I managed to grab the pilot's seat on my visit last week to Boeing's Dreamliner Gallery in Seattle (okay, it was a mock-up, but it looks just like the real thing).
As you can see, Boeing is sticking with the good old fashioned control yoke for its second fly-by-wire airliner, which gives the 787 cockpit a traditional feel, despite all the high technology in there.
I also got a sneak preview of the 787's overhead crew rest area mock-up (click here to see my picture).
Friday 13 July brought my first chance to experience the world-renowned Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford, albeit on the practice day. Transport was provided courtesy of BAE Systems from Farnborough using one of their corporate travel department BAe 146s. Click here to see a picture of the aircraft that we boarded at the TAG Aviation terminal.
Interestingly, this aircraft is painted in a fairly non-descript, interim scheme and the "coffee stains" corporate branding used on the other aircraft is being dropped. The 146-200 that we flew on is fitted with a single-class cabin, and was filled with media colleagues and BAE public relations staff (click here to see image).
Upon arrival at RAF Fairford it became clear that the weather - as forecast - was going to have a significant impact on the amount of flying that we were going to see.
My first chance to fly on the A380 came on 25th March when I was offered a seat on the route-proving flight to Washington DC. Check-in and boarding went smoothly (as you'd expect with any Lufthansa-operated flight) although the ground staff were no doubt trying that little bit harder to make sure everything went off without a hitch.
I got seat 35B - almost at the back of the economy section on the main deck, which was a bit of a disappointment as I would have preferred to be upstairs for the novelty value. There was plenty of room for everyone to stow their hand baggage, despite 474 of the 519 passenger seats on board being occupied.
A member of ground staff jubilantly explained over the public address system shortly before pushback that the 1h 35min turnaround time target had been achieved for the first time during the route-proving campaign.
However, at our scheduled pushback time of 18:00, it was clear that there was some kind of engine-related issue as technicians crowded around the number four engine.
I was shocked and saddened to hear of the crash of the second Grob SPn utility jet prototype during a demonstration flight on 29 November, which killed Grob chief test pilot Gerard Guillaumaud. I photographed the aircraft involved during my visit to Grob's Tussenhausen-Mattsies airfield in Germany just a few weeks before the accident (above).
I also had the pleasure of meeting the unassuming Guillaumaud, and his tragic loss underlines the dangers still faced by test pilots despite advances in structural and aerodynamic modelling technology.
Initial indications are that both elevators and the left stabiliser separated from the primarily composite aircraft before impact. Grob had lengthened the stabilisers on the second prototype (below, foreground) compared with the first, to improve performance in icing conditions.
Airbus is coming under increasing pressure to gather some data that will allay fears that aircraft trailing its ultra-large airliner on runway approaches will have to fly much further behind than they do for 747s today.
During my visit to Toulouse last week, the A380 flight test team explained that they plan to carry out more tests to try and persuade the International Civil Aviation Organisation to relax its recommended separations for the A380, which have now been adopted by the UK Civil Aviation Authority.
Wake vortex tests at cruising altitude involved flying an A380 and a Boeing 747 leased from Lufthansa side by side (see picture below), while the pilots of a smaller A318 flew their aircraft into the vortices to assess their strength.
Now British Airways CEO Willie Walsh has raised the stakes further, by suggesting that unless A380 separations are reduced, the introduction of the double-deck airliner could actually reduce the capacity of London's congested Heathrow airport. You will be able to read more about's Walsh's comments in next week's issue of Flight International.
The good news about the A380 is that the aircraft has come through its flight test programme relatively unscathed and is expected to gain European certification by mid-December, as I report in the latest issue of Flight International.
Talking to the flight test team last week, the disappointment they feel soon became clear. Their successes have been largely overshadowed by the industrial ramp-up problems that have beset the A380. Service-entry is now set for October 2007, around two years later than originally planned.
Despite rampant speculation over whether Airbus Military is managing to keep the A400M military airlifter on track, no-one can argue with the fact that the first aircraft are coming together on the factory floor.
Unfortunately, the technical snags that have beset the much larger A380 airliner and caused lengthy delays only emerged after roll-out and the first aircraft had successfully taken to the skies. This does not bode well for the A400M, which in many respects is technically more ambitious than the A380.
The A400M will be powered by enormous TP400 engines (due to be test flown on a Lockheed Martin C-130 early next year), which at around 12,000shp will be the most powerful turboprop engines built in the West. The A400M is also the first Airbus with a predominantly composite wing.
Forward fuselage
Rear ramp
Composite wing
TP400 engine
There will be more news on the A400M during the next few weeks as the results of a major review of the project are released.
I can finally reveal exclusive first photos of the 'Quiet Spike' sonic boom-mitigation device being developed by Gulfstream, which has just had its first supersonic flight on a Boeing F-15.
The telescoping nose boom extends in flight and divides the bow shock into a series of lesser pressure waves, softening the sonic boom. Flightglobal.com recently published an animation of how it works.
Despite all the work going on to try and develop practical supersonic business jets, by companies such as Aerion, a solution is still a long way off and will be very expensive.
Boeing is going to use a 747-400 testbed rigged out with sensors to get wing-loading data for its new 747-8.
It's going to have to lease the aircraft from Malaysia Airlines because Boeing doesn't keep prototypes of its airliners anymore, unlike Airbus, which has an A320, a couple of A340s and an A380 in its own "fleet", which come in handy for testing out new gadgets like winglets and laminar flow wings.
I guess there's only so much you can find out in the windtunnel, as my recent picture of the 747-8 Freighter model at Farnborough shows.
