March 2010 Archives

Last month we wrote about one man's Qantas A380 Lego replica, complete with a touch screen computer to move wheels and other parts.

Now the Sydney Morning Herald reports:

After his model earned top prize at Brickvention, Australia's premier Lego convention, the father-of-two is set to take on the international competition at Lego's equivalent of the Olympics, Brickworld, to be held in Chicago from June 17.

Ironically the man expects he and his 55kg replica will have to fly V Australia to America. Surely Qantas, whose tail is on his replica, would like the publicity? "Qantas are not interested one iota," he said.

While this footage of a departing Il-76, and the accompanying commentary, is widely-known, the video below is probably less so.

Can't say I know much about the incident, except that the aircraft is RA-86863 and information on Russian websites suggests the landing took place in Pskov.

Forty seconds in, it all gets a bit agricultural.

 

Does the design of boarding passes bother you?

Like really, really, really bother you?

You're not alone.

The Boarding Pass / Fail blog shows examples of ugly boarding passes and how to make them better. (I think it's the best aviation website since airlinemeals.net.)

Take the Delta boarding pass as an example. Before:
After:

Italian pilot Riccardo Mortara and Romanian Nicolae Buzaianu set off today at 06.30 GMT from Geneva on a mission to set the record for the fastest flight around the world.

The current world record is held by the late Steve Fossett who completed the course in his Virgin GlobalFlyer in 2005 in this same category, with a takeoff weight of between 9,000 and 12,000kg.

The pair along with their crew set off in a 30-year-old mid-size jet, a Rockwell Sabreliner 65 and plan to complete the course in under 67 hours and one minute and 10 seconds, the record set by Fossett in February 2006.

Mortara said of the jet: "She may be 30-years-old, but an aircraft is just a collection of spare parts constantly being changed. I have every confidence that this plane can get the job done. I'm counting on it."

 

 

 

• ... see larger image

Other round the world stuff

• Round-the-world solar aircraft prototype to be unveiled this month
• Stefan the pilot and ATI's Victoria Moores join Branson round-the-world-in-8-days
• Picture: Prototype 707 in Qantas colours departs UK on round-the-world voyage to Australian aviation museum

The Flight archives are a real gem of a resource and every now and again, it makes me smile.

The 26 March 1910 issue has amused me because of the caption at the end. See for yourself.

 

A Canadian lunar expert has discovered the whereabouts of the long-lost lunar rover Lunokhod-2.

It was sent up to the Moon in January 1973 by the then Soviet Union, and landed at the Monnier crater disappearing after covering 35km (21miles) and sending back images of moon rocks and craters.

Lunokhod 2 carried an X-ray telescope, a soil-analysis spectrometer labelled Rifma (rhyme) and a French-built laser reflector identical to that carried by Lunokhod 1.

Flight wrote that the rover had "ceased operations" in June 1973.  

"A statement issued on June 3 said that the "scientific and technical research programme conducted with the use of the Soviet Moon vehicle, Lunokhod 2, has now been completed."

No reference was made to any failure in what would appear to be a premature shutdown compared with the mission of the first Lunokhod, which lasted 11 months."

 

Canadian lunar expert Phil Stooke at the University of Western Ontario said of his find: "The tracks were visible at once" because he'd set up a searchable database to sort through the new NASA images.

"We can see where (the rover) measured the magnetic field, driving back and forth over the same route to improve the data.

"And we can also see where it drove into a small crater, and accidentally covered its heat radiator with soil as it struggled to get out again," he added. "That ultimately caused it to overheat and stop working. And the rover itself shows up as a dark spot right where it stopped."

Read more about the Canadian scientist's find on Hyperbola, written by Rob Coppinger, Flightglobal's technical editor.

 

Ahead of next week's magazine which will feature surveillance, I've been digging around the archive for older articles on the topic.

