Straight & level: 13 June 2006

Going full circle?

(Overheard in Budgie newsroom)
Rex Stocks: “Does anyone know why Airbrush wants to rename the A350 the A370? What’s wrong with A360?”
Monty Orangeball: “Because ‘a 360’ is something people do when they can’t make up their minds which way to go!”
Stocks: “Aaaaaaaaahh…”

Situational awareness

Budgie News: “So what’s this fab new tunnel-in-the-sky, digital display called?”
Technoman: “We call it our ‘Egocentric’ display system.”
Budgie: “And I suppose you’re calling the split screen version the ‘Schizocentric’?”

Freeze-thaw

Supertanker: “We can do a lot more than firefight you know.”
Budgie News: “Such as?”
Supertanker: “We can drop decontamination agents, fight oil spills, follow bird flu migration trails. We could even be used to fly ahead of another aircraft, spraying water and testing it for icing.”
Budgie: “Any other tricks?”
Supertanker: “Oh yes. In our other tanks we’d carry glycol to quickly de-ice it!”

France first

Nephew Philippe Jung, who happens to be president of the history commission of the Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, takes Budgie News to task about our ILA special (Flight International, 9-15 May). “ILA in no way can be the oldest air show in the world if it began in 1909 [probably a reference to the Berlin meeting on 28 January - 2 February, when only one Farman flew, with French pilot Zipfel]. The first aviation exhibition took place on 24-30 December 1908 in the Grand Palais in Paris, with 15 aircraft, including Ader’s Avion N° 3. It was the first in a series that led to what is known today as the Paris air show. Concerning meetings/flying demonstrations, many already took place in 1908, generally with a single aircraft: Roma-Centocello on 23 May (Delagrange on a Voisin), Gand on 29 May (Farman on a Voisin), Kiel on 28 June (Ellehammer), Torino on 8 July (Delagrange and Thérèse Peltier, the first woman passenger), St Louis in July (Farman). The first significant (flying) international air show was the Rheims meeting on 22-29 August 1909, with Blériot, Breguet, Curtiss, Farman, Fernandez, Kluijtmans, Levavasseur, REP, Santos-Dumont, Voisin and Wright aircraft.” So now you know. Merci Monsieur Jung, who also tells us the aircraft pictured in S&L, 9-15 May, belonged to the Marquis d’Ecquevilly: “Which he never managed to fly!”

Budgie Blues

Which sharp-eyed nephews and nieces spotted the deliberate mistake in last week’s pilot health graphic? Oh alright, so “Eary start” was meant to say “Early start”, but then our man at the graphics control had just done six picture sectors non-stop, hadn’t had his coffee and it was very, very eary in the morning.

Read Flight from 1956 or read Uncle Roger's web log.