November 2007 Archives

IATA has said at the recent US FAA's safety forum that safety "has taken a big step backwards" in 2007.

Ever wondered what it felt like to pilot a Douglas DC-6? Following the news that Air Atlantique is planning to put one of its Douglas DC-6s on the UK and European air show circuit next year, Safety and Operations editor and former pilot David Learmount has shared his experiences of when he flew Air Atlantique G-SIXC in 1993.

© Paul McAllister

We also have collected some images of the big piston bird, an aircraft that Air Atlantique. If you would like to share or contribute similar stories, join AirSpace and add your own piloting stories or memories.

Reading Kieran Daly's Unusual Attitude blog post about Easyjet's security procedures reminded me of another oddity with Easyjet's online booking policy.

A colleague of mine recently sent me his booking confirmation, noting the unusual email that Easyjet uses to mail its booking confirmations:

-----Original Message-----
From: easyJet.com [mailto:blackhole@easyJet.com]
Sent: 2007
To:
Subject: easyJet booking reference

easyJet.com - book cheap flights, hotels, car hire for low cost travel
-----------------------------------------------------
Flight booking: Confirmation

My colleague accompanied it with an amusing note:

"I always thought that it was going into a blackhole. A bit of a metaphor for the whole travel trade experience: No light ever escapes and time becomes infinite on the event horizon."

Boeing needs to learn from its failure to manage a modern supply chain for the 787.

That was the crux of Flight International's editorial comment in mid-November on Mike Bair's admittance that the firm's strategy for dispersing the 787 supply chain was "problematic".

This week Flight International published a letter in response to this from Yvonne Leach, Boeing's 787 director of communications.

If you're scared of flying you could of course avoid it or you could conquer your fears and take a course, but not a course of valium.

Here's a video of the building of an Airbus A340-600. Note the paintwork at the end shows the aircraft in Airbus' old livery.

I think the title says it all in this great story, except that i am intrigued that in the Star Telegram report, they refer to drunken rambling as speaking in a "thick-tongued manner". Maybe that's why he had salad cream all over him!

This has to be my favourite explanation for being arrested at an airport. If you can better it however, go to our AirSpace forums and have your say.

Today our colleagues at Air Transport Intelligence were surprised to get a rather large delivery:

Some of the highlights from the show's aerial displays:

The Airbus A380 wows the crowds at Dubai:

Well it's finally happened; at a Dubai event already packed with announcements, the A380 has been sold to its first VIP client, and shockingly it is not everyone's favourite Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

Unsurprisingly, the shortlist of those that could afford a mere $310 Million investment is small, and so it is Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud who takes the prize as the first owner of the world's ultimate boy toy. The "Flying Palace" is born.

In part one of their massive order announcement, Emirates Airline has ordered 81 Airbus aircraft.

At a press conference at the Dubai air show Emirates chairman and Chief Exec, Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, said “The A350XWBs and A380s will play an important role in supporting Emirates’ and Dubai’s growth plans.”

However, with an Emirates/Boeing press conference set to follow, indicators are that an additional agreement with Boeing will further increase the order size.

The order is valued at 20.2 billion USD.

More to come ...

I spy with my little eye lots of stories this month about freighter versions of aircraft.

Airbus plans to use the A350-900 variant as the basis for the freighter. The proposed all-cargo version of the Airbus A350 XWB will offer Boeing MD-11F levels of payload and volume, but development probably won't get underway until the passenger model is completed.

There are many mysteries in this world. For example is there a God? Is there extra-terrestrial life? When you drop your toast why does it always land the butter side down? These questions have many conflicting truths, as does remarkably the resignation yesterday of Lord Drayson as Minister for Defence.

His reasons, which I like to refer to the 'Hollywood answer', has been suitably been given the Trimble treatment on his Dew Line blog. Suffice to say that the ability to be the next big motor sport champion was much more tempting than defending the country.

It seems that Lewis Hamilton isn't the only disappointed English motorsport star this autumn with Mike Mangold pipping leader Paul Bonhomme to the Red Bull Air Race title.

A close fought contest culminated in Mangold winning the title due better results in elimination rounds , highlighting a competition that has really come to life this season.

Flightglobal covered the air race while in London, while we have highlights of the 2007 campaign on our AirSpace gallery.