Posts Tagged ‘airlines’
Monday, October 19th, 2009
East Bay local Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger is back flying for U.S. Airways, but he’s still had time to write a book and go on tour. Sully will be at SFO tomorrow, in case you want to drop by at 11:00 AM. Otherwise, it costs $90k to arrange an appearance these days, so this is a good deal.
After all, Sully is Your Homeboy, right?
The SFO Hudson Bookseller is located pre-security (near the BART Station) in the Main Hall of the International Terminal on the “G” Area side.
October 20, 2009 – Tuesday
When: October 20, 2009 – Tuesday 11 a.m.
Where: Hudson Books, International Terminal (near Bart) San Francisco
What: Sully Sullenberger will be signing his new book “Highest Duty My Search for What Really Matters”
Tags: (BART), 1540, 320, a320, a320-214, aa, airbus, airlines, airport, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, book, books, button, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, crew, d. c., danville, deal, ditch, ditch switch, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, facebook, fans, fighter, flight, geese, hero, highest duty, hudson, II, iii, inauguration, international, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, la guardia, lga, manhattan, my search for what really matters, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, San Francisco, SFO, sign, signing, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, terminal, tour, U.S., Washington
Posted in advertising, books | Comments Off
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger got famous after running into these critters earlier in the year, but you don’t need an airplane to encounter monstrous Canada Geese. Oh no. Just head over to Fremont, CA. They’ve got thousands of ‘em.
Click to expand:
First, they got Oakland, now they have Fremont.
Is San Francisco next?
Tags: 1540, 320, a320, a320-214, airbus, airlines, airways, American, B., bane, bay area, bird, california, canada, canadian, capt., Captain, central park, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, county, crew, danville, fremont, geese, golden gate park, hero, hudson, II, iii, N106US, pilot, safety, safety reliability methods, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, sully's bane
Posted in Animals | Comments Off
Sunday, February 8th, 2009
Popular Bay Area local Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III was just seen on the East Coast in his debut interview on 60 Minutes. Not that I ever watch that show, but I’ll check it out tonight, just for kicks. The reminder that his interview with Katie Couric was going to be on tonight came from the spike in traffic this blog just received.
It seems America is still curious about the issue of whether Sully is Jewish (see below for the online search terms people are trying right now), a question that probably wouldn’t have occurred to me otherwise. The Jewish Post of New York (Your Gateway to the Jewish World) looked into it and signs point to no. But that’s O.K., right? A better question might be why he was prepared to act correctly on that day.
The Cap’n
Of course we have a lot of knucklehead pilots up there, so how do we get more like Sully? He stands out with his military experience, the amount of experience he has generally and the number of hours he has spent cogitating about accidents. It’s nice to know that he and his ilk won’t be forced to retire at age 60 (which, until recently, was a hard and fast rule.
And speaking of Sully’s future, it looks like San Francisco politico and Sullenberger family spokesperson Alex Clemens of Barbary Coast Consulting and the famous The Usual Suspects website will have his hands full sorting through all the offers, including one from Richard Branson of Virgin Air.
Anyway, here are some of the search terms people across America are using today:
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Tags: 1540, 320, 60 minutes, a320, a320-214, airbus, airlines, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, burnett, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, county, crew, danville, daughters, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, fans, fighter, flight, geese, german, google, hero, hudson, II, iii, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, Katie, katie couric, Kelly, keywords, la guardia, lga, lorrie, manhattan, Mayor, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, search, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, terms, texas, U.S.
Posted in bay area, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
The thing you’ve got to realize, is that sometimes things just happen. It’s not your fault, it’s not anyone else’s fault, it’s just, you know, things happen. Kind of like the time spokesmodel and romance novel cover-boy Fabio got hit in the face with a bird when he was on a roller coaster. Whose fault was that?
That’s something to ponder when you consider the whining of some of the passengers of famous Flight 1549, piloted by Bay Area local Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. You see, they gots to get more money than they’ve gotten so far from U.S. Airways
Of course, the airline isn’t done talking with people yet:
“US Airways Vice President Jim Olson says that an insurance claims specialist is contacting passengers and that they’ll be reimbursed for expenses or losses above $5,000. The airline wants to ensure no passenger is “losing money for the inconvenience or anything lost during the accident,” he says”
But that doesn’t stem the whining. Obviously, this was a traumatic event, but unless passengers want to allege something about defective engines (as Geraldo Rivera seems to be doing) or negligent bird vigilance by somebody, then maybe these passengers should be happy to take the five G’s, file any additional claims and then move on with their lives.
Just saying.
