Just because they can, the Boston Globe has published a really wonderful series of aviation photos of all kinds.
Hey, it's Friday, if you're in the UK then you've got a three-day weekend coming up for the last time this 'summer'.
Waste a few minutes looking at these and telling your email buddies about them. Then push off home and chill. Here's the link. Enjoy them all, including the one here by Eloy Alonso of Reuters.
That's "came off" in the sense that nobody quite knows how. All
happened a few days ago to a Gulf Helicopters machine at Doha, Qatar.
Most importantly the tailboom departed during the taxi for take-off,
which is obviously very odd but infinitely better than it happening
half an hour later. The AW139 tailboom has history which may or may not
turn out to be relevant. AgustaWestland on the case but apparently not
clear themselves what caused this. And much Pprune discussion here.
Full-size picture, airworthiness directive, and AgustaWestland note to operators below.
Electronic what???? Yup, cigarettes, and I had never heard of them until today. Perhaps you had.
Well you've probably heard about the FedEx MD-11 incident at Minneapolis-St Paul on 14 August. After landing the crew had a lower forward cargo fire warning. They discharged the halon bottles and called the firefighters who eventually found a cargo container on fire - I mean with actual flames coming out of it. They used about 200gal of water to extinguish it.
You'll perhaps remember the Bangkok Airways ATR 72 crash at Koh Samui in Thailand on 4 August - the aircraft left the runway and crashed into a former control tower. Captain killed and four of the 68 passengers seriously injured. The talk is of heavy rain, stiff crosswind and maybe windshear.
I was on holiday at the time and was barely aware of the incident, but as you can imagine the rescue operation was pretty dramatic. And, courtesy of the folks involved, here it is.
Like most of the world I suspect, I just barely understand Second Life. But it seems pretty obvious that it was made for aviation - the quintessential 3-D business. So no surprise to see a 737 making an appearance on it. I've no idea if it's a first or the zillionth, but educational to those of us still pathetically trying to make our first lives function as desired.
Whether either Second Life or SkyEurope will be around as the years roll by remains to be seen.
Getting Russia back into the global airliner market is obviously going to be hard going, but after visiting the country I think the Russians' prospects in helicopters are much better - and here's their next move.
There was a hint of this while I was at Kazan when deputy director Igor Bugakov said there might be an announcement in the sub-2t class at the MAKS show. But Russian Helicopters boss Andrey Shibitov didn't even mention the Mi-34 in his briefing, so I was still quite surprised to see them announce that it's going back into production - this time with a Turbomeca Arrius 2F engine. It'll be called the Sapsan (not sure what that means. Anyone help???) which means peregrine.
So now we know which vendors are likely to turn up on the aircraft carrying the hopes and fears of Russia's large commercial aircraft business for the foreseeable. And it's quite an interesting list that Irkut has released regarding the MS-21 (or MC-21 as they, but just about nobody else, call it.)
'Do as I say not as I do' is not the world's greatest sales pitch, but somewhat incredibly it is the message coming from the Russian presidential flight about the Sukhoi Superjet. Despite the project having had the Russian administration's explicit backing since its origins, it now turns out that the Rossiya Special Flight has selected the Antonov An-148 instead because the Superjet has too much foreign content and so is a security risk. Vedomosti has the story here.
OK it's holiday blog post time. This summer's edition comes to you from Dorset in England and the Peloponnesian coast of Greece.
Little to report from the Peloponnese I'm afraid, beyond a constant stream of what I think were these guys below from the nearby base at Araxos. I'd forgotten the Hellenic Air Force still has some A-7s. And one of these C-130s hacking round the circuit.
But in England things were much more interesting. For one reason or another I ended up in this picturebook village in Dorset (which I think had better remain nameless. although no doubt someone will shortly have some fun with a comment.) What I didn't expect to find there was this:
This, for those of you in parts of the world where it's not obvious, being an Aerospatiale Gazelle, in what I'm pretty sure are ex-Royal Navy colours (and used to look like this.) And it pops in and out of somebody's garden as you can see.
Of course, that garden is right next to the (much smaller) gardens and homes of various other people. You'll be amazed to hear that at least some of those people, who take their gardens rather seriously, it being a moneyed bit of Dorset and all that, are not much amused by having a helicopter - even the ever-so-dainty Gazelle - operating just over their hedgerows.
By coincidence a few minutes after I took the pictures above I had the chance to experience just what they're unhappy about.
You can see their point of view. But the problem is that some of the neighbours who don't like the Gazelle guy also don't like each other much, for entirely unrelated reasons. So a co-ordinated protest may not be so easy to achieve. It's not exactly Midsomer Murders but it would make a decent sitcom. Aah, the English and their castles.
Just because they can, the Boston Globe has published a really wonderful series of aviation photos of all kinds. 
That's "came off" in the sense that nobody quite knows how. All
happened a few days ago to a Gulf Helicopters machine at Doha, Qatar.
Most importantly the tailboom departed during the taxi for take-off,
which is obviously very odd but infinitely better than it happening
half an hour later. The AW139 tailboom has history which may or may not
turn out to be relevant. AgustaWestland on the case but apparently not
clear themselves what caused this. And much Pprune discussion here.
Electronic what???? Yup, cigarettes, and I had never heard of them until today. Perhaps you had.
Getting Russia back into the global airliner market is obviously going to be hard going, but after visiting the country I think the Russians' prospects in helicopters are much better - and here's their next move.
So now we know which vendors are likely to turn up on the aircraft carrying the hopes and fears of Russia's large commercial aircraft business for the foreseeable. And it's quite an interesting list that Irkut has released regarding the MS-21 (or MC-21 as they, but just about nobody else, call it.)
'Do as I say not as I do' is not the world's greatest sales pitch, but somewhat incredibly it is the message coming from the Russian presidential flight about the Sukhoi Superjet. Despite the project having had the Russian administration's explicit backing since its origins, it now turns out that the Rossiya Special Flight has selected the Antonov An-148 instead because the Superjet has too much foreign content and so is a security risk. Vedomosti has the story here.
Recent Comments