Flightglobal

Hello and welcome to the Editor’s Blog on Flightglobal.

My name is Michael Targett and I’ve had the pleasure of running the site since March 2007.

The purpose of this blog is twofold:

1) To provide a window into the development of the site’s content and functionality, and subsequently allow users to feedback their thoughts during development stages and help us to focus our energies in a more user-centric way.

2) To provide an official channel of communication for site announcements, notices and essential messages. However, the beauty of the web allows this channel to go both ways, me > users, users > me.

Meanwhile if you’re a fan of Flightglobal you can see us on AirSpace or join our new group on Facebook.

Cheers,

Michael

Well, the competition to get your photo as the cover of Flight International has now closed.

Given it’s the first year we’ve run the competition and that we announced the concept fairly late in the year, we’ve been blown over by the quality and quantity of the entries.

The judging panel comprised of myself, Community Editor Stuart Clarke, Images Coordinator Paul Gladman, Flight Editor and Deputy Editor Murdo Morrison and Max Kingsley-Jones, Managing Editor Andrew Doyle, and Art Editor James Mason.

The judging process dominated this morning’s agenda, with a good level of debate drawing out the process.

Eventually though the category winners we decided and we got our teeth into the big one – the front cover shot.

Actually, the decision was fairly universal and I’m sure when you see the image everyone will understand why. It truly is a special photograph.

We’ll be publishing the six category winners including that cracking cover shot in the 18-24 December issue of Flight International so look out for it then and on Flightglobal from the same date.

It’s been a great year for flightglobal.com with plenty of online activity – we’ve added forums, image galleries, archives, blogs, widgets and loads more, as well as continuing to carry comprehensive job ads and publish news and analysis that sets the industry benchmark.

Next year promises to be no different with a redesign, new blogs, new features and other such goodies to look forward to.

And just in case you’re in the mood for something a bit light and entertaining over the festive period why not try out our Take Off Challenge game in which you can pit your wits against your peers by testing your flying skills. The highest scores will be entered onto our leader board.

Alternatively, if you’d prefer something a little more nerdy then you can have a stab at our Aircraft Recognition Competition where you simply have to match 20 edited aircraft pictures with their correct model type. If you are lucky, you could possibly win £100 (GBP)...

All that remains is to say … joy and good will to all!

Love,

The Flightglobal team

Flight are on the ground at the Singapore Airshow.

The new Airshow is located on a purpose-built 30 hectare site alongside Singapore’s
renowned Changi Airport and features a 40,000 sq.m exhibition hall.

The site includes a 90,000 square metre static display area and more than 100 chalets with roof gardens providing exhibitors with a 360-degree view of the show site and the
daily flying displays.

More than 30,000 trade visitors are expected to attend the show, with over half from overseas, together with 50,000 aviation enthusiasts on the two public days.

We’ll be bringing you the breaking news, latest images, daily video of the static and aerial displays (including the Airbus A380) and live blogging from FlightBlogger.

To stay up to date, be sure to bookmark our Singapore 2008 Airshow page, which will be updated continuously throughout the course of the show.

This is something that’s being discussed heavily at the moment in and around the Flight offices.

In many ways the Flight editorial team is ahead of the curve when it comes to embracing new working methods and ways of thinking and reporting.

For a start we’re a “web first publishing company” (since June 2007), whereby all our news is written with the web in mind and published immediately.

We’ve got a “vertical search engine” that takes on the Web 2.0 philosophies of aggregating and utilising the rich seam of industry content available on the wider web (i.e using not just Flightglobal stuff but everyone else’s as well).

Then we’ve got blogs and blogging. We now have professional bloggers who do nothing but blog; journalists who beat blog, live blog events, and other that take the opportunity to put some personality into their work.

We’ve also got forums that allow us to interact with our users and glean direct feedback or even the first indications of a breaking news story.

And our image galleries offer both ourselves and users the chance to upload unlimited images of aircraft and events to enhance to the user experience.

All of this change requires a lot of work and development from the journalists in terms of leaning new skills and embracing different methods.

Today’s journalist acts in a very different way to one of the 1980’s and I’m sure that 2015’s Mr Reporter will have changed in an equally stark way.

An old colleague of mine summarises this well in his recent blog post - What is a digitial journalist? Towards a DJ manifesto

But at the end of the day the purpose is to serve the changing demands of our audience. I’m often asked the question: “But why are you bothering to doing that particular thing?”

The easy answer is because more and more people are reading, responding to, downloading, linking to or looking at “that thing” and therefore finding it of value.

So not a hard decision really.

RBI UK - our parent company - has completed two simultaneous acquisitions in Switzerland and the UK. It acquired both the annual JP-Airline Fleets directory from Bucher & Co, a partnership in Switzerland, and also the affiliated Buchair UK Ltd business, which is the largest country distributor for the directories and has built an international premium data business based around the JP directory.

