Week on the Web: January 2009 Archives

Flight International issue 27th January - 2nd February

This week you'll find a video of a Tipsy Nipper light aircraft performing a spin that went wrong with great footage from the camera mounted in the cockpit.

See also, a video of the airborne deployment of a MAV. Under a US Air Force contract, a team lead by System Dynamics developed an autonomous munition-deployed micro air vehicle (MAV) for bomb damage indication applications.

Contained within a modified MK20 bomb it is released from a Saab Draken and 35s after release a parachute-equipped dispenser housing the MAV is ejected from the MK20. The parachute decelerates the dispenser to release the camera equipped MAV. The MAV autonomously stabilises and enters a holding pattern to acquire a GPS signal.

VivaAerobus, which has links with Ryanair, has unleashed a charity calendar.

Flight International's deputy editor recently visited the de Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre in Hertfordhsire, UK, and uploaded some images including a Comet and the Mosquito prototype.

FlightBlogger posted a photograph showing the ditching button on an A320 following the ditching of a US Airways A320 into the Hudson River, New York. In his post, FlightBlogger Jon Ostrower explains that "the ultimate purpose of the system is to seal the aircraft to prevent water from undermining the buoyancy of the aircraft to keep it afloat in the event that the airframe remains intact after impacting the water." But the question is - did the crew press it or not? 

The flight from Chicago to Washington DC, was widely covered right up until he reached the cabin door, though National Geographic took over filming to witness President-Elect Obama's first official trip to Washington aboard an Air Force C-32 (Boeing 757) aircraft on January 4th and our FlightBlogger posted the footage onto his blog.

Week on the Web is also available as an audio podcast ...

Flight International 20 - 26 January

Big news last week was Airbus unveiling the "definitive" A350 XWB design in Toulouse.

Flight International's deputy editor Max Kingsley-Jones took some good images of a model of the aircraft at the press event and you can find them in the A350 gallery on AirSpace.

Read David Learmount's blog Learmount for his view on the UK Government's green light for London Heathrow's third runway.

He says that "these solutions to Heathrow's dire capacity problems are [not] quite so assured in the long run" and asks: "What does that feel like to an airline like United (to pick just one carrier at random) which has paid as much as £30 million for an additional take-off/landing slot there?"

In blog The DEW Line, Stephen Trimble writes: "Northrop Grumman wanted to commemorate the B-2's 20th anniversary with something special and flashy.

So they commissioned the Orange County Choppers to design and produce the "B-2 Stealth Bike". He's uploaded a couple of interesting images of the beast which are worth a look.

Blink and you'd miss it, so watch out for a design of an MV-22 aircraft in American Airline colours towards the end of a video about tiltorotors by Bell Helicopter.

Check out the nostalgic ad campaign to celebrate 25 years of Virgin Atlantic on AirSpace and see the air stewardesses in their red uniforms turn heads in the terminal building.

See a video news report about a never-seen-before manoeuvre with a K-Max light-lift multi-purpose helicopter holding a wrecking ball to demolish a 130ft chimney from a college campus in Louisville, Kentucky.

FlightBlogger reader Liz Matzelle captured on video Boeing 787 'Dreamliner One' being rolled out of the factory. This latest footage shows the progress that Boeing is making with its delayed twinjet, which is scheduled to make its first flight around the end of April.

In case you missed out on our top ten series during the festive season take a look at our top ten news stories, videos, images and the quirkiest stories from last year, including the frog found in the aircraft window. Where did it come from? How did it get in there? More importantly, how did it get out?

The Italian air force moved a step closer to the delayed introduction to service of its new KC-767A tanker/transports, with Boeing having demonstrated the type's ability to receive fuel from another aircraft.

See a picture of this flight-test milestone as Italy's second of four KC-767s received more than 4,540kg (10,000lb) of fuel from its first example.