July 2009 Archives

When the Apollo 11 astronauts arrived on the USS Hornet, US President Richard Nixon was on hand to greet them--and say some quirky remarks.

With the help of Apollo 11 transcripts, here are some of his quotes.

After saying he spoke to the astronauts' wives:

And also, I've got to let you in on a little secret - I made a date with them. (Laughter) I invited them to dinner on the thirteenth of August, right after you come out of quarantine.

And incidently [sic], the speeches that you have to make at this dinner can be very short. And if you want to say fantastic or beautiful, that's all right with us. Don't try to think of any new adjectives; they've all been said.

One question, I think, all of us would like to ask. As we [saw] you bouncing around in that boat out there, I wonder if that wasn't the hardest part of the journey. Was that - did any of you get seasick?

I had a telephone call yesterday. The toll wasn't, incidently, as great as the one I made to you fellows on the moon. (Laughter) I made that collect, just in case you didn't know.

That last quote calls to mind Nixon's famous 'I'm not a crook' speech.

DepartedFlights.com has a great collection of old timetables, airline advertisements, airport terminal maps and statistics (like the number of weekly departures Pan Am had from JFK between 1979 and 1991).

The site primarily covers aviation from the US but it's still a great look back.

It's always good to set the record straight, even if it's embarrassing.

On 17 July 1969, the day after Apollo 11's launch, the New York Times issued this correction over a 1920 story it ran saying spaceflight is impossible.

[via @mathewi on Twitter]

When times are bad, repo men benefit. When times are really bad, repo men benefit and turn their job into a TV show.

From Variety:

"Dirty Jobs" exec producer Craig Piligian has nabbed the rights to turn the dangerous work of airplane repo man Nick Popovich into a TV series.

Popovich is the co-partner of Sage-Popovich, a repossession firm that specializes in taking back big-ticket items -- mostly airplanes. According to a recent profile of Popovich by Salon.com, the company's clients include Citibank, Transamerica and Credit Suisse, and the firm nets $600,000-$900,000 per job.

Popovich's business is booming in this weak economy, as he travels the globe to grab Gulfstreams, Learjets and even 747s from cash-strapped owners who have defaulted on their payments. 

"Every case is different," Piligian said. "Maybe it's a small airline in Scandinavia that bought a 747. He has to figure out how to get past airline security and grab the plane. He plans it like a military operation. Sometimes he's in disguise. Often it gets a little hairy."

Aviation's glory days are clearly gone.

The LA Times ran this great article on airline and airport employees who live in a LAX parking lot to save money and for ease of convenicne.

Also check out their pheneonmal slideshow.

For about 15 days a month, Alaska Airlines pilot Jim Lancaster lives in a motor home in Parking Lot B near the southernmost runway at Los Angeles International Airport.

Every four minutes, a jetliner or turboprop roars in -- 500 feet above his front door -- for a landing. The noise is so loud it forces Lancaster to pause during conversations. But he doesn't mind. Lancaster puts up with the smell of jet fuel and screaming engines to save time and money.

The 60-year-old aviator's primary residence is a cottage he shares with his wife overlooking a quiet bay off Puget Sound in Washington state. Living in Lot B while he's on duty means he doesn't have to rent a Los Angeles apartment with other pilots or spend 12 hours a day commuting to and from the Seattle area.

"As kids we used to ask our parents to take us to the airport to see the planes," Lancaster quipped. "Now I get to live at the airport." ...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lax-colony20-2009jul20,0,4549617.story

Who said starting an airline was hard?

If you haven't seen this article yet, definitely give it a read.

A TEENAGE boy from Yorkshire succeeded in persuading British aviation executives that he was a tycoon about to launch his own airline. Using the pseudonym Adam Tait, the smooth-talking 17-year-old told airport and airline executives that he had a fleet of jets.

Tait, who said he was in his twenties, even flew to Jersey to attend a 1½-hour long meeting with the director of its airport. Their talks were considered promising enough for a further meeting to be arranged, which was due to be held next week.

Australia's Virgin Blue has taken a page from Korean automaker Hyundai by offering to refund passengers' tickets if they lose their job.

Last year Hyundai began experimenting with its 'Hyundai Promise', a scheme that would let buyers return newly-purchased vehicles if they lost their jobs or had a drop in their income.

