One was shot from the flightdeck of an Airbus A320 descending to Bhutan's Paro airport, "widely believed to be the most difficult approach in the world" as the runway, at 7,300ft, is surrounded by 18,000ft peaks.

FlightBlogger also posted his photos of Lufthansa's first Boeing 747-8 flying in Everett.

Our Image of the Day blog carried a Lockheed Martin shot (above) of the 11th C-5B aircraft inducted to the C-5M Super Galaxy production line, and on Asian Skies Greg Waldron noted Boeing's dig at the Lockheed Martin F-35 in the title of a Singapore briefing on "the balanced and evolutionary approach to fighter design versus the challenges of fielding a 'revolutionary' design affordably and on schedule

On Ariel View, Arie Egozi noted that the Israeli air force has stepped up its joint exercises with NATO members' militaries.

Since the Gaza flotilla raid lost it a partner in Turkey, it has built "working relations" with Romania and Greece. "NATO is not mentioned... but it is clear that 'mutual interests' are in the background," wrote Egozi.

A post on space blog Hyperbola pondered whether the US Air Force would use Boeing's X-37B minishuttle to spy on China's Tiangong 1 station. Verdict? "Maybe - but not yet."

On The Green Wing, Kirsty McGregor delved into a report by law firm Holman Fenwick Willan to list precisely what the emissions trading system requires airlines to do between now and April 2013.

On defence blog The DEW Line, Stephen Trimble noted Northrop's next-generation airliner concept, a response to a NASA request. "It's the first airliner optimised for radar cross section!" wrote Trimble.

"That's one way for airlines to get around slot restrictions at LHR."

Our Image of the Day blog featured a shot of Greek air force Northrop Grumman F-16s, Israeli air force Boeing F-15s and an Israeli Boeing 707 tanker flying in the Middle Eastern nation in November (above) (credit IAF Magazine).

Five Greek F-16s took part in a five-day exercise that included practice dogfights.

From Nashville, Tennessee, Stephen Trimble updated his military blog The DEW Line with a clip of Alton Romig - the new chief of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works - fielding a question on the possibility of a sixth-generation fighter.

A stroll past the window display of Iran Air's London office inspired news editor Dominic Perry to add a photograph of a Boeing 727 bearing the carrier's 1970s livery to the Image of the Day blog.

Asian Skies had shots of the Taiwanese air force's newly arrived Martin B-26 Marauder.

And on Ariel View, Arie Egozi noted the Israeli civil aviation authority's decision not to allow virtual airlines, sealing the fate of El Al's charter subsidiary Sundor.

"The conversation does not touch on the tactic of price as a weapon in a sales battle," wrote Ostrower. "Fuller continually emphasises the technical merits of the aircraft as its selling point."

On his military blog The DEW Line, Stephen Trimble invited visitors to predict airpower's winners and losers in 2012.

On Asian Skies, Greg Waldron assessed an Institute for National Strategic Studies report on China's quest for advanced military aviation technologies - and decided it "does a good job balancing the pros and cons of buying technology overseas, developing it at home, and acquiring it through espionage".

As the Cro(ft) Flies carried a piece that followed up on John Croft's YouTube post about the landing crash of a militarised Air Tractor AT-802U variant in October 2010, and on a just-published NTSB preliminary report about the Uvalde, Texas crash of a turbine AT-402 - from which, miraculously, the pilot walked away with no injuries.

Croft's conclusion? "I would not like to be a participant in an aircraft crash, but if I were forced to do so, I'd want to be riding in an Air Tractor."

Croft also posted video from the first flight of E-volo's manned 16-rotor electric multicopter in Germany last month.

And on Ariel View, Arie Egozi labelled the Taxibot being developed by Airbus and Israel Aerospace Industries "a revolution in aircraft ground movements".

Last year's winner of Flight International's front cover photo competition was Coalburner's image of a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747 at London's Gatwick Airport, taken with a Nikon D70.

There was surging traffic to a FlightBlogger post titled 'Photos of note: ANA brings Boeing's 787 into service'.

On As the Cro(ft) Flies, John Croft observed that "Albatross Air has one around its neck" in a post on the investigation into the non-fatal crash of a Beechcraft 58 Baron in a Rainelle, West Virginia backyard.

The DEW Line featured a Russian TV special on the engine that powers Sukhoi PAK-FA fighter - and noted the bold claim that the Saturn NPO 117 "enables the execution of a wide range of manoeuvres which match the performance of the Raptor and in some parameters exceed it".

Blog author Stephen Trimble's take? "It's your move, Pratt & Whitney."

And on Ariel View, Arie Egozi examined Israeli airline El Al and its "desperate race to go back to profitability".

The carrier "could make money - a lot of money - but it has some built-in problems that have not been solved, despite the fact that some could be solved relatively easily", he wrote.

Fligthtglobal this week launched its Flight International Front Cover Competition for the fifth year giving you another chance to have your best aircraft image featured on the front cover of your favourite weekly magazine. 

We want to capture THE image of 2011 so it's important to note that only photographs taken before 20 October 2010 will not be allowed.

The deadline to upload your images to this year's competition gallery on AirSpace is 5 December and the chosen image will once again feature on the cover of Flight International's festive issue and the winner will receive £100GBP and a framed copy of the front cover.

The clip shows the fate of Russia's answer to the Predator, the Vega Stork, a demonstrator of which crashed on 18 January 2010.

The Boeing 747-8F non-delivery had FlightBlogger trawling the Flight International archives to locate our August 1991 story on Singapore Airlines' cancellation of 20 Pratt & Whitney PW4460-powered Douglas MD-11 aircraft in favour of Airbus A340-300s, after the former were deemed unable to fly the Singapore-Paris route without a 5t payload restriction.

On Asian Skies, Greg Waldron posted images - sourced from the Japan Security Watch blog - of the Kawasaki XP-1 maritime patrol aircraft conducting flight tests with two Type-91 anti-ship missiles on its inboard missile pylons.

In our back-issue archive, Jon "FlightBlogger" Ostrower dug up a 1989 story in which McDonnell Douglas "concedes that, with fuel prices unlikely to rise substantially in the near future, there is 'inadequate motivation' for airlines to gamble on unducted-fan technology".

Asian Skies blogger Greg Waldron sourced from the China Defence Mashup website a photo purportedly of a crashed Chinese UAV.

"To me it looks like the Pterodactyl," he wrote.

Look out for Waldron's upcoming Flight International feature on the subject.

The DEW Line carried video of the Sukhoi T-50-2 fighter's flameout at the end of MAKS 2011, and quoted an eye witness, namely our Russian correspondent Vladimir Karnozov: "Two bursts of flame erupted from the right engine and two loud bumps were heard."

Blog author Stephen Trimble also drew attention to footage from the MAKS debut of Sukhoi's Su-35S, which he billed "an air show stud".

And, in rare form, he managed to pen an analysis of the Lockheed Martin F-35's grounding in the style of Naughty by Nature's early-'90s rap hit 'OPP'. Yes, really.

The DEW Line carried video "from the world's least-secured runway for officially classified, experimental military jets", in China.

It shows take-offs by Chengdu's J-20 and JF-17, developed with Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, plus a surprise debut from the all-new J-10B.

The latter is powered by the indigenous WS-10 Taihang engine, which "symbolises China's ambition to become independent of foreign supply for its own tactical aircraft".

On Asian Skies, Greg Waldron explained how to tell a J-10A from a J-10B, and flagged an image that might show India's answer to the Boeing X-37B orbital test vehicle.

On The DEW Line, Stephen Trimble predicted a display of the Sukhoi T-50 will make Moscow's MAKS the summer's best air show.

Trimble also ran a video that expounds Sikorsky's post-X2 plans, set out at Oshkosh.

David Learmount, on his eponymous blog, wondered what environmentally-conscious vegetarians would make of moves to use waste animal fat to power aircraft, and Ariel View's Arie Egozi decided that adapting Israel Aerospace Industries' Barak-8 missile for airborne launch "makes sense".

And on Asian Skies, Greg Waldron wrote that the Indian air force's spare parts tenders underlined its "urgent need to obtain new types"

In Day 1's issue, FlightBlogger gave a guide to the Boeing 747-8i and Craig Hoyle briefed on the Eurofighter Typhoon's role in the Libyan conflict.

The Day 2 issue led on the Dassault Rafale's display and had Dominic Perry's take on the Eurocopter X3, plus a Solar Impulse piece from Kerry Reals, who authors our blog The Green Wing.

And Day 3 brought a Bombardier CRJ1000 cutaway and Ghim-Lay Yeo's tour of the Mitsubishi Regional Jet cabin, plus a Russian aircraft focus.

Also on offer across the issues were news round-ups, galleries, a NATO AGS cutaway and a spotter's quiz.

We also toured inside the Korean AIr A380, the aircraft that saved the day when it stepped in to perform aerial displays in place of the Airbus A380 flight test aircraft, MSN 004 which suffered a damaged wingtip following an incident in which it "touched a structure" during ground manoeuvres at the Le Bourget Airport.

You can still check out all the coverage from last week's Paris Air Show on our dedicated page including images, video, twitter, news and blogs.