This one, dated 17-23 March 2000 is about: "Australian acquisition of strategic unmanned air vehicles may raise the stakes in South-East Asia, but could help develop military transparency in the region if surveillance data is shared"

 

31 March-6 April 1993 - again, from Australia, the government "has a major contract to award to general-avaition operations involving aircraft and surveillance equipment. Examining past Coastwatch operations, Paul Phelan wonders what it will he worth to the winners"

 

Almost a decade of protracted development and contract award the GEC Marconi Avionics Pheonix UAV is about to enter service. Simon Elliott describes the aircraft developed to replace the fleet of Canadair C1.-89 Midge UAVs. Below is a diagram that shows follwoing a completed mission, recovery is by parachute, with the UAV inverting before impact and landing on its back to protect the mission pod. 

 

In 1993 Flight wrote about lighter-than-air vehicles being used as high technology surveillance communications tools. This article looks at the advantages.

 

What's the first thing you think of when you hear 'Russia'?

Chances are sunflowers aren't one of them.

But that's exactly the motif sported on Kuban's new livery, designed by UK-based Honour Branding. The livery appears on two B737s leased from ILFC, Honour Branding says. The B737s are at East Midlands Airport awaiting to fly back to Russia. Kuban services the Krasnodar or Kuban region of Southern Russia. The region will host the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games.

Kuban is owned by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, the CEO of Basic Element, an investment firm with interests in natural resources but also financial services and aviation.

Honour Branding says:

The rebranding is part of an investment programme aimed at making Kuban one of top ten Russian airlines on domestic and international routes as it seeks to capitalize on the growing popularity of the region's resorts and upcoming Olympics. The strategy includes a complete renovation of Kuban's fleet, with ten brand new Boeing 737-700 NG (New Generation) and another ten state-of-the-art Russian-built planes to be added over the next three to five years. Kuban also plans to extend its international network, flying to new destinations in Europe and Asia.

As part of the first phase of investment, Kuban is leasing four Boeing 737-300 from ILFC for a transition period of three years, needed to retrain pilots and prepare Kuban's maintenance base to service the new fleet.

Honour Branding says of the livery:

People of Krasnodar are extremely proud - proud of the region and its agricultural output, the spa resorts and Sochi ( 2014 Winter Olympics) as well as its growing business centre, so it was an obvious choice for them to choose their regional flower as a symbol for their airline's identity.

They wanted to shift perceptions of the brand and the region, and for customers to be uplifted by the new livery rather than be oblivious of yet another indistinctive 'corporate flag' scheme.

Today is the launch of our newest section: On This Day in Aviation History.

This is a open-course and crowd-source listing of historical aviation events in a Wiki-style format. You can add information, photos, correct any inaccuracies (gasp!), or create new entries.

This project is still in its infancy and needs your help. The best place to start finding facts and photos would be our free archive chronicling aviation for the past 101 years that we have been publishing Flight International.

So what are you waiting for? Join AirSpace and create history.

Normally when Ryanair is in the news it's because of something it or CEO Michael O'Leary has said.

This time, however, it's a passenger.

Courtesy of the Telegraph, an unnamed man traveling from Krakow to East Midlands on 26 February's FR1724 purchased a scratch-off lotto ticket on his flight (yes, Ryanair sells that). He was quite ecstatic to discover he won €10,000. He was not ecstatic however to find out the flight attendants could not immediately pay him.

The crew told him he would have to wait for the prize until he was on the ground so his identity and the ticket could be verified, but also because "they did not have enough cash on board the plane" (Ryanair may collect many fees, including from passengers using a kiosk to check-in, but apparently not €10,000 worth).

Upset, the man ate his ticket, forfeiting the prize.

How will Ryanair's PR department spin this?

Spokesman Stephen McNamara said: "Crew tried to stop the air Gourmet Scratch Card eater by offering him one of our great tasting sandwiches, pizzas or snacks instead, but clearly he had much more expensive tastes!"

Ryanair is now conducting a poll on its website to determine which charity the prize money should go to (the scratch card manufacturer has agreed to donate the €10,000). In the process some visitors will undoubtedly book a flight after voting.

And so goes the adage any publicity is good publicity.

Photo: AirSpace user apgphoto