From Virgin Blue:

The airline's 'Redundancy Refund' Promise is designed to make life a little easier for Guests who have lost their jobs, but who have future flights booked with Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue, Polynesian Blue or V Australia that they may not wish to continue with or are now financially unable to take.

Travellers who wish to apply for Virgin Blue's 'Redundancy Refund', which is effective from today, must:
· have been made involuntarily redundant from a full time role after 19 June 2009 and be able to provide a letter from their employer confirming the redundancy details
· be aged 16 years or over
· make an application for a refund within 30 days of the involuntary redundancy taking affect
· make an application for a refund at least 14 days before the date of departure

On July 8th, Air France unveiled its newly painted Airbus A380 to an excited public. Here is the video from that unveiling:

This post was written by Will Horton, Flight's Washington, D.C. intern

Today, you will undoubtedly hear multiple times, is the fortieth anniversary of when man walked on a celestial body other than our own--the Moon.

It was a grand feat, but one question still looms in the minds of some of the foremost individuals involved in spaceflight: What, exactly, did Apollo achieve?

Last Thursday NASA gathered a panel of speakers to consider just that. (Flight International posed the same question in its comment accompanying the 14 July issue.) Their assessment of the Apollo programme's legacy reached two provoking conclusions.

First, Apollo's main legacy is that it could not be replicated today. Second, Apollo is actually hurting the space agency as it prepares for Constellation, its next manned space programme.
(Those conclusions were ironically reached on the very same stage George W. Bush in 2004 announced his intentions to send astronauts back to the Moon and eventually Mars.)

(Photo by Will Horton)

Speaking at the event, at NASA's Washington, D.C. headquarters were, from left to right:

• Moderator, Steven J. Dick, NASA Chief Historian


• John Logsdon, Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History, Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, Washington


• Roger Launius, Senior Curator in Space History, National Air and Space Museum


• Michael Neufeld, Chair of the Division of Space History, National Air and Space Museum, author of Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War


• Cristina Guidi, Deputy Director, Constellation Systems Division, Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters


• Craig Nelson, author of Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon

Debunking Legacy Myths
When the Eagle landed, the conventional wisdom going was that the United States had beaten the USSR.

But it was not until the end of the Cold War the West realized the USSR was not even close to reaching the moon. When Apollo 11 landed, Craig Nelson said, America was the only entrant in the space race--a race motivated not by science but by politics.

"It was not done for science. It was done to beat the Soviets. But we kept going back until the money ran out to conduct science experiments," Michael Neufled said.

And those science experiments did garner a huge amount of information about the Moon and on other topics, but it was always clear that "science rode piggyback on the program to go to the Moon," Roger Launius said. There were more science-focused missions planned towards the end of the programme, but they were later axed under budget constraints.

Apollo Impossible for NASA Today?
The panel's consensus of Apollo's main legacy is not at all inspiring or poetic: NASA today could not accomplish the Apollo programme because of bureaucracy. It would be required to take enormous risks, which it would not do today since NASA has become too risk-averse, John Logsdon argued.

The risk-aversion may be partially blamed on the public taking it as a given every mission will be successful.

"We're trying to educate the public," Constellation programme manager Cristina Guidi said, "that there will be failures and we will learn from those failures. But there will be failures."

Apollo Hurting NASA Today
The Apollo programme, without any doubt, inspired generations.

(NASA)

It started with Apollo 8, whose iconic Christmas photograph of a fragile Earth floating in space brought reconciliation to America in 1968. The Vietnam War had escalated, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, and there were the riots at the democratic national convention. The photograph would go on to help inspire the Earth Day movement.

And then the holy grail: Neil Armstrong setting his foot down on the Moon.

Suddenly the public found NASA with comprehensible goals it could follow. What is there not to understand about putting humans on another celestial body?

Nature recently conducted a survey asking 800 authors who had published in the journal in the past three years if Apollo inspired them. Half said yes. But were they, and the general public, inspired under false pretences that spaceflight is meant to achieve high-profile results like landing on the Moon instead of more earnest scientific expeditions?

Now NASA faces a conundrum. It has committed to Constellation but cannot gain public support for it.

"We don't have clear rationale for the public," Roger Launius said.

While the public found a goal in Apollo--beat the Soviets--it established the precedent there must always be a single overarching goal to justify a programme. That view is incompatible with the complexities and multi-mission requirements of spaceflight that is focused on scientific gains, not political motives.

