Flight Archive Project

Well, Farnborough has once again come and gone and just like Christmas, you wait all year for it to arrive and then it's over in a couple of days. While it already seems like a distant memory or something I watched on TV, the show was a classic one, with the UK flying debuts for the Airbus 380, Bell Boeing MV-22B and static debut for the Sino Swearingen SJ30-2, all of which we have produced cutaways for over the last 12 months.

As mentioned, the work up to our record breaking four colour cutaways in Flight International over the show has been a difficult task, especially coupled with the launch of the cutaways archive. Despite this 4th July issue carried the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk Block 20 cutaway, 11th July carried the Boeing KC-767A, 18th July carried the Embraer 195 and 25th July carried the Bell Boeing MV-22B Block B. All of which can now be seen on the "Posters" section of the cutaway archive, take a look.

As part of our typical marketing and PR agreement with the manufacturers, we offer the added bonus of having the cutaway artists at the show to sign cutaway poster at their stands, chalets and static aircraft. This has always been a good PR exercise and a real crowd puller as it offers both the general public and company guests the chance to get a personalised gift to remember the airshow. This Farnborough was no exception and I ended up doing 3 signings sessions and one corporate hand-over for the show daily.

On the Tuesday Murdo Morrison (the Editor of Flight international), together with Robert Hancock (Vice-president North and South America sales) and myself handed over a framed and signed poster to the President of Embraer, Mauricio Botelho (centre). See page 2 of the Flight Daily News. These corporate presentations are always fun to do as you know that the cutaways will end up hanging in important offices or front-office locations at company headquarters, which certainly helps with Flight branding.

Also on the Tuesday I was signing cutaways for guests and dignitaries at the Bell Boeing chalet (due to the 38C heat) and met the USMC officer in charge of the entire project. Over the hour and half sitting I personalised around 50 posters for the program and engineering teams. It's always a pleasure to hear "I have your earlier cutaway in my office and use it all the time" or "I make these parts on the aircraft, its nice to see you got it in."

 On Wednesday, because of the heat again, I signed for a similar time in the Northrop Grumman centre, boy was I glad of the air conditioning! Once again it was a pleasure to do the signings, as all of the PR representatives guided their guests and customers through my position.

 On Thursday the temperature had dropped and I finally got to sign alongside the MV-22B on the static park. This was a great hour and with a little encouragement the two attending VMX-22 (Operations and Test Evaluation Squadron) Marine pilots were roped in to signing posters as well! The crowds grew quickly and at one point a queue formed, how British!

The show was also the point at which we (the Flightglobal editorial and ad team) narrowed down our shortlist of cutaways for 2007-2008. Several are already locked into place, but the others will be solidified over the next few weeks. For me attending the shows allows me to meet face to face with the right people at the chosen companies and start the cutaway process moving along.

Sometimes this process may take 18 months to come to fruition and for others it is like visiting old friends or family.

The show also allows me to look for unlicensed use of the cutaways, of which there were three cases at this show. These will be followed up in due course!

I will report on our planned list in another blog.

Click here to see the cutaway page.