon.

Tech in focus: FLIR Systems Star Safire 380HD

2013-05-02T15:46:15Z

Flightglobal has made good use of FLIR Systems' Star Safire 380HD sensor over the last three years with the system providing the stunning infrared images broadcast during our live coverage from Paris and Farnborough.

However - as nice as it is - filming air show flying displays is not what the system was primarily designed for.

At its core the Star Safire System is a digital, high-definition system capable of capturing ultra long range images.

The 380-HD is primarily designed for use on military fixed-wing and helicopter aircraft, offering thermal, colour and image intensified cameras.

These partner with three lasers and an inertial measurement unit to ensure it can cope with virtually any environment or conditions.

Each camera has five stepped fields of view, allowing the operator to progressively increase magnification through its games console-style handheld control.

FLIR says the style of the controller is deliberately designed to chime with the younger game-playing generation.

The system contains a digital downlink which can relay broadcast quality, streaming HD images to the ground. Its inertia and thermal controls allow the operator to set and track moving objects and so limiting the need for manual adjustments.

This video from Farnborough last year shows the Star Safire 380HD in action:

Follow the Flight to Paris here ...

New Airline Business tablet edition: download the free app now

2013-05-02T15:13:35Z

For all you digital innovators out there - our new tablet edition of Airline Business is available now in the itunes store. You can download our free app and check out the May edition of Airline Business, which includes our cover interview with the chief executive of fast-growing Turkish Airlines, Temel Kotil, and our special report on airports - including details of the 150 airports by passenger number in 2012

The Airline Business app is free to download. Subscribe to Airline Business within the app and share your details with us to get free e-newsletters by email, or purchase single issues using in app purchase. More details here.

Enhanced Article-Profile links (aka 'article enrichment')

2013-05-01T08:22:56Z

On Thursday 2 May we're introducing yet another enhancement to Flightglobal Pro, designed to reduce the time it takes to move between news articles and organisation profiles.

This enhancement now means you can jump straight to any tab on any profile (airline, airport or MRO provider) mentioned in a news article with just one click.

Whether it¹s to quickly remind yourself how many 737s Ryanair has, or find out just where Bishkek-Manas International Airport is, the Article-Profile links are there to help provide rapid context around the news articles through our data.

Below is more technical detail around how this works (courtesy of our BA - Theo):

What is Content Enrichment?

By Article Content Enrichment, we refer to the functionality where organisation references in an Article Body are automatically hyperlinked to the FG Pro Organisation Profile (assuming it exists).

Wait a minute; don't we do that now?

The short answer is "yes", however the current solution has a number of limitations that we aim to address with the new solution.
The main issues being:

The fact that the list of "organisations to be hyperlinked" is a static, hard-coded list stored away in a Production Server - any changes/additions to that list would require Development Effort.
The fact that the hyperlink always takes the user to the Organisation Profile Summary Page.

So, what does the new solution do better?

To start with, instead of a static list of organisations, the new solution uses the entire FlightPath Organisation Database (including hundreds of aliases) to identify organisation references within an Article Body.

Secondly, the new solution "works out" how much data we have available for each organisation and subsequently renders a popup containing all the appropriate links (see right).

Help! Why isn't Organisation ABC not hyperlinked?

There's a number of conditions that have to be met before an organisation reference can be automatically hyperlinked.
These are as follows:

Is the Organisation an Airline, an Airport or an MRO? (if not, it won't be enriched)
Can you find the Pro Organisation Profile through the Search facility? (if not, it won't be enriched)
Does the Organisation Name in the article match the one stored in the Flightpath Database* (or any of its aliases)? (if not, it won't be enriched)

Browser Compatibility

The Article Enrichment Solution has been tested and works successfully with the following browsers:

This week on Pro: the 787 set to return, Virgin Australia and much more

2013-04-25T20:12:39Z

This last week on Pro we've been getting deep into some of the key news stories around the world. We've been following the news that Boeing secured approval for the battery fix which will see the 787 fleet return into service, with a string of stories about the fix, how long it will take and its likely entry into service. David Kaminski-Morrow got the low-down on from 787 programe VP Larry Loftis in London on 22 April, while check out our map of exactly the ground 787 fleet is right now.

In Asia news has been dominated by Virgin Australia, first the approval of its takeover of Tiger Airways, then Singapore Airlines stepping up its stake in the Australian carrier. Ellis Taylor from our Singapore office highlighted what was at stake with an analysis of the Tiger/Virgin Australia situation prior to the ruling, while David Knibb's analysis that followed the decision explained how the failing company argument helped secure its approval.

Jon Hemmerdinger in our US office analysed Allegiant Air's pullback in Hawaii looking into its move to switch most of their Hawaii flights to seasonal, we have analysis of American Airline's move to upgauge its regional fleet and the comparison with what Delta has already done; and Kristin Majcher picked up a scoop from MRO Americas on Delta bringing CF34 engine maintenance in-house.

All this and much more is available on our premium news service www.flightglobal.com/Pro