Yearly Archives

Yearly Archives for 2011.

Air India to start 787 service to Melbourne in October! NO!

Media Reports are full of the news that:  “Melbourne will be the first Australian city to receive scheduled 787 service when Air India deploys the aircraft on its new Delhi-Melbourne route in October.” (Flightglobal.com). Seeing that’s my home city, I took an interest. Context first: This news came amidst celebrations accompanying the touchdown of a 787 at Indira Gandhi International airport in New Delhi. Air India has 27 of the planes on order and got $45million in compensation for their delayed delivery (three years now). Air India is the number two customer for the 787 after Japan’s ANA.…

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Buildings of Brasília – Awe Inspiring Capital

Aboard the tourist bus I have two more blogs to conclude my description of my experiences of Brasilia, the planned capital city of Brazil. The previous four are: Boggling Brasília – overview of a planned metropolis June 14, 2011- Bewitching Brasília -birds eye view of the capital June 17, 2011- Appraising Brasília –How does this planned city rate? July 28, 2011: Touring Brasília – the Tourist Experience Tomorrow’s Blog will tackle the fundamental problem of Brasília- successfully being a pedestrian! I took a very informative Tourist bus for a two hour tour of Oscar Niemeyer’s awe inspring architecture. Niemeyer’s was responsible for most of the…

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Airbus Hail Storm

I have been in a bird strike where the windscreen of a small plane was shattered as were taking off from Kirkwall airport in the UK. These images of what hail can do to an Airbus 330 are astounding. This must have been quite a storm. The Emirates A330-200  (registration A6-EAP) was en route from Dubai, UAE to Munich, Germany as flight EK501.  The plane went through a hail zone, 30 nautical miles south of Vienna, Austria. The crew decided to divert and landed safely at Prague, Czech Republic 40 minutes later. Passengers then travelled by…

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Road Warrior Help and Advice sought!

I travel with a whole stack of electrical cords, plugs and outlets. I have stored them all together in a little box. They got all tangled up and the box is thicker than I want for my hand luggage.  I then stored them in 3 little bags which fit into my small pockets of my laptop bag- I then forget what is in which bag! How do you store your cords, plugs and adaptors? I need something which protects, is light, 2.5cm thick (can be 60cm wide), not too expensive, is easy to access stuff from my…

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The World Visits my Blog

This month, my Blog turns one! Although to be fair no one looked at my Blog in the first month! Since then,  almost 12 500 people have peeked at a post.  In June, 2011,  I had the highest number of visitors. In May, I had my second highest number of visitors to this Blog. Favourite Posts? A lot of readers share my passion for the A380 with almost one in ten enjoying Three Airlines-one plane- comparing the A380. People seem to enjoy my reviews about plan flightses. eg my Reviews of V Australia Australia to LA  and Royal…

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the 787 in “operation: in Japan

I am excited! The 787 has started a series of simulation flights around japan to test the airliner in service. Here are some great pics from Seattle‘s Post Inquirer newspaper. A Boeing 787 (middle) taxis Behind a Boeing 767 after arriving from Seattle at Tokyo‘s Haneda International Airport on Sunday, July 3, 2011 –Seattle PI  787 is welcomed to Japan I want to fly on it soon!

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Auckland is getting better

I first came to Auckland as an adult in November, 1991 – almost 20 years ago. It was the middle of the 1990s recession and Auckland felt grim. Wellington, Auckland’s rival city  640 km  (398 miles) was also grim but I connected to Wellington with its art and fashion scene, good public transport and walkable sights. Auckland and I never connected. I have always been someone who has favoured one city over another (hence why I do my city rankings): San Francisco over Los Angeles Melbourne before Sydney Paris and not London Liverpool over Manchester Glasgow before Edinburgh Toronto before Vancouver…

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China Southern A380 News

The 7th airline in the world to get their 380 will be China Southern. One of their planes rolled out of the paint shop this week.  It will go back into the hangers for more work, apparently, before delivery later in the year. The Airline’s layout has been released. They will have 506 seats across all classes (Air France has 516 or 538, Lufthansa 526,  Emirates 489/517, Singapore 471, Qantas 450 and Korean 407): First Class, 1-2-1 layout, is located on the lower deck. Business Class, situated on the upper deck, is 1-2-1 428 Economy seats…

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