More information ...

Obviously on Flightglobal we’d never dream of doing anything as foolish as an April Fool’s Day story but other websites aren’t so discerning.

He’s a few choices ones that I’ve come across this morning:

Virgle

Google and Virgin Group today announced the launch of Virgle Inc., a jointly owned and operated venture dedicated to the establishment of a human settlement on Mars

Rynabare.com

Ryanair, Europe's largest low fares airline, today launched a brand new website to tap into the X rated market, the internet's fastest growth area.

Flying penguins - BBC

Film maker and writer Terry Jones discovers a colony of penguins, which are unlike any other penguins in the world, in a promotional trail for BBC iPlayer.

If you’re after a bit of fun and you’re part of the Facebook club then you might fancy checking out our Callsign Application.

Upon completing a few light-hearted questions, you’re presented with your very own Callsign emblazoned across a pilot’s combat helmet.

Almost guaranteed to generate much hilarity among your colleagues as amusing Callsigns are revealed.

Although we pushed it live a while ago we had some teething problems which should have now, touch wood, been resolved. However if you encounter any problems then please let us know ...

Last week over on the Flight blog I posted something about how F1 and aviation seem to be popular bed fellows.

If you're one of those that's interested in both then you might fancy getting your hands on a signed photo of F1 champion Kimi Raikkonen who was begrudgingly signing mostly Piaggio stuff at Ebace.

Despite the scrum Flight's brand currency was enough to our photo done as well, (which incidentally was taken by our very own Max Kingsley-Jones).

Find out how to win the signed photo of F1 champion Kimi Raikonnen here ...

Jet2.com's use of a couple of "ski bunnies" to shamelessly plug the launch of their new winter schedule reminded me that, try as you might to be professional, sex sells and you just can't get away from it.

It would be harsh to point the finger solely at Jet2. A simple search through the last few years of Flightglobal archives reveals a whole host of examples.

So for all of you who've nothing better to do while you're sitting in front of your computer, I've compiled the nattily titled:

Top 10 Most Blatant Uses of Sex for an Aviation-related Marketing Purpose

In at 10 ...
Valentine's Day kissing madness with Ryanair Ryanair's Peter Sherrard dresses up as Cupid in order to pimp cheap flights
At 9 ...
Runway Girl Our very own Mary Kirby shows that it doesn't hurt to flash the odd bit of leg every now and again, especially when it's accompanied with top-drawer journalism and razor-sharp insight
At 8 ...
Picture: Thailand's Nok Air brings new meaning to 'check-in girls' Thai low-cost carrier Nok Air is expands its fleet and, in an attempt to get bums on seats, gets the Check-In girls to expose their midriffs
At 7 ...
Video: Travel company advert that makes Boeing land beach side! Dutch company X-travel, use the Club 18-30s idea married with a beach landing 737 to plug their summer flights
In at 6 ...
Jet2.com Winter Schedule Jet2 makes two scrawny girls stand around in Leeds to be oggled by random fashion twins
At 5 ...
One day only: Ryanair's X-rated in-flight entertainment With their second entry Ryanair proves that no Public Holiday is safe as April Fool's Day gets the trademark Ryanair treatment.
At number 4 ...
Former Varig flight attendants' Playboy Brazil edition highlights mass redundancy hardship, say models Not stricly marketing anything other than themselves, but the reaction to their plight is still a blatant example of raising awareness by getting one's kit off
At 3 the bronze goes to ...
'Beauties and the beast' as Klimov basks in reflected glory of MiG-29OVT Klimov proudly shows off the gravity-defying aerobatic display of the MiG-29 OVT fighter via the medium of stand assistants Elena and Ekaterina
In 2nd place ...
SIA A380 double beds and "that mile high" question What other reason is there to put a double bed in an airliner other than to get people interested in experiencing turbulence of a man-made kind?
And pick of the bunch, at Number 1 is ...
Ryanair Calendar girls Ryanair bags the top spot with their third entry in the top ten proving they are the masters of shamelessly selling the flesh. However, the now infamous Calendar did more to get young males hopes up (of the type of stewardess they might meet) than actually improving Ryanair's profit line. Ryanair might like to analyse the number of repeat customers in that demographic given the reality is usually somewhat of a let down.

We're offering two tickets to Farnborough on Wednesday 16th July and a lunch with us in the Flight Chalet (which has a terrific view of the flying displays).

All you need to do is give the best caption to this photo from the Farnborough Air Show back in 1950:

Submit your captions on this thread in AirSpace please ... 

Unfortunately we cannot offer travel or accomodation so you will need to get there yourselves.

We will announce the winner on the 7th July!