April 2009 Archives

Take a look at this video of a remote controlled aircraft fixed with neon lights. It looks like one could have hours of fun with this, in the dark.

 

Two pilots had a lucky escape after safely landing an experimental plane on a roadway after the experiencing engine failure.

The incident was caught by professional cameraman Joe Suroweic as the SkyRanger aircraft was heading to Sun and Fun show in Lakeland, Florida:

As you can see the piloting was impressive but it was lucky that the roads weren't so busy; otherwise the pilot may have had to resort to some Sullenberger inspired water ditching.

A remote-controlled toy aircraft got a little too close for comfort with the real thing last Friday, as it flew close to a Virgin Blue aircraft near Perth airport.

Manfred von Richthofen, a German fighter pilot in the First World War known as the "Red Baron" was shot down and killed in a Fokker triplane No. 2,009, with Le Rhone engines, made in Frankfurt the previous month.

Flight published pictures of the funeral cortege and in this extract, questioned how the flying "ace" came to be operating an aircraft condemned by German authorities.

According to Flight:

"It is said that the Fokker firm produced a type of machine [whose] design is said to have been "turned down" by the German experts, but Baron von Richthofen, who had tried one of these machines, liked it, and in spite of the official veto on it took a fancy to the machine. The Fokker firm thereupon promptly made the Baron a present of the machine, and he is said to have frequently used it."

 

 

If you hate putting your dog in kennels or cat in a cattery while you go on holiday, here's a solution. Book a flight for them on Pet Airways.

At last a pet airline where pets fly in the main cabin, NOT in cargo and they can meet you at your destination.

The airline website says: "When your pet checks in as a pawsenger on one of our flights, there will be a right-sized pet carrier awaiting him to be tucked inside before take off."

Purrrrlease!

The Pet Airways site gives pet owners tips on safe transporting of animals and prepping their pet for a trip with tips such as ensuring their pet carrier is the right size and offers the right canine amenities.

The site advises that pets need:

• Comfy blanket to provide warmth and cushioning on his joints
• Travel water bowl 
• Identification on your dog and in the carrier healthy treats, a favorite toy, spare leash and collar, travel bowls, any necessary medications and spare poop bags

Flights are operated by Suburban Air Freight, Inc which operates a fleet of Beech 1900, Beech 99, and Cessna Caravan aircraft and maintains Pratt & Whitney PT6-A engines, so you know your pooch will be in safe hands.

This airline is ideal for the pet owner willing to go the extra (aeronautical) mile.  

The 2009 Red Bull Air Race World Championships will soon be upon us again, with the mixture of skill and remarkable courage/stupidity beginning this year in Abu Dhabi.

To get you in the mood, Red Bull Air Race veteran Paul Bonhomme took to the skies to film this fascinating video, giving some indication on what it is like to pilot in such a race.


For  you Formula One race fans, Ex-Red Bull driver David Coulthard also had a go,flying with Red Bull Air Race Champion Hannes Arch:

Follow all the latest Red Bull Air Race action on Twitter this year by following @Redbullairrace. You can also see how i handled the rush of aerobatics (by turning gradually green) when i experienced it last year.

If you're wondering why BMI's accounts feature big numbers in red ink, there might be a clue in the following mathematical tosh which its budget operation BMIbaby gleefully released today:

 

BMIbaby has clocked up approximately 165,000,000 million miles of flying in seven years.  This means the airline could have flown round the world 663 times or almost to the sun and back twice.

 

Pay attention, class. Even if you forgive the duplicated 'million' as a typo, five minutes with NASA will persuade you that 165 million miles is equivalent to about 6,600 circuits of the globe. But that wouldn't get you to the Sun and back once, let alone twice.

It ain't rocket science (all right, but you know what I mean). Detentions all round!

We have scanned 210,000 pdf pages which completes our 100 year archive available for free on Flightglobal, however, we are missing the issue dated 27 March 1996 which has the World Airlines Directory. It's not even to be found in storage in Upper Heyford.

If you have a copy, we would be very grateful if you would send it to us to scan in and add to our archives.

We promise to look after it and send it back swiftly in the same condition. We really hope you are able to help us.

And if you notice other issues are missing from the archive, please let us know by emailing Barbara Cockburn at barbara.cockburn@flightglobal.com or send to:

Barbara Cockburn, Flightglobal Content Editor, Flightglobal, 3rd Floor Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey, SM2 5AS.

Tel: 0044 208 652 4248 Twitter: twitter.com/cockburnb

As the Concorde prototype celebrates its 40th anniversary of its first flight here are some of Concorde's best moments.

Flight has covered Concorde, the supersonic aircraft, from its embryonic stage (between 1956-1962) to the last flight in November 2003 and even the Concorde model on the roundabout being taken down at Heathrow Airport last year.

 

Flight reported on the independent studies into supersonic transports by French and UK companies between 1956 and 1962. See Flight's artist impression of what the aircraft, then called the BAC-Sud Mach 2.2 supersonic transport project, might look like compared with Super Caravelle model exhibited by Sud at the 1961 Paris Air Show.

In June 1963 Flight printed a general arrangement of the aircraft which was to be known from January as Concorde. Read about Concorde's conception published in the same year which includes a cutaway and graphs showing aerodynamic efficiency. 

Britain's Minister for Aerospace, Mr Michael Heseltine, made on May 7 1972, his first public speech since his appointment, and chose Concorde as his subject. His speech to Rotary International at Long Eaton, Derbyshire, was reproduced in its entirety in Flight at the time.

In the speech he said: "Concorde is not being developed to demonstrate our technological prowess, or to show the way into Europe, important and significant though it may be in both these respects. It is being developed in order to sell a new form of travel to the world's airlines. And here again the implications of Concorde are tremendously exciting."

In 1976 Flight reported how both houses of the New York State legislature moved to block proposed Concorde operations into New York Kennedy airport. See the Flight entry: "Concorde USA: Decision awaited".

On the same page in the magazine Flight reported that the "total number of passengers carried has been 1,137, of whom 612 flew from Paris to Rio. Air France tells Flight that under the present fare arrangement break-even load factor is 55 per cent."  

In 1986,as Concorde celebrated its 10th anniversary Flight reported that "British Airways and Air France are reaping the benefits of a fast-developing charter market for the type of service which only Concorde can offer." Nobody, wrote Flight, is complaining that this is scarcely what the aircraft's backers had in mind at its conception.

Concorde's nose was chopped off on the Flight magazine page but it did at least capture the :flypast in 1969 at the Paris Air Show.

And here is a Concorde mockup shown from an aerial photograph of the static display at the Paris Air Show in 1967.

For more of the Concorde timeline see Flight's 21-27 October 2003 issue in our archive.

 

 

 

 

Like a shining beacon of truth and honesty (think of Sherlock Holmes mixed with Columbo with a hint of Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis Murder), the Flightglobal team aims to sniff out and reveal to you the dodgy aviation stories on this famous day of mistrust and intrigue.

Taking a leaf out of our very own Flightblogger's book, this post is open and will be continually updated throughout the day so keep checking back to find out more as we find it. Also, we need you to tell us any suspicious stories you find so we can investigate.

Here's a list of the pranks we have found so far:

1. Hotelicopter - This elaborate ruse actually came out on Monday and seemed quite convincing as it came with images, its own website and video.  As the DEW Line revealed, the choice of the Soviet V-12 was an inspired choice, with only 2 prototypes ever built.

2. Concorde to fly again - Our very own Flightblogger was caught out by this announcement, made by the director of the Paris Museum of Air and Space, that Concorde would fly again at this year's Paris Air Show. In all honesty, you have to have sympathy with Flightblogger for wanting to believe that this great innovation could take to the skies again. Still...it doesn't stop us laughing at him:

3. Twitter introducing Twitlite for Travolution website - This one involves our sister publication Travolution and capitalises on the website of the moment Twitter. It unveils plans for the character limit of Twitter to be shortened to 24 characters rather than the current 140 character limit. Good try but we say:

'Good Try Travolution!' (24 characters)