Recently in Aircraft Category

Don't blame me - if the FAA says it's a MacDac then a MacDac it is. Anyway, David YJ Hsu in the Los Angeles Aircraft Certification Office, whose happy job it is to keep a caring eye on the nation's Daks, wants you to know that the tailwheel may fall off. He just wants you to know that - he's not saying you should necessarily worry or anything, and he's issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin, the recommendations of which, he stresses, are not mandatory.

What happened was that on 25 February a Dak experienced tailwheel fork failure during rollout after landing. Turned out to be due to a crack from a fastener hole which was probably "present for some time". As the aircraft had 19,482 hours on the clock it's hard to know for just how much time.

Mr Hsu notes that "currently there is no specific inspection requirement of the tailwheel area" (apart from checking that you've got one) and so he's devised a rigorous inspection regime to prevent the above related embarrassment happening to you too. It involves "proper lighting" and a "magnifying glass". He comments that you could do this "during other maintenance activities". (Phew!) And he feels that you should repeat it annually. Up to you though. Gratuitous Daks pic below from Classic Flight.

Congratulations to Tony Elwood. He's 75, is married to a 51 year-old babe called Julie, divides his time between Australia and British Colombia, and had the sound taste to blow $50,000 on a ticket for the A380's first revenue flight. (Congratulations to Julie too for that matter.)

It must be a great job - being one of those guys in the FAA or CAA who keeps an eye on the safety of things like DC-8s, 707s, DC-3s and Fokker 100s. The latter, for example, have an irritating habit of losing their wheels - must drive the pilots nuts.

This is the oldest Flight International story I can find on our website about what became the A380. It was written by somebody called Guy Norris, which tells you how long ago it was.

For the first time in 14 years an Avro Vulcan is back in the air. The UK-based group of restorers behind the project have overcome extraordinary obstacles to get this wonderful machine flying again. It made a 34min flight from RAF Bruntingthorpe yesterday. There are several movies rattling around but I think this is the best one.

You can read more about the project at the Vulcan to the Sky Trust site. Lots of V-force veterans shedding a tear and sharing a tale on Pprune of course. And a particularly nice pic of the Vulcan flying here. Addison Schonland talks to BBC journalist and Vulcan devotee Sean Maffett in this podcast.

All of this comes a bit over a year after I first wrote about the project. I still think there are questions to be asked about this sort of thing, but I'm massively impressed by the determination and organisation of the team who knuckled down and made this happen. Some of the Pprune folks are now discussing what aircraft should fly next.

Jim Wallace at the Seattle P-I has got hold of departing 787 programme manager Mike Bair's farewell note to his team. It's a model of its kind.

Meanwhile, Boeing's VP and general manager of global partners, Steven Schaffer, gets an award.

In any normal industry it would be obvious that the hugely differing skill-sets required during the life of a global engineering programme would require you to appoint different leaders as it progressed. Not so in aviation - so now it's hard for Boeing to move the hugely respected Mike Bair with the sort of dignity he deserves. Slightly amazing how a move to being head of strategy for the world's biggest airliner maker can be seen as a bad thing to happen to you. The Seattle newspapers are talking the most sense on this.

Today's the latest of the great A380 extravaganzas in Toulouse - and it's arguably the one that matters most - the delivery of the first aircraft to Singapore Airlines. I've been in Toulouse since yesterday and out here at the site since early this morning. As usual it feels like everyone I've ever met is here, this time including a hefty contingent from Asia and Australia courtesy of SIA.