In hindsight, knowing the Soviets were never close to reaching the moon, Apollo's more scientific missions would be scrapped, and Apollo would give the public the wrong perception about the agency, should NASA have never conducted the Apollo programme?

Your comments are always welcome.

This Monday is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing, and to celebrate this iconic event,we are offering you the chance to win a signed technical cutaway of the Apollo Command Module.

To win this very special prize, all you have to do is use the each letter of the word APOLLO to create a new memorable or funny phrase (or a Mnemonic for those interested). Here are some really bad attempts that the flight team have made so far:

Astronauts
Painstakingly
Orbit
Lunar
Landing
Occasionally

or more comically:

Astronauts
Pee
Over
Lunar
Landing
Occasion

There are 3 ways to enter. You can either comment in the comments area below, enter in our forum area AirSpace, or enter on Twitter by replying to our Flightglobal account (@flightglobal).

A selection of Boeing engineers consider the Apollo program and the impact it had on their careers:

This post was written by Will Horton, Flight's Washington, D.C. intern.

At the Newseum in Washington D.C. on Thursday NASA showed for the first time restored footage from the Apollo 11 mission. (In case you haven't heard, it's Apollo 11's 40th anniversary and Flight is celebrating in full force.) It was so new that the Apollo 11 crew--Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins--had yet to see it.

While NASA was able to land humans on the moon, transmitting video was no small feat. First, in the interest of saving weight and space, the camera NASA developed weighed just seven pounds and used seven watts of power, an amount of energy equivalent to one Christmas tree bulb. It achieved the savings through the use of integrated circuits, which were in their infancy at the time.

This is a countdown to the launch of Apollo 11 from WeChoosetheMoon.org

 

Flightglobal's sister titles New Scientist and Computer Weekly also covered the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing.

Computer Weekly coverage

New Scientist coverage

While Flight celebrates the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, one person has a quirky way of commemorating the event.

I'm normally skeptical of anything that is advertised "As seen on TV", and this is reinforcing my view:

Seattle author and photographer Michael Class has used digital composite photography to place his twelve year-old son, Anthony, in the cockpit of the Spirit of St. Louis with Charles Lindbergh, in the laboratory with Thomas Edison, on the baseball diamond with Lou Gehrig, and on the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

"I wanted to capture the interest of today's kids," says Class, "by turning American history into a grand time travel adventure." His result is Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame, and is recommended for grades 6-12.

"The book's vivid narrative and captivating photographs transported me through space and time," says Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin. "I felt that I was once again standing on the surface of the Moon in 1969. Anthony and the Magic Picture Frame tells it like it really was in America's early space program - the adventure, the risks, and the rewards. I almost believe that Anthony was there! I think that parents and teachers will appreciate the inspiring message this unique history book holds for America's next generation. I recommend this book to all young Americans, may they take us to the stars and beyond."

To be fair, I have not read the book. But I have seen these photos from the book. 




I'm sure there is merit for very young readers, but not for grades 6-12, the book's targeted audience. Has anyone seen or read this book? I would be interesting in hearing your thoughts.

And on that note, Happy Apollo 11 launch anniversary! Our celebration continues on Apollo@40.

It's not entirely clear what Virgin America wants to achieve with this video (maintain its status as a hip airline? keep up its Virgin ethos?), especially since as of late it's been promoting the fact it is the first carrier in America to equip its entire fleet with wifi.

But this sure makes for an interesting watch and will definitely be generating some buzz for the airline at a time all carriers need it the most.

A "bored artist" makes art out of the magazines and safety card in the seat pocket. Oh, there were also some cocktails involved, apparently.

If you want to repeat this feat the next time you fly, just make sure your scissors are TSA-OK and your glue conforms to the 3-2-1 liquids rule.



Did they replace the magazines and safety card at the end of the flight?

Flight International magazine issue 14-20 July 2009 celebrates 40 years since the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

 

The first of these articles is The long walk back to the Moon where Flight International's special anniversary report assesses the robustness of the USA's current lunar ambitions in a post-Cold War era and the spacecraft it might use to revisit the Moon. Continue reading...

In Return to the Moon, the article highlights president John F. Kennedy's speech in May 1961 to a joint session of Congress which launched what became humanity's most ambitious technical achievement with its promise that the USA would "commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth". Continue reading...

