March 2008 Archives

Ryanair frequently gives seats away for free. Not long ago budget carrier SkyEurope Airlines went one better by offering to pay passengers to fly with them, to the tune of a free ticket and a €1 refund on taxes.

But UK low-cost operator Flybe has out-discounted them both with this innocent-looking advertisement on the StarNow recruitment site for actors. So desperate is the airline to avoid being penalised for a passenger shortfall at Norwich Airport that it’s been offering to pay stand-ins and extras more than £80 to fly to Dublin and back up to three times a day.

The advert calls for “100+ extras for background work” with a “well-known airline who are updating their in-flight literature”.

On top of the £82.38 daily fee, Flybe offers to lay on lunch and even provide a travel allowance for any faux passengers prepared to travel from outside Norwich.

“Casting for this listing has been completed,” says the advert. Never mind. If the problems at Heathrow Terminal 5 go on much longer, there might be an opening for people prepared to wander around the place acting as happy British Airways passengers.

Flightglobal.com sent a crack team to absorb the atmosphere at London's Heathrow in anticipation of the first commercial flight of the Airbus A380 and in true digital journalist style, the result is a some video footage and plenty of images.

This video which shows the Singapore Airlines A380 taxiing to it's parking spot amid a round of applause from enthusiastic spectators.

It's been a busy week on flightglobal with news of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' (MHI) Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ).

(More images of the MRJ)

Hats off to Travolution for this spot:

To be honest with you,this scenario doesn't seem to be out of the realms of possibity, especially if they run out of raffle tickets to sell!

The latest Eon Productions, Sony Pictures James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, is to feature a dog fight involving a Douglas DC-3 Dakota.

In a behind-the-scenes video in the media section of the film's website the Dakota is seen taxiing, taking off and flying at low altitude.

The aircraft has been filmed in California using "spacecam" cameras onboard helicopters and what is either a nose-camera modified Aerostar aircraft corporation Super 700 or Superstar 700.

During the video Eon Production's producer Michael G. Wilson said: "We’re down here filming the aerial sequence. We’ve had them throughout the career of the Bond films, but this one we wanted to kind of have a retro dogfight. These are propeller-driven planes, not jet planes. It’s the type of plane that drugrunners would have so it fits the location."

The second propeller driven aircraft maybe the SF-260, produced by Finmeccanica company Alenia Aermachhi.

credit: Finmeccanica

In this article on Bond news website commanderbond.net the aircraft is identified as a Marchetti jet trainer.

But this report could be confusing the SF-260, manufactured today by Alenia Aermachhi, with the Alenia Aermachhi MB-339.

While both are referred to as Marchetti aircraft on the internet, the Savoia-Marchetti Italian aircraft company produced the SF-260 but not the MB-399.

The pilot qouted in the commanderbond.net article owns the California and Arizona based-Planes of Fame air museum. Enquiries at Planes of Fame by Flightglobal have not been answered.

You know how it is. You want a spruced-up look to celebrate your 60th anniversary but don't fancy paying outrageous prices for corporate graphics when there's a whole pot of untapped (and cheaper) talent out there in webland.

Tunisair’s hunting for on-line inspiration and anyone can participate, although you can rest assured that very little consideration will be given to non-Tunisians submitting non-red designs featuring things which aren’t gazelles.

If you’re not already whining about freedom of expression and having your muse smothered, and if you possess the necessary “artistic fibre”, and think there’s a rich stratum of unexplored perspectives on red antelopes, then here’s your way in.

Entries are due by 30 April, results in July. Successful candidates can look forward to 3,000 dinars, a couple of Tunisair tickets, and possibly a shedload of hate mail from livery spotters telling you where you can stick your paintbrush.

Flight technical editor Rob Coppinger was blogging last week from the 1st US-Asian demonstration and assessment of micro aerial and unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) technology, also known as MAV08, the latest in a series of US military sponsored events encouraging micro air vehicle (MAV) development.

At the conference’s final plenary session US and Australian military delegates expressed a need for MAVs with night capabilities and all-weather designs that were more rugged.

Having seen what was a deliberately tough mission to push the technical capabilities of the competitors at MAV08, I would think that future additional hurdles of operating at night and in all-weather would be quite some feat, and I suspect is more likely to be seen in MAV 2012 rather than MAV09.

Despite the tough challenge that was MAV08's operational scenario involving MAVs and UGVs operating together to detect mines, terrorists and the location of a hostage, four teams tied for first place in the best mission performance category.

The conference had four other award categories, best UGV design, best rotorcraft, best autonomous MAV performance and best exotic MAV design.

The four winning teams of the best mission performance category were Massachusetts Institute of Technology, France ’s Ecole Nationale de l’Aviation Civile (ENAC), the University of Arizona and the Martin Mueller Engineering company.

Read through the minutes of the cross-party transport committee which has been investigating the future of airports operator BAA and something quickly becomes apparent: being grilled by the chairman, the formidable Gwyneth Dunwoody, isn’t much fun.

In its own evidence the Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign suggested BAA was “appropriately terrified” of such an interrogation. And it's probably not alone.

Flight technical editor Rob Coppinger is blogging this week from the 1st US-Asian demonstration and assessment of micro aerial (MAV) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) technology, also known as MAV08, the latest in a series of US military sponsored events encouraging MAV development.

"The Eagle is down, the Eagle is down, over", crackled over the public address system at the Indian air force's drop zone area that is being used for the flight trials for the competition part of this conference. Once again the MAV had crashed after a few seconds or minutes of flight, a scene that was repeated throughout the day.

Flight technical editor Rob Coppinger is blogging this week from the 1st US-Asian demonstration and assessment of micro aerial vehicles (MAV) and unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) technology, also known as MAV08, the latest in a series of US military sponsored events encouraging MAV development

The conference began yesterday with speeches by keynote speakers on the significance of the surveillance capability that unmanned air vehicles, especially micro air vehicles (MAV), and in future unmanned ground vehicles, would give the soldier, or to use US military speak Warfighter. The programme for this conference can be found here

Most of the speeches given were broad in nature and readers of Flightglobal.com will be aware of the US Army's plans for UAV development. Perhaps the most interesting speech was given by Lieutenent General VJ Sundaram, who spoke on India's work on MAVs over the last ten years. A subject that has not recieved much publicity but one which I will be writing a story about this week.

The press conference that followed brought questions from the non-technical media about the possibility of militants obtaining MAV technology.

The conference's keynote speakers attending the press conference were less concerned that this was an issue - in reality Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers and the Lebano's Hezbollah have both used what could be call MAVs - and focused more on the potential use by emergency services.

Today saw the second day provide more detailed matter with the first seven technical presentations. This was in the afternoon, after a morning that was to have seen flight demonstrations of the conference's competing teams vehicles but which weather brought a halt to.

For my review of the conference so far listen to my podcast here or here
Technical issues mean that these podcasts will no longer be available. The podcast script can be found in the extended entry to this post

The Saab/Gripen team are hosting a video about what it's like to fly a Gripen fighter jet.

Flight technical editor Rob Coppinger is blogging this week from the 1st US-Asian demonstration and assessment of micro aerial vehicles (MAV) and unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) technology, also known as MAV08, the latest in a series of US military sponsored events encouraging MAV development