Paris unplugged is a Blog featuring photographs of Paris through time. There are pictures of Pl d Bastille, Place de la Republique and Moulin Rouge through history, images of metro stations line by line, snapshots of the World Expos, maps of the Metro over its development and glimpses of Parisian shopping, fashion, culture and art all frozen in pictures. There are also pictures of buildings planned or imagined for Paris but never built. It is a fascinating and enjoyable wander through this amazing city.
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for January 2013.
Astronaut Tweets Flood Pics
The northern state of Queensland in Australia is having some of the most devastating floods ever (while the fires in the southern part are equally devastating!). A Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield took photos of the floods while passing over central Queensland in the International Space Station. The 54-year-old shared the pictures via Twitter. This is an image of the floods roaring through Bundaberg. The other pics are here.
The 787 Battery Fire: Step by step
On January 7, 2013 a JAL Boeing 787 landed at Boston Logan airport. It had flown as JAL008 from Tokyo Narita. The 787 had logged only 22 pressurisation cycles (basically the number of times it had been in the air) and 169 flight hours. It parked at the gate at 1006am local time. All 183 passengers and 11 crew left the plane. At 1032am the Cleaning and maintenance crew noticed smoke in cabin. Three minutes later, a mechanic noted flames coming from APU battery in the aft (rear) electronics bay. The Airport Rescue & Fire Fighting were notified at 1037am and the fire…
American Airlines New Livery
American Airlines has been using the same logo and aircraft livery for more than 40 years. The AA symbol, for example, complete with eagle,was created by Massimo Vignelli in 1967. Last week they announced a complete revamp. The new image was created by FutureBrand with input from AA customers and employees. The AA Logo on the tail is gone There is a new stylised red and blue tail which American’s Chief Commercial Officer describes: “Our core colors — red, white and blue – have been updated to reflect a more vibrant and welcoming spirit. The new tail, with…
Guy travels to 201 nations! No plane!
“The really tough ones were places like Nauru, and the Maldives and the Seychelles, island countries where there were also sometimes pirate threats.” A British guy, Graham Hughes, has become the first person to travel to all 201 sovereign states in the world without flying. He set out from Liverpool on New Year’s Day 2009. In the subsequent 1,426 days he travelled 160,000 miles by bus, foot, taxi and train but not by plane. Mr Hughes visited all 193 United Nations member states plus Kosovo, Palestine, Taiwan, Vatican City, Western Sahara, and the four home…
All 787s grounded-airline by airline
After a series of highly publicised problems including an ANA emergency landing on Wednesday 16 January, all 50 of the 787s across the world have been grounded. On Wednesday 16th January, 2013, US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered the grounding of all US-registered 787s and recommended other jurisdictions do the same: As a result of an in-flight, Boeing 787 battery incident earlier today in Japan, the FAA will issue an emergency airworthiness directive (AD) to address a potential battery fire risk in the 787 and require operators to temporarily cease operations. Before further flight, operators of U.S.-registered, Boeing 787 aircraft must demonstrate to…
The 28 airlines I have flown- that have gone
I was shocked to discover that of the 82 airlines I have flown, 28 are no longer in business! Who are they and what happened? Air Australia (2012) undercapitalised and badly planned, meant this carrier flew for only 3 months Aloha Airlines (2008) September 11, a contracting Japanese economy, intense competition between four airlines across Hawaii all impacted on Aloha Ansett (2001) I flew this airline 50 times before their Air New Zealand owners shut them down Australian Airlines (1993 and 2006) merged into Qantas, revived as a leisure brand and then scrapped in favour of…
Check your hotel clock
it has happened to me a few times now. Stagger into bed after a late night flight only to be woken by the hotel room alarm clock at 3am or having promised oneself a long overdue sleep in to have that reality disturbed at 5am by the hotel room alarm clock Sometimes guests manage to leave and forget the alarm clock settings. It is worth saving a quick check to make sure you are not going to be woken at an ungodly hour
Moving
I am moving cities today from Melbourne, Australia to Canberra, Australia. Any general interstate moving tips and any Canberra specific tips? Thank you
787 Safety “Concerns”
Boeing has now delivered 50 of their 787s over the last year. There have been some recent safety incidents which have got high profile attention: the most worrying was a fire that ignited last Monday in the battery pack of an auxiliary power unit of an empty Japan Airlines 787 30 minutes after it had landed at Logan International Airport in Boston. The fire took 40 minutes to contain. Glad it was on the ground. Last December, a United Airlines 787 flying from Houston to Newark made an emergency landing in New Orleans after the pilots got…
Recent Comments