Don’t you think?
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Oh, and white clouds.
Posts Tagged ‘airbus’
If You Fear the Beard, Then You Should Fly the Beard: Look What Virgin Air Did to the San Francisco Giants A320
Friday, January 18th, 2013
A Remarkable Safety Record: No Passengers Have Died in an American Jetliner Crash the Past Ten Years – We Made It
Friday, November 18th, 2011Well we made it. We’ve gone ten years without a passenger dying on a commercial jetliner flying above America, or coming to America or leaving from America. (Now that doesn’t include regional jets – I’m talking about jet airliners, narrow-body or wide-body, made by Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed, or McDonnell Douglas.)
The last day passengers died was November 12th, 2001 on American Airlines Flight 587.
Of course, we’ve had some close calls since then, like with that shoe bomber guy or with Sully Sullenberger and his famous water landing.
Military flights, well that’s a different story. Capt. Christopher Stricklin punches out (and lives to tell the tale) 200 feet above Idaho:
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(And this no-deaths record doesn’t include smaller aircraft like regional jets or turboprops or private airplanes.)
Needless to say, this streak of good luck hasn’t happened before. Back in the day, back in the 1960′s, 1970′s, 1980′s and 1990′s, people would die on big jets all the time.
But not anymore.
Hurray.
Meh: Meet Your Boeing 737 “Next Generation” Workhorse with New “Sky Interior”
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011I don’t know, there’s not much you can do with an older aircraft design like the Boeing 737. Anyway, this is it, your new “Sky Interior.”
See the scalloping by the windows? And the bins, they’re new. And they use LED lights to mimic the blue of the sky. It can also do the warm glow of sunrise.
O.K., Boeing.
Fly AirBerlin:
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The saving grace for this airplane is that it’s signif. lighter than the Airbus 320. That will have to do until Big B redoes the 737.
All the deets:
“New interior options for the 737NG in 2010 included the 787-style Boeing Sky Interior. Designed using Boeing’s new cabin concepts, the Sky Interior features sculpted sidewalls and redesigned window housings, along with increased headroom and LED mood lighting. Larger pivot-bins similar to those on the 777 and 787 have more luggage space than prior designs. The Sky Interior is also designed to improve cabin noise levels by 2-4 dB. The first 737 equipped with the Boeing Sky Interior was delivered to Flydubai in the fourth quarter of 2010. TUIFly and Continental Airlines have also taken delivery of Sky Interiors.”
How Jumbo is Too Jumbo? Airbus A380, SFO’s New Loadstar Aircraft, Bumps into Stuff Once Again
Monday, June 20th, 2011I’ll tell you, I have no objection in particular about Airbus A380 superjumbo jets flying into and out of SFO, but over the past few years the arrival of this a/c got oversold, way oversold, by SFO, the old mayor’s office and the new mayor’s office.
They went on and on about how farsighted SFO was to become “A380-ready,” but after these kinds of taxiway incidents worldwide, I gotta ask:
Where’s your Messiah now, SFO?
Oh, here it is, at the Paris Air Show, bumping into buildings ‘n stuff. Sacre Bleu – Une Autre Allision!
Click to expand – via Niek van der Zande
(Don’t call it a wing fence (or winglet or sharklet) the way some journalists do, oh no, call it a wingtip fence. Thusly: “The Superjumbo jet just lost another wingtip fence.)
“While the crew had been informed that the taxiway was clear for the A380, said Airbus, and the aircraft was on the centreline, it hit a building belonging to Aeroports de Paris.”
Oh well.
Hey SFO, why don’t you actually do something by getting your runways farther apart so you’ll be future-ready instead of just A380-ready?
Just asking, SFO Bro.
“Giant A380 Jetliner Proves SFO Planners Were Right?” Uh, Not Really, SFGate
Monday, May 23rd, 2011Well, here’s the latest from Business Report – The Chronicle with Bloomberg:
Giant A380 jetliner proves SFO planners were right
Uh, so I’m not saying that the powers that be shouldn’t have gotten ready for the long-delayed Airbus A380 jumbo jet, but this wasn’t all that much of a gutsy call, right? It’s like, should we prepare to accommodate the jets that are being planned for five-ten years from now?
O.K., so why not prepare? Sure. But I don’t know how much credit should go to the people of SFO for doing what they’re paid to do.
See? Some have three jetway thingees, some have two:
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In other news, the new A380 uses more fuel than any other airliner you could think of. So this is incorrect:
“It’s a much less fuel-consuming aircraft. It’s a much more efficient aircraft; it costs 30 percent less to operate than other wide bodies.”
And considering all the hype, the hype like this:
“The A380′s modernity, comfort and stylishness should help drive business between the Bay Area and overseas markets, said R. Sean Randolph, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. Randolph said he thinks this is especially true of the burgeoning business relationship with India, which generates high transpacific traffic.”
