Posted 20:21 GMT
Three Strikes against Airbus. I wonder how many it takes to get an "out" in EU baseball?
One.
On Mar. 28, the European planemaker's biggest customer, the International Lease Finance Corp., a Los Angeles-based subsidiary of American International Group (AIG), called for a top-to-bottom redesign of the A350, the plane Airbus plans to launch as a rival to Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.
Two.
FUEL FACTOR. Then, on Mar. 30, Airbus acknowledged that Dubai-based airline Emirates, the biggest buyer of its A340 widebody plane, has delayed a $4 billion order for 20 of the aircraft because it wants them redesigned to match the fuel efficiency of Boeing's competing 777 model.
Then the Economist Says (subscription required):
Three.
The real test looming, however, will come from the market. Orders for the giant A380 have slowed to a trickle. Total orders of 159 are 100 short of the number at which the company breaks even. Airbus is sticking to its development figure of $11.7 billion, but there are rumours of over-runs. ... Meanwhile the European firm is losing out in the next size up, where Boeing sold 155 of its 777 long-haul planes last year, compared with only 15 Airbus A340s, which suffers from having four engines in a time of high oil prices.
I guess complacency is what you reap when you have a government subsidized airplane company.
Posted 04:54 GMT
Dave departs San Diego 
and goes on a tangent.
Posted 04:17 GMT
F-16 from Hill AFB goes down in Utah. Pilot OK.
An F-16 fighter jet piloted out of Hill Air Force Base crashed in Carrington Bay in the Great Salt Lake Thursday afternoon. Base officials said the jet, from the 388th Fighter Wing's 421st Fighter Squadron, went down at 2:11 p.m., approximately 30 miles west of Hill Air Force Base. The pilot is said to have ejected safely, though was reportedly taken to a local hospital.
31 March, 2006
Posted 20:01 GMT
Yesterday the AOPA testified before the House Aviation Subcommittee and said:
AOPA believes that the use of "temporary" large-scale flight restrictions for yearlong UAV operations is not appropriate
Within an hour of that testimony, the FAA established a "temporary" flight restriction to survey the border which ...
stretches across 344 nautical miles of the southern portions of [Arizona and NM] and will be in effect daily from 0000 UTC to 1500 UTC, extending from 14,000 feet msl to 16,000 feet msl. The TFR extends from the eastern boundary of Restricted Area R2301E in south-central Arizona, to just west of El Paso, Texas. It joins the U.S./Mexico border and is 15 nm wide in most places.
We've got 11 million illegals here, and some estimate more. I've heard of shutting the gate after the horse is gone, but this is a bit over the top.
Posted 14:25 GMT
HyShot IV: The Aussies fly twice in one week.
With all this work being done on hypersonic vehicles, someday we're finally going to see some results from it.
Posted 00:21 GMT
NASA TV coverage of Soyuz Launch of ISS Expedition 13 begins at 01:45 GMT (8:45 EST)
Launch expected at 02:30 GMT (9:30 EST)
Posted 00:13 GMT
Unmanned Predator Kills Three Terrorists
American Forces Press ServiceWASHINGTON, March 29, 2006 – An MQ-1B Predator unmanned aerial vehicle engaged three insurgents in the process of planting a homemade bomb along a road near Balad Air Base, Iraq, yesterday evening and launched an AGM-114 Hellfire missile against the group.
The Predator monitored the three terrorists for about a half hour while they used a pick ax to dig a hole in the road, placed an explosive round in the hole, and strung wires from the hole to a ditch on the side of the road. When it was clear the individuals were placing a bomb, the Predator launched the 100-pound Hellfire missile, killing all three insurgents.
Posted 00:08 GMT
Sir Richard Branson says Virgin Galactic is "on track" to being the first commercial space launch company by 2008. Space flights will last 15 minutes in space, and be weightless for 5 minutes.
30 March, 2006
Posted 19:24 GMT
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- Hooters Airlines said it's stopping regularly scheduled air service. The airline said it will stop its public charter flights April 17 and will run only private charters out of Winston-Salem, N.C.
Never did get a chance to ride Hooters. Darn.
29 March, 2006
Posted 19:55 GMT
DARPA has issued an RFP for a supersonic "Oblique Flying Wing" UAV. Sounds like a job for Northrop.
It's an interesting concept. No fuselage, so no wing hinge necessary. Just pivot the thrust line, and control the flying wing into a permanent yaw. At supersonic speeds, of course.
