Aviation

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 01:18pm

I am a vocal opponent of Hang-Up legislation that would impose a permanent federal ban on the in-flight use of mobile phones. Why? Because I do not think it is the role of government to make such a decision. It is akin to "legislating manners" as Inmarsat's David Coiley says. I believe in an airline's right to choose whether or not it wants to offer this service, which, when yo[...]

Tags: inflight connectivity, Air Transport, in-flight connectivity, Hang-Up Act, IFEC, mobiles

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:06pm

Some of my flying blogging buddies are running a series of posts about pilot gifts. For example, Vincent wrote about his wish for a Cirrus SR-22 and Max Trescott recommended the movie FlyAbout (which I also enjoyed very much). Well, I’ve been nice and not at all naughty this year and I hope Santa will [...]

Tags: Reviews, Breitling, Gadgets, Navigation, Watches

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 10:15am

Listen up college students!!!NASA has a student design challenge to design tools and instrumentation for human and robotic exploration that will help astronauts perform tasks on the Moon. Students are free to select a task from the following list or propose one of their own: Navigation in the darkness around the Moon's south pole Power supplies for rovers in the dark Sample retrieval and on-[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:06pm

aeroG: RT @HobbySpacer: SpaceX begins training NASA astronauts for Dragon capsule operations at the ISS: http://tinyurl.com/ya4wruq

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 09:29pm

Will Oneworld alliance release a request for proposal (RFP) for flight deck communications at midnight? And may American be excluded? I don't know...it's all rumor at this point.

Tags: In-flight Entertainment/Communications, inflight connectivity, Air Transport, in-flight connectivity, American Airlines, IFEC

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 08:12pm

A columnist who criticized the handling of a crash inquiry is being sued for defaming the country's honor. Huh?

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 07:00pm

I move forward and sit in the pilot seat to take a look. I get a kick out of the fact that I wasn't allowed to take a photo on the actual flight line, but that I can take one of the simulated flight line. There was a row of simulated KC-130s out the other window, but this picture was the only one that worked out. It's hard to get the camera to focus correctly on the projection screen. Th[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 03:06pm

Embraer's Phenom 300 light jet earned its Brazilian type certificate this morning, the Brazilian airframer confirms. First delivery, says an Embraer spokeswoman, is expected "soon" and an official announcement from the company is due out shortly.This is a breaking story and will be updated

Tags: Embraer, Phenom 300

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 03:06pm

Embraer's Phenom 300 light jet earned its Brazilian type certificate this morning, the Brazilian airframer confirms. First delivery, says an Embraer spokeswoman, is expected "soon" and an official announcement from the company is due out shortly.This is a breaking story and will be updated

Tags: Embraer, Phenom 300

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 01:44pm

Avionics Magazine yesterday hosted an online webinar with some of the top names in the in-flight entertainment and communications (IFEC) industry. I'm still digesting what came out of the event, but I must say I found Aircell senior vice-president, airline solutions Fran Phillips' slide about all the operational benefits of in-flight connectivity to be MOST interesting.   No,[...]

Tags: Aircell, In-flight Entertainment/Communications, in-flight Internet, Air Transport, in-flight connectivity, IFEC

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 01:26pm

aeroG: Amazon MP3 has Bing Crosby's Christmas Classics $1.99 today only http://bit.ly/6og4Kt (MP3 download)

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 01:21pm

aeroG: @comtnclimr Yeah, once every 10 years is about right, at least for snow on the ground in Houston.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 12:55pm

December promises to be another month of milestones here at Boeing. This week we reached 90% design for the 747-8 Intercontinental. The program releases the detailed designs in order to begin building parts, assemblies and tools for the 747-8I, the passenger version of the airplane. An image of the 747-8 Intercontinental. One of the great stories here is that we reached this important po[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:36am

There are a lot of 2010 calendars around produced by the aviation industry and some of them with barely an aircraft in the foreground. Ryanair's cabin crew stripped off, as have the VivaAerobus ladies, all in the name of charity. You can help Help for Heroes, a charity for those that have been badly wounded in Britain's current conflicts, when you buy its calendar whic[...]

Tags: Ryanair, Twitter, calendar, VivaAerobus

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:34am

Bombardier C-FRJX CRJ 1000 Experimental, originally uploaded by moonm. Bombardier announced this morning that it has suspended flight test and delayed first delivery of its CRJ1000 aircraft "pending software updates to the rudder control-by-wire system". The delay now places delivery to Air Nostrum between August 2010 and January 2011, representing the second half of Bombardier's[...]

Tags: Bombardier, CRJ1000

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:34am

Bombardier C-FRJX CRJ 1000 Experimental, originally uploaded by moonm. Bombardier announced this morning that it has suspended flight test and delayed first delivery of its CRJ1000 aircraft "pending software updates to the rudder control-by-wire system". The delay now places delivery to Air Nostrum between August 2010 and January 2011, representing the second half of Bombardier's[...]

