Another plane takes a hit, but thankfully it was American made and can take on a few birds! This is the story coming out of the Daily Mail:

Dwarfed by the jetliner, they look little more than a smattering of black dots.

But this flock of birds could have brought the plane crashing down in seconds.

They flew straight into the path of the Germania airlines flight to Kosovo as it took off from Dusseldorf airport with 80 on board.

‘It was like a scene from the Hitchcock movie The Birds. One second all was clear, and the next thing you saw were these birds swarming over the plane,’ said an onlooker.

It is thought more than 200 starlings were sucked into the right engine as the Boeing jet approached 200mph.

Others dented the fuselage but thankfully did not pierce it. Their splattered remains could be seen on the plane later.

‘The pitch of the engine said it all,’ said plane-spotter Juergen Kienast, who took these dramatic pictures.

‘It was like sticking a bit of metal pipe into a blender.’

Once airborne, the pilot reported engine damage and circled for almost 45 minutes before landing safely.

No-one was hurt and the plane had only minor damage.

A similar bird strike brought down an Airbus in the Hudson in New York in January this year.

The pilot managed a heroic emergency landing and all 155 on board survived.

(Via Daily Mail)

There is formation flying, then there is the formation flying with the Blue Angels. This video is shot from inside of the cockpit, and it is enough to make you start searching for the barf bag around your desk. I especially like the towers they pass at about 7:10.

Here is sadly a not so good pilot trying to takeoff. What I really want to comment on is the guy making the video. Talk about having same balls! I mean here is this plane coming at you, with a large blender on the front of it. Any closer and he would have been fish bait!

I fly a lot, and of all the things that concern me, a meteor hitting the plane was the least of them. Now that has changed, thanks to Discovery Magazine. First I figured the chances were so minute that no one would care. Now looking at this article they are saying it might be a 1:20, are you freaking kidding me? How is the so holy TSA going to remedy this one? Maybe they will change shirt colors again, that will show them!

Back in 1996, after the initially very mysterious explosion and crash of Flight 800 from JFK to Rome, there were numerous eyewitness accounts of a “streak in the sky” just before the crash. This led to the “missile theory” of the crash, which was eventually attributed to the explosion of the center fuel tank by the NTSB. But, also at the time, it was suggested that a meteor of sufficient size could have struck the plane, bringing it down.

Obviously for any given flight the chances are very, very small that a meteor will bring down an airliner, but as Hailey and Helfand pointed out in a letter to the NYT in 1996, the correct question to ask is this: “What is the probability that, for all flights in history, one or more could have been downed by a meteor?” They concluded that there was a 1-in-10 chance that this could happen…let’s use their logic, brought up to date somewhat, for 2009, for Flight 447.

(continues)

(Via Discovery Magazine.)

I wonder what ever happened to when they used to take the shuttle up on the 747 and drop it and let the astronauts land it? I mean I am sure it cost a fortune to do, and probably was a big risk, but it was really neat. Anyway, here is a pretty neat video of the shuttle catching a ride back to Florida. Sadly they do not just light the rockets and set a speed record for sub-orbital-powered-flight (yeah, I made that up). Since I saw this on Giz I will post their story:

I’ve seen the shuttle pulling a Moonraker with NASA’s modified 747 mothership before—like in this spectacular zenithal shot of Endeavour—but it never ceases to amaze me to see the two of them taking off.

This is Atlantis returning home from California after mission STS-125—the riskiest ever—where astronauts played Katamari Damacy, fixed Hubble, and made astronomers and space aficionados everywhere smile again.

It just seems impossible that the 747 can lift that gigantic spacecraft. The trip from Edwards Air Force Base back to Florida will require several stopovers for refueling, taking at least two days of rain-free weather travel to reach its final destination.

(Via Gizmodo.)

There has been a lot of talk over the week about WiFi on commercial aircraft. I have posted some comments places in hopes of helping people understand the hurdles of making it all happen, and why the price point is as high as it is. I will just kind of wrap it all up here since it seems to be a hot topic.

Internet on aircraft has actually been around a lot longer than people think. It was mostly cost prohibitive because of the extreme data charges that used to be assessed for using satellites to transfer data, and the slow speed and latency of the transfer. Internet then started to become available using land based transfers on the CDMA network that we use now.

The problem then moved to cost of the unit (sometimes well over a million a piece), and weight of the unit. I am not sure what on earth they had in the old systems, but it would weigh several hundred pounds. That not only decreases amount of product (be it people, bags, cargo), but also increases the fuel burn. From my understanding the new devices by Gogo now are under 100lbs. Even with device and bandwidth costs decreasing, the accrued cost is still very high.

It is not as simple as buying a unit and plugging it in. It has to be certified for the airplane, have to have maintenance personal install it. Probably has a power button that all your aircraft, and pilot training books have to have an update to know about. FAA has to sign off on every single step. It is a process that can take a simple $100k device, and make it suddenly cost $500k or more.

So now you have some marketing group trying to figure out what to charge, based on costs, and how many people are actually going to use it? Would you? and at what cost? I have to admit, the first plane I get on that has it available I am going to use it. It could cost $30, and be an hour long flight, but I am going to pay it just to try it out. But what about after the newness wears off? Then it really becomes about the price point to the customer.

