December 2009 Archives

Boeing's coverage of its own 787 Dreamliner first and second flight has been so weirdly non-intuitive that I haven't really worked out how you're supposed to follow it, even though I'd love to. Anyway the pictures below are from the Boeing-owned Future of Flight enterprise via Seattle PI - or something.

Courtesy of my former colleague Mary Kirby, comes this overview of what the TSA gets up to in order to solve the mystery of how come the document that they sent to a few hundred people got leaked. You really wonder if they inhabit the same planet as the rest of us. And if they really have any idea of what they are actually employed to do. I don't know Chris Elliot but I like him already for his nicely crafted account of his visit from the TSA goons. 

That's the record of Al Qaeda so far and we should all be taking a rare piece of comfort from the attempted attack on Northwest 253 at Detroit yesterday.

The fact is that in eight years we have moved from Al Qaeda successfully launching an attack of considerable complexity conducted in the heart of the USA with massive effect, to their being reduced to a flaky one-man attack originating in the Third World and ending in fiasco.

This is a symptom of success on our part. Only partial success - because the question remains as to how what seems to have been a known person of interest was travelling without obstruction - but success nevertheless.

And US Congressman Peter King, who is quoted all over the place as calling this attack "the real deal" is way wrong. Actually this does now appear to be the 'real deal' and it's not very frightening - but it's not the real deal in the sense he means.

You can expect quite a lot of nonsense to be 'revealed' by the US authorities about the perpetrator Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - the US judicial system clearly relies quite heavily on talking up the supposed threat posed by those facing trial. But step back and make your own judgement. We're winning.

Landing at London Stansted in the small hours of this morning on a Ryanair Boeing 737, I was almost tempted to join in the smattering of applause from the rear of the cabin. (Almost but not quite - I do have some dignity). I could barely see the runway edges  in the fog, and what I could see was large amounts of snow. Impressive stuff, and our flight was only one of umpteen still turning up. I trust Michael O'Leary's contemptuous attitude towards his staff is just for show and in reality he appreciates what they're achieving out there.

But then I saw this video below of an incident at Glasgow Prestwick this morning, and read this post here and started to wonder. (I'm still impressed though - my subsequent drive home through the ice and fog was horrible.) This is worth a read too if you're interested in the whole subject.

When I was hired for this Airbus A400M communications contract, I was told early on "it'll be good if you can liaise closely with the test pilot - Ed Strongman (seen left discussing the flight with his British customers)  - very nice chap, you'll like him". What I quietly thought was "Oh Lord...". Here's the story.

As you can see below, for the last couple of weeks I've been doing a lousy job of maintaining this blog - but there are reasons.

The obese pax post has got huge attention and I just thought I should tell you where I am on it.

OK, fair question. The post below - now known as the obese passenger post - is on its way to record traffic for me anyway, and meanwhile I've gone absent. I truly apologise - here's the situation.

Some of you will recall that I was due to leave Flight in sub-optimal circumstances at the end of October, and that duly happened. As things turned out I was rapidly offered work by Airbus among others, and the result is that, as a few of you may be aware, I'm now living in Seville/Sevilla, Spain until the end of January 2010 as part of the newly formed communications team for the A400M. (If you're remotely interested in what life there is like then feel free to have a chuckle at my Facebook page.)