Tags: Bombardier, CRJ1000

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 09:51am

The Virgin Atlantic lounge at London's Gatwick Airport has unveiled a newly refurbished  "Clubhouse" with a "Sunday morning feel". It features an internal rock garden and a Cowshed Spa offering massages or manicures and pedicures using its natural products and showering facilities. Here's a video about the launch:   Virgin[...]

Tags: fun, Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, airline lounge, Clubhouse, Gatwick Airport

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 09:16am

Runway safety – a continuing saga? Yes, and so it should be. Some may be tired of hearing about it but the facts are that from 2003 through 2008 there were between 24 and 32 Category A or B incursions annually. A & Bs are the bad ones where either exceptional skill, some luck or likely a bit of both prevented a catastrophe. It was my privilege to represent GA and to speak at the FAA[...]

Tags: Safety

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 08:04am

Right now a friend of mine is flying from London City to New York JFK aboard British Airways' new all-premium Airbus A318 service. Said friend is genuinely excited about his trip, and yet he has probably flown darn near every aircraft in darn near every configuration. With such unbridled enthusiasm for the all-premium concept still alive and well, it might not come as a surprise that Bombardi[...]

Tags: Cabin Interiors, CSeries, aircraft interiors, BA, British Airways, all-premium

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 11:26pm

A couple of months ago, I shared with you some illustrations that I found on the back cover of some older FAA Aviation News. These illustrations were done by the illustrator and cartoonist Robert C. Osborn. Little did I know that finding and preserving more of these illustrations would turn into my new hobby. Since my first Osborn post, I have learned a great deal about the artist and his other [...]

Tags: Safety, Flight Training

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 07:00pm

It's time to go over to the simulator building. Oh and John billed me as a Canadian bush pilot, but someone involved in the approval process got the idea that I'm a simulator visuals technician. I guess it doesn't take too much message mangling to go from "visual flying" to "visuals." "So maybe you could admire the visuals," suggests John. I'm actu[...]

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 05:41pm

aeroG: RT @phalanx: #Imagine09 Bob Rogers: NASA has great stories that people are willing to die for. Tell them in a way that engages the public.

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 05:40pm

aeroG: RT @phalanx: #Imagine09 Bob Rogers: NASA hides the risk, hides the threat to life. Public then sees NASA as liars when things go wrong.

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 04:09pm

Around 9:30 PT last night, ZA001, parked in Stall 105 on Boeing's Everett flight line, restarted its twin Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines. The engines were started left to right and each produced clouds of white smoke as a result of an inhibitor that was stored inside each engine while the aircraft's side-of-body was being modified, says engine-maker Rolls-Royce. The twin-power plants wer[...]

Tags: Boeing, 787, ZA001

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 03:03pm

The latest release of ForeFlight Weather for Android (v1.0.8) offers a handy improvement for our friends overseas — the option to view your weather with metric units!  You’ll find pressure in hPa, temperatures in Celsius, and visibility in meters. Just pull up the menu, go to Settings, and choose metric (hPa, C, m) or imperial (” Hg, F, sm)&n[...]

Tags: Uncategorized

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 12:36pm

aeroG: Great James Hansen interview/18Mln AIDS orphans/787/Aviation injuries/Lisbon/@waynehale on ITAR damage/Airline profit http://tr.im/favorites

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 11:24am

Inmarsat's SwiftBroadband (SBB) aeronautical service is going to become standard on all new Airbus long-range aircraft and there is reason to believe that Boeing may follow Airbus' lead and make SBB standard on its 787 twinjet (paving the way for SBB to find a place on other Boeing widebodies, including the 747-8).So why is there a perceived competition between L-band satellite-based SBB[...]

Tags: 787, Original Equipment Manufacturers, Inmarsat, IFE, in-flight entertainment, SwiftBroadband

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 09:08am

Supporting Atlantis out in Houston went very smoothly and it was a successful 11-day mission with a beautiful landing at Kennedy Space Center. Now Atlantis is back in the Orbiter Processing Facility preparing for its next mission, STS-132.Next in line for flight is Endeavour with a roll over to the Vehicle Assembly Building scheduled for December 12. Roll out to the launch pad is scheduled for Jan[...]

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 07:55am

General Aviation News regularly posts a synopsis of accident reports from the National Transportation Safety Board and a recent synopsis of a report dated November 2007 caught my attention. The incident involved a Piper Cherokee in Ranger Texas and resulted in 3 fatalities and a destroyed aircraft. According to the report, the accident occurred during [...]

Tags: Safety, Blog

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 01:47am

Vincent, of the Plastic Pilot blog, published the first of a series of posts on gifts for the twelve days of Christmas. As part of that series, I’m posting my recommendations for the “Second Day” of Christmas. For the first day of Christmas, Vincent wrote “I wish me a Cirrus SR-22.” I wish him well and hope that if someone gives him one, they’ll be kind enough [...]