Recently in Aircraft Category

Courtesy of my former colleague David Kaminski-Morrow, here are pictures showing that Qatari C-17 that bounced through Sevilla and duly turned up in the nightmare that is Haiti. Countries like Qatar are very keen to be seen playing their role in third-world relief in the years ahead - a key market for military airlifters. Pix from Sky TV News I think.

So driving into work on this sunny Seville / Sevilla morning with not many cares in the world, I have one of those "what the heck is that doing there" moments.

In fact I first have a "what the heck is that" moment. But there´s no doubt about it - tucked in with the usual couple of 737s, TNT 146, bizjets and light-singles there is unquestionably a Boeing C-17. Which in the actual home of the mighty A400M is not wholly expected.

And not just any old C-17 either.

Apologies for the lousy pic, but I only had my Blackberry and was getting very funny looks from the airport police on whome I did not fancy trying out my Spanish. But here it is.

 In fact the aircraft in question is this one. And I haven´t been able to find out what it´s doing here. Does anyone out there know?

So, unexpectedly early in the market wars to come, the two contenders meet. Not for the last time you can be sure.

Here´s our own Sevillan candidate this week at the EADS media briefing. It´s MSN2 which will fly in March. MSN1 is airborne on its sixth flight right at this moment.

All the whispers from Chicago are that Airbus is looking good for the lion's share of United's big aircraft order. Scott Hamilton at Leeham wrote this yesterday, and although Scott does some work for us here at Flight, I'm hearing similar things completely independently.

My information is that UAL executives are spending a great deal of time in Toulouse and, oddly, but persuasively if true, the November board meeting is scheduled to be held in Paris.

Sounds too good a rumour to be true, and yet, and yet, when USAirways defected to Airbus for long-haul a few years back the news very nearly leaked because CEO Stephen Wolf was spotted in Paris 24 hours before the announcement.

I also hear what Scott hears, that United is particularly twitched about the 787 situation and that the A350 is Airbus' surest bet in the deal.

Not having had the pleasure, I didn't really appreciate just how clever those showers in first on Emirates' A380s actually are. Truly a design classic.

These very well-executed pix from Flyingflox over at flyertalk.com tell the story wonderfully well. I love the moving map display - nice touch.

An exaggerated headline? We shall see. But today's news that US regional carrier Trans-States Airlines has ordered 50 Mitsubishi Regional Jets with 50 options is hugely important. Finally the quadopoly (can't be right, but I'm not sure what the right word is) of Boeing, Airbus, Embraer and Bombardier is over.

I still don't think so, although the theory is getting renewed currency. Our rivals over at Aviation Week are suggesting that China's C919 is going to be well-timed to steal a lead over the West, and now it seems Bloomberg is talking up the idea of Bombardier and Embraer finally getting thier big break.

'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.

Well, from time to time anyway. Enjoy the Sonata Ruslan. Looks like the An-124 is really going to go back into production BTW. A rare example of a niche design that is also a commercial success.

The whole subject of winglets and tip fences has been discussed to death over the years and there are still plenty of people who believe that their main function is marketing - like go-faster stripes. Regardless of the truth, I've never actually heard of them falling off before.

So rather embarrassing for Airbus then that that is exactly what's been going on. At least three operators have suffered the experience. EASA is worried about the poor souls on the ground below and so if you've got A310s - especially -300s - you're going to have to do something about it. Repetitive inspections and/or replacement of them it turns out. Full details here.

The investigation into the loss of British Airways Boeing 777 BA038 at Heathrow last year continues, but now the fuel-oil heat-exchanger (FOHE) thought to be at the heart of the matter has been redesigned by Rolls-Royce. European operators anyway have got until the end of next year or or 6,000 flight hours, whichever comes sooner, to fit it. No doubt the FAA will follow up with the same thing.

The EASA airworthiness directive (AD) doesn't tell you anything more about it - but here it is anyway.

I recently blogged about the research going on in France around this affair. Still a very difficult issue.