 

Picture credit NASA

As part of the anniversary feature, Flight International revisits cutaway drawings of the Apollo 11 vehicles including the Command Module, Saturn V and the Lunar Lander.

 

Read 'One small step for Man...' which is the original text of the magazine's report in 24 July 1969 issue.

Flight International's reports on the Moon landing

24 February 1966 Heavyweight payload 

12 June 1969  NASA's plans to land on the Moon detailed

24 July 1969 Journey to the Moon  

31 July 1969 Apollo 11 comes home

31 August 2008 How man will return to the Moon

See hundreds of images of the Apollo programme dug up from our own archive and put into a gallery on AirSpace.

 

By now you have probably seen the much-talked-about (with 4 million hits on YouTube) Air New Zealand safety video performed by real Air NZ staffers wearing nothing but body paint.

(Apparently we liked it so much we posted it on both the Unusual Attitude and Asian Skies blogs.)

The latest cheeky safety video comes from Thomson Airways in the UK and is narrated entirely by children pretending to be the flight attendants.



But the Thomson video is not all fun and giggles. As Travel Daily News reports:

Conducting its own research into the merits of the new and improved safety video, Thomson found that there was a:
- 15% increase in the number of passengers who paid full attention to the video;
- 66% increase in the number of passengers who felt that the new film made them feel more safe;
- 333% growth in the number of passengers who engaged with the video; and
- 91% increase in the number of children under the age of 12 who watched the entire video until the end.

On a related note, there is an article somewhere on the internet with a quote from Sir Richard Branson saying how Virgin Atlantic had to fight UK regulators to let it use an animated safety video. Virgin claims animated (and witty) safety videos hold passengers' attention better. Does anyone else remember this article?

These safety videos are fun to watch, but as a passenger do you think you would find yourself paying closer attention to the safety procedures, or would you be distracted?

This story from travel agent Brock Parker at Parker Travel Connection in Melbourne was submitted to Travel Weekly for their "stupid inquiry" competition (3 July).

During my time as a travel agent in Canberra during 1993 I had a client inquire about an airfare to Cairns. I quoted the cheapest price at the time and the lady in question thought the fare was very reasonable and then wanted to ensure this included taking her car on the plane.

After the initial shock, I said she couldn't take her car on the plane, however she steadfastly disagreed with me as she had seen it on the TV and was certain cars could be transported on planes and she wished to have her car in Cairns for the holiday.

After arguing for 10 minutes I advised she might be better off speaking to the Ansett office 200 metres up the road.

About 30 minutes later the Ansett guys rang me and said they had just sent the whacko to the Qantas office as she didn't believe them either!

Do you have a "stupid inquiry" of your own? Leave a comment and we'll follow-up in a week with our own pick.

As posted earlier on this blog, 76-year-old David Gammon was hit by ice falling from a plane flying overhead. Today the BBC published a small article explaining where the ice comes from and what normally happens.

Richard Taylor of the Civil Aviation Authority comments of the very unusual case and gives a few statistics to prove how rare it actually is. Read more about it here at BBC News.

 Want to know what it feels like to be hit with a lump of ice falling from the sky? Then just ask 76-year-old David Gammon who lives under the flight path for Bristol International Airport.

Mr Gammon said: "We heard a plane going overhead and then a whistling sound and all of a sudden a piece of ice the size of a grapefruit fell on my thigh."

Mr Gammon is bruised rather badly but is recovering fine. Check out his short interview on BBC. Don't forget to scream 'Ouch!' when you see his bruise.

Source: BBC News

*This post was written by Ace Taylor, who is doing work experience with us this week. He wants to be a pilot so any advice will be gratefully received. He goes to Sutton Grammar School, Surrey, UK and is looking forward to his summer holiday.

 

If you keep tabs about airline marketing on Twitter (either that really great or really pointless site, depending on your view), you've probably heard about United's Twitter-only special fares named Twares. And recently, JetBlue followed with Cheeps.

Well, move over Twares and Cheeps because there's some thunder from downunder.

Virgin Blue's long-haul carrier V Australia has announced its 4320 LA campaign.

Entrants will compete via radio station quizzes for a spot on the three-person team that will fly later this month to Los Angeles on V Australia and spend three days in LA. They will have to write one Tweet (that's what an update on Twitter is called for the non-Twitter inclined) every minute they are there--4,320 in total.