Impressive. If they can make it work.
Posted 19:50 GMT
The Washington Post says a Marine MV-22 Osprey was damaged in a "hard landing".
"The aircraft damage resulted from an inadvertent takeoff followed by a hard landing" during a test flight following maintenance on the Osprey, according to the statement.
The question is whether an engine guy was at the controls and pulled a little bit too much pitch, or whether this was an actual planned "flight"? I'm guessing the former.
Posted 15:48 GMT
One week to Sun & Fun in Fla.
Wish I could go this year. But the plan is to try and live blog Oshkosh and Reno. The day job only gives me a certian number of days off.
Posted 15:43 GMT
South African Airways 747 robbery nets $16 million.
Posted 15:29 GMT
747 FireBomber going on tour.
20,000 gallons of portable rain.
28 March, 2006
Posted 23:57 GMT
Buck Wyndham has some good front seater blog posts. Scroll down a bit for a good "sun dog" picture. I don't believe I've seen such a thing before. Interesting.
Posted 23:44 GMT
Runway for Rent. Scenic location, near beach. Hangar included.
Posted 22:16 GMT
Airbus unloads the A380.
Posted 00:38 GMT
There are lots of airshows around the world. A normal show is where a zillion people and their kids come out to the airport and watch a bunch of monoplane and biplane aerobatic acts get upside down in various ways while the kids get sunburned. Then the ThunderBlueKnights burn lots of kerosene generating noise and everybody goes home. It's a lot of fun. Everybody should do it every few years.
But there are some airshows that are different. Really different. Oshkosh. Paris. Reno. And the yearly take-em-out-and-flyem weekend at Chino California.
Chino is the home of the Planes of Fame air museum, which tries to keep as many of their airplanes in operational condition as possible. Every year in May they open the hangar doors, roll the warbirds into the sun, and prepair them to fly. They usually don't even make a pretense of any aerobatic shows, but instead fire up as many warbirds as they have pilots to fly them, and roar around the pattern in big formations. They sometimes get 20 or so in the air at one time, then land and jump into the next set of airplanes and do it again.
From their press release:
Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated fighter flybys will be those of the 'Planes of Fame' Boeing P-26A Peashooter and Seversky 2PA fighter-bomber. These 1930s fighter planes are the only flyable examples of their types in the world and have not been in the sky for quite a while. The P-26 last flew in 1983 and the Seversky has not been airborne since 1989.
I'd expect to see their P-35 in that formation as well. When was the last time you saw one of those fly? And of course there will be the handful of Mustangs, Corsairs, B-25's, perhaps a B-17. Who knows. Whatever Steve Hinton and the guys can get in the air.
This years take-em-out-and-flyem weekend is May 20-21. Put it on your schedule and go see these planes fly. Along with the only flyable "real" Mitsubishi Zero they usually fly (with a genuine Nakajima engine, complete down to the original WWII Japanese spark plugs - it has a sound unique in the warbird world), you may never get a chance to see these planes fly again in your lifetime.
27 March, 2006
Posted 22:52 GMT
Hangar blogging at AZ82, just because I can.
Life on the airport can't be underestimated. Even my wife says we should have moved up here much sooner. Trips are wonderful. No anal exam in the airline line. No hub-and-spoke layover, so even the old Lancair 235 beats Boeings. Getting home from a trip, and just taxiing up to the door and opening it with a clicker is the utimate of luxury. No tying down the airplane, just put it inside. We don't even have to drive home from the airport, cause we're already here.
Cool. [/gloat]
Posted 15:56 GMT
Maiden flight of Space X Falcon 1 crashes.
Except for delivering huge cargoes to orbit on a rare basis, I think that straight up dumb rockets are pretty dumb. Besides the physics that make it inefficient to hoist a rocket at it's heaviest weight straight up from sea level using only the thrust of accelerated mass that's entirely contained within the vehicle, it's even dumber to build a rocket to use only one time. If this were a Boeing 737, you'd expect the maiden flight of a new airplane to have glitches. Same here, except there are few backups, and engines contained in close proximity to each other in a rocket (unlike modern aircraft which isolate their engines away from one another for safety) can destroy one another, eliminating redundancy even in multi-engine rockets. The way to get to space is winged, air breathing (as high and as fast as possible), and totally reusable vehicles. Then fly them every day to amortize the development costs, and use multiple flights to deliver the cargo that one big dumb rocket can. The occasional very large structure can be hoisted by your odd big dumb rocket, and refueled, resupplied with the winged space vehicle. See the BlackStar project below. The winged space craft exists and flew, and we can only hope that it or something better is still flying.The good news is that all vehicle systems, including the main engine, thrust vector control, structures, avionics, software, guidance algorithm, etc. were picture perfect. Falcon's trajectory was within 0.2 degrees of nominal during powered flight.