An old story:
A grandmother is sitting at the beach, watching her young grandson play in the water. Suddenly, an enormous wave crashes over the boy’s head, and when it recedes, the boy is gone, washed out to sea. Frantic, the grandmother cries out to God, “Lord, what has my grandson done to deserve this? Please bring him back to me, and I’ll forever be grateful to you!” Moments later, another enormous wave crashes against the shoreline, returning the boy to the beach, soaked but unharmed. He begins happily digging in the sand, oblivious to what just occurred. The grandmother looks at the boy, then raises her head to the sky. She shouts, “He had a hat!”
Today, this tale could be updated by replacing the word “hat” with Blackberry, or cell phone, PSP, whatever.
Oh well.
Tags: 320, a320, a320-214, aa, airbus, airlines, airport, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, button, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, crew, D.C., danville, ditch, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, facebook, fans, fighter, flight, flight 1540, geese, hero, hudson, II, iii, inauguration, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, manhattan, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, U.S., Washington
Posted in airlines | Comments Off
Saturday, January 24th, 2009
Well thousands turned out in Danville today to welcome hero pilot Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III home. He’s been a bit busy lately, of course.
He’ll spill the beans about famous Flight 1549 to Katie Couric on 60 Minutes, February 8, 2009.
Lorrie Sullenberger with her husband in Danville today. Click to expand
We’ll just have to wait…
Tags: 1540, 320, a320, a320-214, airbus, airlines, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, burnett, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, county, crew, danville, daughters, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, fans, fighter, flight, geese, hero, hudson, II, iii, inauguration, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, Katie, Kelly, la guardia, lga, lorrie, manhattan, Mayor, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, U.S., Washington
Posted in events | Comments Off
Thursday, January 15th, 2009
Airline pilot and local Contra Costa County webmaster (www.safetyreliability.com!, that’s his URL, srsly) really pulled the fat out of the fire today by properly ditching his crippled Airbus 320 into the Hudson River. Will he make an appearance at the upcoming Obama Presidential Inaugural Celebration or State of the Union address? (Signs point to YES.)
This former USAF fighter pilot will be soon be the talk of his small East Bay hometown: Danville, CA . [Update: It's happened already - the MSM has staked out his family's "spacious house" and talked to the neighbors, so the fam is hiding out in the dark, sustaining themselves on take-out fast food delivered by friends. Well, here he is, the man with "twinkly, fatherly eyes"]
www.safetyreliability.com The eye twinkling here is assisted by on-camera flash catchlights and Photoshop’s unsharp mask (USM) function, set at 20, 60, 0. Click to expand
Did he or co-pilot Jeff Skiles of Oregon, Wisconsin press the Airbus 320 “ditch button?” Maybe. That jet certainly floated like a cork for a while. Apparently, “pressing the guarded “DITCHING” button causes the pressurization system to send a “CLOSE” command to:
- the outflow valve,
- the emergency ram air inlet,
- the avionics ventilation inlet and extract valves,
- the pack flow control valves
thereby making the aircraft fuselage as watertight as possible and hopefully enabling it to stay afloat long enough for everyone to get out before it sinks.” The More You Know… Hey Boeing, do you have something simple like this?
It appears ”Sully” did a masterful job all around, especially when you consider the fact that the temperature of the water was “likely much colder” than 20 degrees(!), per WCBS. (You know, some captains don’t always go the extra mile for passengers when the ship is going down.)
N106US from less eventful times, in its old livery. Via Drewski2112 Click to enlarge.
And speaking of safety, has any large (100 passengers or so and up) commercial jet airplane gotten in a crash that killed a paying passenger in America since the end of 2001? I can’t think of any flights where that’s happened. Good for us. The trend is our our friend, isn’t it? Of course, the fashion these days is having large jets with just two engines (instead of three or four). When you’re heading into a flock of birds, it would probably be nicer to have more engines than less, but this kind of thing is a fairly rare occurance.
Now, San Francisco’s SFO has had its fair share of birdstrike victims, including Virgin America Flight 837 (yes Air Colbert, named after Stephen Colbert) and, speaking of Virgin Airlines, a Virgin Boeing 747 back in 1995. Let’s hope the growing geese population of the Bay Area doesn’t start hanging out at airports. But let’s leave that issue for another day.
Today, it’s three cheers for old-school, safe, reliable, Facebook.com cover-boy, possible nominee for U.S. Senate representing New York Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III!
[Update: For some odd reason, a colossal number of people are searching Google right now using the terms "sullenberger jewish?" and "wesley sullenburger jew." I don't know the answer, but the question itself must be, in the words of famous local playwright Josh Kornbluth, "Good for the Jews".]