Provided the team is successful and does not need hand surgery for life, each member of the team will win an around-the-world ticket with V Australia and Virgin Atlantic (V Australia flies from Sydney to LA, Virgin Atlantic from LA to London and London to Sydney via Hong Kong).

The carrier says the challenge aims to raise awareness that LA can be a three-day getaway from Australia and just as affordable as a trip to the Great Barrier Reef since the carrier's entry into the market has "inspired fares never seen before".

A spokeswoman said in a statement, "The reality is, Los Angeles is easily within reach and a short break market. You can leave home on Friday, spend three days star spotting in Hollywood, hanging out at the beach in Santa Monica and checking out the LA nightlife before sleeping all the way home."

But the airline has found itself with a low level of awareness on its home turf. It's also still reeling from having arguably the worst-timed launch in history. A Boeing strike delayed their launch from the beginning of the popular Australian summer traveling season to the very end, and then the economic crisis hit. The carrier has also defferred delivery of two 777-300ERs. Back in February, Flight's Victoria Moore (and sidekick Stefan the Pilot) covered an eight day around-the-world trip to help celebrate the launch, and Victoria also wrote a cover story for Airline Business.

Sadly, the competition is only open to Australian residents, otherwise a number of entrants from Flight would have applied considering how many of them are on Twitter.

One last fine print detail, and one that could derail the competition: team mates must have "no prior criminal convictions". Doesn't that rule out the entire country since they're all descended from convicts?

(Just kidding, dear Aussie readers, even though we'll question your sanity for Tweeting 4,320 times in 3 days. Nothing personal, but we won't be following you.)

Ashton Kutcher; Hollywood actor, comic, prankster and now it seems, aviation safety expert.

After hearing the advice of a 30 year veteran pilot who he doesn't name, Ashton, a very popular and high profile celebrity user of Twitter, tweeted to his 2.5 million followers the following advice:

A 30 year vetran pilot recommended 2 me that I dont ride on an airbus until they prove that the composite tail is not creating ths accidents

Explaining why he would tweet something to his sizeable audience, he further tweeted:

'Im not a big fear person I just felt it would be neglegent to not share RT @FrenchysLady: way to put any nerves into flying at all LOL'

Dubious syntax and spelling aside, Ashton's comments won't be the biggest issue that Airbus faces, as it tries to investigate some real recent tragedies, but besmirching your safety record to 2.5 million people who use your aircraft daily must be of slight concern.

 

This is serious, but the carbon-free AIRPod vehicle will certainly get some looks at Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam Schiphol airports, where Air France is trialling it.

The MDI AIRPod:

Click here to see Air France's video about the vehicle and trial.

From Air France:

The Airpod uses innovative technology: a compressed air engine which is totally clean, and generates no CO2 emissions. The ambiant air is compressed using an electric compressor. It is then stocked in a high-pressure tank located under the vehicle.

It takes 3 to 4 hours to fill up with compressed air, using a low pressure compressor, but could eventually do so in less than 3 minutes by using high-pressure compressor stations.

Two types of Airpod

Two types of Airpod will be tested at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam-Schiphol Airports:

. cargo vehicles which would transport minor equipment such as tool boxes, aircraft components and spare parts;
. people carriers, capable of carrying a driver and two passengers.

What exactly does this trial consist of?

4 vehicles will be tested for Air France Industries' maintenance activities and Air France's operations at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and 3 at KLM E&M at Amsterdam Schiphol.

For each AirPod, an appointed «test pilot» will carry out a series of tests in order to assess the vehicle's overall performance, and in particular the aspects concerning safety, ergonomy, reliability and autonomy.

MDI will be fully responsible for this feasibility study, which will reveal whether the Airpod meets the expectations of Air France Industries and KLM E&M.

If you're at CDG or AMS and see the AIRPod, let us know.

Remember the A&E "Airline" TV show from a few years back profiling Southwest Airlines?

Well Australia's Channel Seven will soon air "Airways", which will follow Tiger Airways Australia, the ultra-no-frills airline. (Tiger Australia is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore-based Tiger Airways.)

Australia has proven a good market for travel-based TV shows, having previously aired "Going Places", which focused on Jetstar, while "Border Security" still airs.

Tiger is reportedly not funding the production, but was interested to gain free publicity and also have travelers understand what, exactly, Tiger is all about.

Here's a preview.



We're left wondering which show is going to be more funny--by which we mean embarrassing--to watch. Which show has your vote?