However, at T+25s, a fuel leak of currently unknown origin caused a fire around the top of the main engine that cut into the first stage helium pneumatic system. On high resolution imagery, the fire is clearly visible within seconds after liftoff.
Posted 02:47 GMT
For entrepreneurs and serious propeller heads, the Air Force has just released it's Remotely Piloted Vehicle and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Strategic Vision document.
26 March, 2006
Posted 23:11 GMT
Alan photoblogs an X-37 captive flight at Mojave. Except for Chino Ca. where I worked for awhile, Mojave must be one of the most interesting airports to work.
Posted 22:27 GMT
HyShot scramjet experiment blasts off in South Australian desert
A $2 million scramjet experiment was launched at Woomera, 500km north of Adelaide, South Australia at approximately 1.45pm local time. The University of Queensland-led HyShot™ III experiment uses a scramjet engine developed by UK company, QinetiQ.
Read more at the University of Queensland news site. The Launch video is here.
Posted 00:35 GMT
Ellen at Queen of the Sky blog gets mad:
JetBlue Flight Attendant Fired For FatigueThere's more at the link. Check out the rest of her blog site too.
Long Beach, CA, March 23--JetBlue flight attendant Carolyn Livingston was fired last week after being bullied into working a flight that put her over the FAA maximum flight attendant duty period. The company accused her of sleeping on the job. She maintains that she was not, although she said she had tried to get herself and her crew released from the flight due to fatigue.
25 March, 2006
Posted 23:32 GMT
Cloud surfing in the Australian Outback. The "Morning Glory" wave can be 600 miles long.
Posted 04:36 GMT
The University of Queensland (Australia) will be launching the HyShot Scramjet in a test flight on Saturday. They've launched twice before, one success and one failure. Wish them luck.
24 March, 2006
Posted 19:42 GMT
The ST5 Pegasus launch was successful this morning.
What's impressive is that a single stage can lift 3, 55 lb. sats into orbit just because it was boosted to airliner speed and altitude. Just think what the BlackStar can do with a winged air breathing "first stage" up to mach 3 and 80+ thousand feet. And it may have a scram jet second stage to boot, saving even more oxidizer weight. The BlackStar technology is the way to get to orbit. We just need to fly them every day taking off from Dallas Love field with "Southwest" painted on the tail. The cost ought to be about what you'd pay to charter a 747 across the Atlantic and back for you and your closest friends. Expensive, but not completely insane.
Here's today's ST5 flight launched from the "Stargazer", another Lockheed product.
Posted 19:32 GMT
Who knew that the Congo had 50 airlines!
Posted 15:45 GMT
Can they all get out of the Whalejet? Airbus will find out on the 26th.
Posted 05:40 GMT
Dave meets a ball turrent gunner.
Posted 05:27 GMT
Can you believe that the 172 is 50 years old?
Posted 04:52 GMT
Alan at Mojave has a new post with some great DC-8 pictures shot during low passes to calibrate the old Douglas for RVSM. Read down to the bottom to find out what that is.
Posted 04:40 GMT
The first CV-22 Osprey goes operational.
Posted 04:34 GMT
The Air Force used F-15E Strike Eagles in a recent incident to help capture 3 bad guys who had just mortared the base. An interesting use of battle field communication to coordinate counter-fire on the ground with jets, to a predator drone and finally to troops knocking on the door. All those toys really work.
Impressive.
22 March, 2006
Posted 15:59 GMT
If you're into local culture and cuisine, you might try the Fire Ant Festival
(and fly-in) at Turner County Airport in Ashburn Ga Friday and Saturday.
I suppose that's better than the Ostrich Festival in Chandler AZ, because they don't have a fly-in there.
Posted 15:56 GMT
The Collings Foundation will have their B-17, B-24 and B-25 at Montgomery Regional Dannelly Field tomorrow through Friday.
Posted 15:55 GMT
Brian Webb at Space Archive has info on a launch tomorrow.
PEGASUS LAUNCH
Last week's aborted Pegasus XL launch from California has been rescheduled for March 22. An L-1011 jumbo jet will carry the rocket from Vandenberg AFB to the drop point above the ocean south-southwest of Monterey. The target drop time is 06:02 PST during a 05:57:31 to 07:19:50 PST launch window.