Tags: 1540, 320, a320, a320-214, aa, airbus, airlines, airport, airways, American, B., bay area, bird, button, california, capt., Captain, charlotte, chesley, Chesley b. Sullenberger, chesley sullenberger, co-pilot, Contra Costa, crew, D.C., danville, ditch, ditch switch, ditching, east bay, f-4, f4, facebook, fans, fighter, flight, geese, hero, hudson, II, iii, inauguration, Jeff Skiles, jew, jewish, la guardia, lga, manhattan, N106US, nc, north carolina, ny, nyc, obama, phantom, pilot, reliability, river, safety, safety reliability methods, strike, sullenberger, sullenburger, sully, U.S., Washington
Posted in airlines | 20 Comments »
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches 5
and then moves on.
Carl Sandburg
The formerly-controversial Sutro Tower, as seen from the northwest through the window of an Emirates Airbus A380 super jumbo jet.
See the entire Sutro Tower mise-en-scene here, courtesy of Telstar Logistics’ Todd Lappin.
Tags: 2, 4, 5, 7, ABC, airlines, channel, chronicle, Chronicle Publishing, clarendon, Cox Broadcasting, emf, emirates, Examiner, fog, foggy, kgo, KGO-TV, KPIX, kqed, KRON, ktvu, little cat feet, radio, San Francisco, STI, sutro, Sutro Tower Inc, television, Telstar Logistics, Todd Lappin, tower, TV, twin peaks, Westinghouse Broadcasting
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Monday, July 14th, 2008
It looks like San Francsico will be getting its fair share of Airbus A380 superjumbo jets flying around. Emirates has a “familiarisation flight” scheduled for next month, so maybe you’ll see the biggest passenger jet in the world once again above the Bay Area.
This is what it will look like on August 4, 2008, when a fully-outfitted A380 will touch down at SFO:
via daarkfire’s flickrstream
We’ll have to do with 777-200LR service into SFO until the A380s get into the schedule.
Bon Voyage!
Tags: 777, 777-200LR, a380, airbus, airlines, airport, boeing, dubai, emirates, San Francisco, SFO
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
According to the airlines, via that lapdog of the Air Transport Association of America known as Stop Oil Speculation Now, there is a:
…force at work that, like gravity, is invisible yet powerful. This force is rampant speculation. Every time you buy products such as food or gas, you are impacted by unregulated, secretive and often foreign commodities futures markets. Speculators in these markets are increasingly buying and selling commodities such as oil even though they have no intention of using the product.
First of all, who wrote this copy? Bob Shrum? Second of all, Hillary Clinton didn’t intend to use all that sugar and eat those cows when she speculated in the commodities markets and nobody complained about that, right? Speculation is now supposed to be a bad thing?
Our corporate overlords are worried:
Could there be a more likely explanation for high prices for avgas? CBS News offers a few. Is it possible Bill O’Reilly might be wrong? Or, maybe all this talk of speculation being the cause of high fuel prices is just a Nixonian Fallacy.
Check it out and decide for yourself. Maybe you’ll agree that both you and the airlines are being victimized by those invisible, powerful, secretive, foreign forces.
The airlines have to come up with something to explain all those fees and surcharges, right?
I shift the blame
To the worm in the bottle
I shift the blame
To anyone standing before me
Tags: aa, Air Transport Association, airlines, airtran, airways, alaska, America, American, continental, delta, fees, hawaiian, jetblue, northwest, now, nwa, oil, prices, silk skin paws, southwest, speculation, speculators, stop, Surcharges, U.S., united, wire
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
Well, check it out. Today, Southwest Airlines (LUV) is crowing about their lack of fees.
So that means “NO First or Second Checked Bag Fees, Change Fees, Fuel Surcharges, Snack Fees, Aisle or Window Seat Fees, Curbside Check-In Fees, or Phone Reservation Fees.” Hurray!
What the “legacy” carriers don’t seem to understand is that some people really, really don’t like hidden fees. Like how some restaurants in San Francisco hit you with an undisclosed 4% tack-on when you get your bill.
Fly with Southwest and you’ll think you’ve been transported back to the 1970′s, when fees were a four-letter word:
Nostalgic photo via Church of the Customer
Now, some may quibble about a few things, like how the cheapest fares from Southwest are only available online. But that’s as it should be, since reserving a flight by yourself lowers the expenses of running the airline. This is a better approach than a company advertising a price and then surprising you with a fee that you didn’t even know existed. The point is that Southwest has none of the new fees all the other airlines seem to have.
Now this might put SWA at a disadvantage when they advertise their rates, because they lose all those little “profit centers” the other airlines take advantage of. But just remember that Bags Fly Free, and lots of other things are free, when you fly with LUV.
Hurray. Certain other airlines should take notice of this.
Tags: airlines, Aisle, bags, bags fly free, change, Check-In, Checked, Curbside, fees, First, fuel, no, phone, Reservation, Seat, second, Snack, southwest, Surcharges, swa, Window
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »
