December 2007 Archives

Fascinating stuff from Dominic Gates at the Seattle Times on wages in the aerospace industry in Boeing-town.

With even the Bush administration now sort-of, kind-of, grudgingly conceding that there might be something in all that environmental change stuff - even if Gore's getting all the credit (but at least he's not going to run for the presidency) - for once the 'tipping point' cliche does seem appropriate.

Expect to see a rush by the air transport industry to establish its green credentials in 2008 of unprecedented proportions. And lots of stuff like this Christmas card from CFM - which is rather cute as e-cards go.

E-cards, showing you nearly care...

Here's Skywest Airlines CRJ N432SW after spending the night of 10 December in an ice storm at Oklahoma City.

Normally looks like this.

The airline pilot who sent me this spent two hours and two truckloads de-icing, taxied out, and then taxied all the way back again as the freezing raing started up. Says he's never seen anything like it. More pix below

I think most students of the great USAF tanker contest would accept that the key weakness of the Boeing offering against the Airbus proposal is that the 767 doesn't have winglets. The USA has a certain image to keep up and you simply can't go global policing these days without the right accessories. For example, if you're special forces then you don't want to be seen without your Oakleys. And, whereas until now every tanker jock ideally wanted four Conways and a screw-you T-tail, the new generation want winglets like the airline guys. Or even like the trash-haulers for God's sake!

Fortunately for them, the Air Force Studies Board thinks there all sorts of operational arguments backing up the more image-related ones for trying winglets on the KC-135 and KC-10.

Advanced Integration Technology is a company name that it looks as if we'll all be hearing more of - unfortunately for them. If the Chicago Tribune has got it right, which it reads as if they probably have, then these are the poor guys causing the most grief for the Boeing 787 production line. Like a piece of grit in your eye, this small company is allegedly generating a quite disproportionate amount of pain.

Some of you may be familiar with this guy, but I wasn't until he featured heavily in an article on aviation security in this weekend's Guardian magazine in the UK. Turns out he has a blog, which I'm going to add to the ultra-prestigious blogroll here on Unusual Attitude, and talks an awful lot of sense. He also has a nice sense of humour, as this lovely link concerning Playmobil and security shows.