Following release from the L-1011, the Pegasus XL rocket will briefly free fall before ignition of its first stage rocket motor. The vehicle will then head south over the Pacific and carry NASA's ST5 satellites into a polar orbit.
In the event of a scrub, the range has been reserved for the morning of March 23.
Daylight Pegasus launches are very difficult to see beyond the Central Coast. At best, tomorrow's event will probably only be visible along the coast from San Francisco to Santa Barbara.
For information on how to obtain countdown status for this mission, refer to previous issues of Launch Alert.
Here's NASA's mission web site.
Posted 14:29 GMT
Dave is a guy who must love his job.
Posted 14:13 GMT
It's amazing what you'll find once you begin investigating aviation web sites. Check out the live ATC audio feeds from around the world at LiveATC.net.
21 March, 2006
Posted 19:44 GMT
Well, another day, another 50 cents (after taxes). At least I do penance at Scottsdale Airport. Normally they're using runway 3, right next to the office, so pictures of the more unusual traffic might be possible. But today a shot of the tower at lunch will have to do.
As you can see it's a particularly nice day. It's also Monday, of course.
Posted 03:32 GMT
Chuck Yeager has a really good web site. Of course he's selling goodies, but Check out the pages on Pancho Barnes and the "Happy Bottom Riding Club". I really would have liked to have flown in there around 1949.
Posted 00:36 GMT
A revelation two weeks ago is liable have reverberations long into the future. Aviation Week and Space Technology revealed their evidence that the US built a winged two stage to orbit vehicle during the 1990's. I have long been convinced that this is the way get into space.
The futuristic "space elevator" idea has an Achilles heel, because before it can be built we must remove, or actively control, everything in space below the counterweight altitude somewhere above 22k miles. Because of orbital mechanics, literally everything in space below the elevator altitude will eventually hit it. There are ideas to mitigate the problem, but I doubt this problem can realistically be solved.
The real secret to space flight is quick turn arounds, with only refueling required. Even transporting a vehicle from a remote landing site adds too much time. Once turns can be done in less than 24 hours, then a space vehicle can be flown enough to amortize it's development costs. Even if the thing can't lift large structures, that's OK. We can keep a few unmanned dumb rockets around for that. This vehicle only needs to transport people and supplies. That's it.
Many have wondered what the replacement was for the SR-71 when it was retired in the 90's. Looks like AWST found it. But now the question is, what's replaced BlackStar? If it's no longer being flown, chances are there's already a next generation vehicle out there.
20 March, 2006
Posted 17:25 GMT
I can't spend much time blogging today, because I've got to get to work installing a new Light Speed Engineering ignition system in the Lancair.
The installation kit appears to be pretty complete. I got the Hall Effect version for the Lanciar, because I've got an electric MT prop that requires the space behind the flywheel for contacts and brushes.
Finding space for the ignition boxes will be the most difficult. I think it will work here, with one box on the left and one on the right. Today will be spent building mounts that will span between the bottom of the panel and the rear of the header fuel tank. Fun.. (would rather be flying it)
Posted 15:15 GMT
Andrew at aeroposte has some information on the Venezuelan threat to halt US air carrier flights into the country on March 31.
Posted 15:02 GMT
Nice airport cam up in Port Townsend, Washington. What a lonely looking Cessna on the ramp.
Posted 14:51 GMT
It's Sunday morning Arizona time, and we're finally getting a wee bit of snow at the airport. It's probably not enough to see in the airport cam yet.
Posted 04:03 GMT
Airbus has 7 inches on Boeing.
Posted 03:47 GMT
Last week they pulled a P-47 from a lake in Austria that had ditched during the war. It's in surprisingly good shape for being underwater for so long. Rumor has it that the guys at Chino will be restoring it.
Posted 03:41 GMT
The F-22 has gone operational. But what bothers me is they only plan on building 183 of them. I understand they can take care of themselves, but they can only be in 183 places in the universe at one time. And that's if they're all operational at once, and that won't happen. Maybe we'll keep a few F-15/16s around for awhile.
Posted 02:42 GMT
Alan at Mojave has some new pix of Rutan's White Night. Check out the missions painted on the side.
Posted 02:09 GMT
My name is Dennis Collins, and this is the first post on HangarView.com, I hope you enjoy coming back often to discover the latest news and views in aviation.