Unusual Attitude

Bad vibrations at Birmingham Airport

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:22:17 +0000

Birmingham Airport in the English midlands is actually a rather nice place from which to fly. And it's also very proud of its safety procedures. Passenger accidents and incidents are down, the ones that happened were minor, and employee accidents were way down. A splendid record we can all agree.

In fact they're so proud of it they've boasted about it in their annual report, with illustrations. As you would. Which is where sadly the first security slip occurred.

If you've missed it, you're looking at the briefcase. Or griefcase in this instance.

Pictures of that Qantas A330 upset

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:36:39 +0000

Pretty graphic pictures have turned up of the cabin in the aftermath of the Qantas A330 in-flight upset earlier this week. Quite horrendous damage.

Jury out at present on turbulence or technical problem, leaning towards the latter. The link also has an animation of the flightpath drawn from the FDR data. You need a plug-in, but it's nice and simple.

If you did that again, is there anything you'd do differently?

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:11:20 +0000

In the case of this incident at Stockholm Arlanda Airport the answer of all concerned is probably a resounding 'yes'. Here is one of the many interesting sentences in the report. Pix below.

When the driver of the pushback tow vehicle sat down in the forward position to start the vehicle engine and drive it away, he heard the sound of the aircraft engines get louder, and could see from the corner of his eye that the aircraft was starting to move towards him.

United Airlines' vomit comet

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:31:37 +0000

You may have read the news item about the United Airlines flight from Boston to LA that diverted to Chicago after a couple of passengers became ill, sparking off some sort of ghastly on-board chain reaction. Surely an overreaction - can't have been that bad???

Well, here's the actual message from United's despatch department chronicling the event:

FLT 167 BOS/LAX A/C 4664 DVRT ORD
MULTIPLE ILL PAX FROM TOUR GROUP
VOMITING AND OTHER ISSUES LAVS CANNOT
HANDLE AMOUNT OF ILLNESS. 14 SO SICK OUT OF 35
DOMESTIC EVENT NETWORK CALLED NUMEROUS
EMERGENCY EQUIPMENT TO MEET FLIGHT

Windy City indeed!

Pic: Sickbagman

Qantas turbulence - time to act

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:39:02 +0000

Details still coming in at time of writing, but this sounds particularly nasty. Something like 40 people hurt in a Qantas A330 that suffered some kind of in-flight upset. Probably turbulence, maybe something else. But there are apparently multiple broken bones, which is pretty clearly indicative of a serious incident.

Regardless of the cause, it's hard not to assume that most or all of these people were not strapped in. As this has now happened to an anglophone, developed-world, flag-carrier (which is what it often takes sadly) - perhaps something will change.

Hyphengate - the plot thickens

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:15:15 +0000

Just when the global controversy seemed to be dying away, a forensically-minded colleague, let's just call him DKM to protect his identity (but he is an expert in hyphenated names) comes up with this shock development. He emails it to me under the subject line "hyphengate".

This is a still from the movie of the aircraft in question just after being painted at Toulouse. Pretty sinister I think you'll agree.

One of Qantas' remaining A380s is to be named after co-founder of the airline Hudson Fysh. Frankly I'm not confident this story is finished with.

Qantas A380 delivery movie

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:03:59 +0000

I missed the moonlit bit of the Qantas A380 delivery ceremony - just not as romantic as the average Australian I suppose. (Fill in own joke here...) But here's the movie below. Still no idea whether it was moonlit or not.

The big question is how many new airlines can take delivery of their first A380 before the marketeers run out of gimmicks. Presumably Air France will settle for nothing less than the fair Carla herself. (Cue gratuitous pic of Carla.) Feel free to contribute more imaginative ideas for remaining customers - ideally not involving the over-exposed Virgin Atlantic chairman.

Turbulence - it's happened again

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:03:13 +0000

Not wanting to nag but, if you do nothing else, strap in. Otherwise this may happen to you too.

You may recall it's happened before, quite recently. And before that too. (I could go on.)

Airbus comrades and Boeing brothers unite on video

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 10:51:29 +0000

The Boeing machinists' strike has, for obvious reasons, been well publicised worldwide - but more sporadic action by Airbus workers in the last few weeks has not had the same coverage. However, fact is that for a while various bits of both companies were at a standstill.

All of which has produced some strange bedfellows, as captured in this video and this one. They've been getting a great reception at this Boeing union site. One of my countrymen - a certain Mick Flynn - seems to be behind it all, to nobody's surprise as he's basically combining the twin Irish characteristics of being disproportionately important in global aviation and causing trouble.

Sending messages of solidarity is the easy bit of trade-unionship of course. It's a lot harder to think of examples of genuine international labour action in aviation or aerospace. And I doubt that the machinists of Washington state have much ideologically in common with the leftists of the French union movement. But as outsourcing grows, perhaps we're seeing the tiny beginnings of something more substantial.

Observers of this stuff may like to keep an eye on the pilots' unions at Iberia and British Airways as that merger progresses. Many meetings and few public comments so far.

Betting on companies' financial futures should be outlawed

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:43:15 +0000

Not totally of course - I'm not advocating the repeal of capitalism. But the sort of thing that has infuriated Tom Dalrymple, the chairman of Scottish airline flyglobespan, should be. What he's complaining about is bookmakers offering odds on a company's collapse.

Gulf states should look to Europe for air traffic management lessons

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:02:30 +0000

The launch of The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi earlier in the year has markedly upped the standard of reporting in the Gulf region. Today there's a good story about the future of air traffic management in a part of the world destined for extraordinary traffic growth. If you're an airline it's a worrying one.

It's Nancy-Bird Walton - she likes it that way. Hmmm....

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:06:28 +0000

Let's take a look at that pic in the post below of Qantas' new A380 named after the great Australian aviatrix Nancy Bird-Walton.

So just how do you spell it. The Qantas/Airbus way? Or the way that 6,000 Google results would suggest?

I mean, this is a $200 million aircraft being flown by the lady's flag-carrier. It's not like they're going to get it wrong is it?

Ah, here's a nice PR rep from Qantas, let's ask her? "That's the way Nancy likes it. We wondered how long it would take you to ask us."

And in fairness, Qantas have tried other alternatives in the past.

So that's OK then....

Qantas takes delivery of first A380, but first of how many?

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:08:08 +0000

In Toulouse today to see Qantas take delivery of its first A380. Technically that doesn't happen until tonight's moonlit ceremony (they hope) which fits in well with the assorted Australians' plans for getting back to their far-flung land. Far-flung from France anyway. But there's a big lead-up programme.

Meanwhile it's pretty grey here, but there are some bits of news around - and one fairly major bit.

British Airways Boeing 777 crash: FAA airworthiness directive

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:08:00 +0000

Took a little longer than expected, but the FAA has finally come out with the airworthiness directive following the AAIB investigators' of the BA 777 crash at Heathrow. As far as I can see it follows the Boeing guidance which is already out.

The one extra bit is that it officially confirms that the FAA doesn't think Pratt & Whitney and General Electric-powered 777s are likely to be affected by the ice issue that is believed to have brought down BA038. So the AD covers only Rolls-Royce Trent-powered 777s.

British Airways 777 crash - Boeing's recommendations

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:19:33 +0000

I had a chance to talk to Boeing about what they're now recommending and why. Although Boeing are not saying so I understand that the various manufacturers suspect that the risk only applies to Trent-powered aircraft due to the design of the fuel/oil heating system which Pratt and GE don't have.

Boeing are investigating whether other Rolls-Royce-powered current and legacy models are at risk. Anecdotally I also understand that it's by no means certain that Trent-powered Airbus widebodies will be affected due to different fuel-tank designs. Anyway, below is what Boeing is telling operators.