Many people have suggested in-boarding your costs into the general ticket prices. Here is a harsh reality about our society, we are cheap. REAL cheap. The airlines have all the rates figured out and in tune with each other. So when the consumer goes to Orbitz and search for a rate, then they will be the cheapest. Would you pay $5 to ride on an airline with wifi if it was included? Well sure, but you have found this article, your not the majority of the travelers. Sadly that $5 difference to the bargain shopper looking for tickets just cost a sale.

Like all new technologies, the cost will decrease rapidly over the years. I remember paying $400 for a 120meg hard drive, and $15 for a single blank CD. The only thing working against us right now is patience, and that two hour flight that makes us feel isolated. One interesting fact to point out about the Aircell service (people behind Gogo), it supports GSM enabled devices. So if they decide to let people use their cell phones in flight for voice calls, it looks like the device is already there to handle it

(Via Gizmodo, FlightGlobal, Gogo, Aircell, and HotHardware.)

I was reading the comments, on the Gizmodo post, about the engine start video (at the bottom). A lot of people didn’t really realize the significance of this, so I said I would write a short blurb about it.

Most turbine (not turbo-prop) aircraft start their engines from bleed air from the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) mounted in the tail of the plane. This unit makes electricity to power aircraft systems, and bleed air is used for air conditioning and engine starts. Usually once the engines are started, or in some cases once airborne, the APU is shut down for the remainder of the flight. At that point the engine bleed air (for air conditioning, anti-ice, and God forbid engine restarts) and generators (electrical systems) are used for the remainder of the flight.

The problem with bleed air is that is HOT, damn hot, around 800C on some aircraft. You have to route that air to the air conditioning systems (usually at the belly), and to the wings for anti-ice. In the process of routing it your taking a risk that one of the ducts could leak, or rupture, which could cause a fire very quickly. Not only is there threat of fire, but the air is taken from the compression cycle, so you’re taking power from the engines.

So to counteract this Boeing designed a lot of electrical systems, where bleed air is normally used. They not only moved to electrical engine starts, and air conditioning, but even the brakes are electrically actuated, instead of hydraulically powered. In theory it is a lot of increased safety by engineering new systems. The problem with new systems is working out the bugs, and getting them certified. Ideally this will increase the reliability over the long run. The starters in the engine alone are supposed to increase 300% in the number of cycles it can perform.

Here is the original Gizmodo post:

Remember the Boeing 787 Dreamliner? You know, the eternally-delayed wonderplane? Well, rejoice because it has started the engines in a huge puff of smoke. All on its own, which is a first according to Boing:

The occasion marks the first all-electric start of a commercial jetliner engine on a twin-aisle commercial jetliner; the engines had been started electronically in test facilities earlier.

OK, Boeing, if you say so, I believe you. They used the Auxiliary Power System to power the start of its two Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines.

(Via Gizmodo, and Boeing)

Sure it could in theory be a hazard, granted your plane is on fire with a few thousand pounds of kerosine in the tanks, but when you do live, you want your papers. This is really funny and sad, can you imagine being the person behind this guy, waiting for his briefcase and picking up the papers? Watch at the end of the video, you will see what I mean

(Via CNN)

When airlines started charging for the first bag it drove me crazy. They just nickel and dime you to death. Some are even charging for drinks and water! So how much money could you even make charging for bags? Well I guess the jokes on me, cause it turns out to be over a billion dollars.

When airlines said that baggage fees were successful, they weren’t kidding. Collectively, they pocketed an extra $1.1 billion in luggage fees in 2008. American and US Airways led the pack — collecting $278 million and $187.1 million in bag fees respectively.

United Airlines kicked off the fun back in February of 2008 when it announced a $25 fee for the second checked bag. In May, while fuel prices soared and airlines started to hurt, American announced that it would add a $15 fee for the first bag, and the flood gates opened.

Now that consumers are used to the fees, there’s really no getting rid of them, though Southwest recently claimed that its lack of fees was helping it gain market share.

Of course all this was started back when the fuel prices were incredibly high, and they were looking at a way to counteract it. But you have noticed they are still charging . . . and prices are no where near what they were.

(Via Consumerist)

My name is Zac, and I have an addiction. Call them UAVs, The Predator, or the X-45, either way, I LOVE drones. And that pic above is one of the sexiest things I have ever seen! This one is a close second. Sure they are making a big deal out of them in the media killing a few people that maybe they shouldn’t have. Don’t get me wrong, I am actually not all about killing random people, what really impresses me is how they are flown from thousands of miles away.

Wired has a good article on how the CIA is sharing the feed to Pakistani security forces. CBS even has some video showing a little bit of the control systems, and how well the surveillance on them works.

Sure I would love to strap into a fighter jet, pull 4G’s, and “yank and bank.” But the next best thing in my opinion is flying one of these guys around trying to maintain the element of surprise while keeping visual contact on an element. Not to mention you could do all of this while ordering pizza delivery, and drinking a slurpy, lets see the F-16 guys do that!

(Via CBS, Wired)