…the A380 appears to be kind of a big nothingburger. You want to fly from India, you can do it on a Boeing 777 or an old 747 or, soon enough, the long-delayed new 747-8i. And in fact, if anything, the trend of rising fuel prices is making some airlines rethink the desirability of non-stop hops from faraway lands. And “stylishness?” You know, I’d just love to make business with you there, Reddy, but that triple-seven they want me to fly over on, well, it just doesn’t do it for me, it’s not stylish at all, you know? I’ll wait until Airbus makes a fat piggy plane with wings that are too big (because they were designed for future stretched versions like the A380-900, or, Gaia help us, the mythical A380-1000. But, seeing as how the freighter version of the miraculous, wonderful, oh-my-God-this-changes-everything A380 got cancelled, it might be a good long time before the world sees a stretched A380…)
And speaking of the new 747, Lufthansa is also buying those as well, so maybe you’ll be on a Boeing the next time you fly to Frankfurt. IRL, Lufthansa calculates about a 3% delta in fuel economy per passenger betwixt the newish A380 and the impending Boeing 747-8i.
Anyway, the giant A380 jetliner does not necessarily prove SFO planners right, just saying.
Now, about those substandard runways…
SFO’s New Terminal Two is Just an Another Airport Terminal, SFO’s New Air France A380 Jet is Just Another Jet
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011Is new Terminal 2 at SFO really set to “dazzle?”
Sadly no. It’s just another airport terminal right? Let’s keep things in sperpective.
The other dazzling piece of news coming up from Millbrae is Air France saying it will fly in an A380 superjumbo daily from gay Paris during Tourist Season 2011.
The best guess is that the A380 burns about 3% per passenger less than the slightly smaller competition from Boeing. Is that something to get excited about? Not really.
Oh, here we go, here’s an Air France Airbus A380 making friends in New Yawk just yesterday. What a bully! (The YouTube view count just went from 303 views five minutes ago up to 17,000, so let’s call that going viral.)
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Them A380′s are big, non?
Let’s hope that SFO can manage these big rigs better than JFK!
Anyway, to review, SFO’s New Terminal Two is Just an Another Airport Terminal, SFO’s New Air France A380 Jet is Just Another Jet.
No alarms, no surprises…
“Air France Flight 7 F-HPJD bound for Paris, was taxiing on a runway when its left wingtip struck the tail of Comair Flight 6293, which had just landed from Boston and was taxiing to its gate at Kennedy, one of the nation’s busiest airports…”
Boeing Celebrates the First Flight of the New 747-8 Intercontinental Jumbo Jet – Does It Get Better MPG Than the Airbus A380?
Monday, March 21st, 2011Here it is, the latest VLA (Very Large Aircraft) to hit the skies. Get all the deets right here and be sure to check out the Flight Tracker – they flew over Port Angeles (and not too far from Forks, WA and La Push Beach (for you Twilight fans)).
The other VLA up there there is the Airbus A380 Superjumbo, which burns more fuel but has more seats. The test will be when you fill up both with maximum passengers and then fly a certain distance and then figure the fuel burn per passenger.
The A380 is a new plane but it’s kind of stubby and its engines are older than those on the freshened 747. Probably the A380 will win the mpg battle, but only by a few percentage points. And both manufacturers (but especially Airbus) might end up losing money on these programs. Oh well.
First flight:
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Anyway, that’s current battle above your heads….
People, Turn Off Your iPods and Whatnot When You’re Below 10,000 Feet the Way They Tell You – Here’s Why
Thursday, March 10th, 2011Now it’s sort remarkable how no passenger has died the past decade in an Airbus or Boeing jetliner that either took off or landed in the United States. Of course there was the 9/11 and shortly after that at the end of 2001 there was American Airlines Flight 587, but since then, nothing. That’s a pretty good record, non?
But you people, you don’t listen when they tell you to turn off your portable electronic devices during critical phases of flight. And then stuff like this happens.
Just saying, bro-ham.
Ah the daily Lufthansa flight from Frankfort, Germany. This happens to be an aging Boeing 747-400, but in a few months it will get replaced by a superjumbo A380.* Can you see someone iPodding or texting up there? I can:
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*No, contrary to what the Mayor’s Office tells you, the A380 doesn’t use less fuel than legacy aircraft. And the version that’ll soon be coming to SFO each and every day has wings that are too big for its body, and it’s overweight, and blah blah blah. But oh well.
Can You Tell the New Japan Air Lines Logo From the Old One? Meet the New JAL, Same as the Old JAL
Thursday, January 20th, 2011Well, take a look and then I’ll talk about it:
Via LIFE
Well, they’re bringing back the old logo at JAL, the one with the crane as opposed to the suggestion of a crane’s wing or whatever some consultant or whomever got paid seven figures to wax on about back in ought-two.
Nine years ago, we had a couple of fun, smiling guys, right? But these days, we’ve got only sourpusses, stern fellows who take their jobs all serious. (Note the ID badge, as if CEO-dude would actually need one.)
Now, back in the day, I’m sure the JAL would want you to notice the latest and greatest long-haul carrier of the time, the 747-400. Of course even then it was kind of an old model. I’m sure they wanted you to notice the winglets, which were relatively new for Boeing.
Now, the Queen of the Skies these days (as far as JAL is concerned) is the second-gen Boeing 777, with humongous, high-bypass engines from GE. And with raked wingtips, ’cause that’s the new thang. Thanks for showing us your best plane!
Bon Courage, JAL
