Beginnings of a Love In 1971, I celebrated a childhood birthday in Hong Kong. It was a time of many firsts—my first time in Hong Kong, which then seemed so mysterious with Chinese signs, British police officers, and fingers flying over abacuses in small street side stores. My birthday cake came from Maxims (those who know Hong Kong know Maxims, the quintessential bakery). My parents bought me a toy 747 with flashing lights and moving wings from a toy store, and then we boarded my first flight on a 747. Symbolically, it was with Pan…
Aeroplane News (Saturday)
Category Archives for Aeroplane News (Saturday).
All about the 737MAX and How to avoid Flying
In 1999, I flew a Swissair MD11 from Singapore to Zurich. I was in the middle seat of the emergency exit row with two passengers from Switzerland. In the aisle seat was an Italian Swiss guy who presented himself as a humorous, jovial warm guy. To my left, by the exit door, was a more serious French-Swiss woman. The Italian guy beneath his laughs and bravado confided in us that he was terrified of flying on the MD11. The fatal fiery crash of Swissair 111, an MD11 flying between New York and Zurich, just a…
Skies Explored: A Year in Flight, Rating 15 Aircraft
Last week, I shared insights into the 83 flights that defined my 2023 travel adventures. I offered my candid ratings for the airlines I flew. That aerial odyssey meant i travelled on 15 distinct aircraft types. Now, join me in ranking those planes, gauged by my personal impressions of these flying machines… The List-Ranked from my most favourite aircraft # Aircraft 2023 Km Flown 2023 Flights My rating 1 Airbus 380 6,301 1 100% 2 Embraer 175 1,433 2 100% 3 Airbus 350 23,364 5 96% 4 Boeing 787 12,646 3 94% 5 Boeing 717…
BA farewells 747s
“Sad Day for All” the understated words of an Air Traffic Controller at Kemble/Cotswold Airport summed up how I and so many 747 enthusiasts felt as the very last two British Airways Jumbo 747-400s departed the fleet. British Airways Boeing 747-400, G-CIVB and G-CIVY took off from London Heathrow Runway 27R on Thursday 8th October at 0646am and 0711am respectively. The airline had planned for the two Boeing 747s to have departed side by side from the airport’s parallel runways. As a result, of terrible weather, this spectacular double departure did not occur. G-CIVB (Negus…
Airbus’ 2035 Zero emissions Hydrogen planes
With the drive to shift the world from fossil fuels, companies across the world are looking for new types of aircraft fuel. Norway’s government have already announced that they want domestic flights operated by electric planes by 2030. Hydrogen is becoming more and more appealing as the emissions free fuel to move a decent number of passengers long distances. Currently, hydrogen is expensive to produce and store but there is significant effort going into making hydrogen through “clean processes” such as solar, wind or geothermal methods. It is expected by the 2030s, we will have…
Following the Farewell to 49 years of Qantas 747
What would I have given to be on this 747 as it made its last voyage across the Pacific? Sadly, no passengers were aboard, sadly, nor any cabin crew. I would not have qualified as one of the half a dozen lucky pilots either who took the last ever Qantas 747 from Sydney to Los Angeles. After 49 years of service, COVID19 accelerated the retirement of Qantas’ Jumbo jet and their last plane of the type was ferried to the Mojave desert this week. With cooperation from Qantas, Air traffic control and the pilots entered…
Farewell Air France’s 380
Another impact of COVID19 is Air France’s early retirement of their ten A380s, just eleven years after the airline first received them. The CEO of the Air France-KLM group Brian Smith indicated that he is absolutely not a fan of the A380 saying in 2019, that while passengers love it, the plane is not suitable for the airline as it is expensive, unreliable and too large. Smith in trying to reduce Air France’s complex fleet structure and confusing product range, indicated their ten A380s (five leased and five owned) would be gone by 2022. The…
737 MAXs take over employee car park
Extraordinary footage of Boeing 737 MAX planes grounded at Paine Field in Everett, Washington, USA, forty kilometers (25 miles) north of Seattle. The footage was taken by local TV network King5 in June 2019. Globally, there are approximately five hundred grounded 737 MAX’s and 100 of those are at The Boeing Company’s Renton, Washington Factory in southern Seattle. There are now so many 737 MAXs waiting that Boeing has started placing them in the employee car park. It must be a weird feeling driving into a car park to be confronted by a product that…
50 years of Airbus…what is your favourite plane?
I belong to a special class of nerds that are actually fascinated by the different models of planes that ply our skies. If you do not share this “nerdishenss“, then you may want to skip this post! It is the fiftieth anniversary of Airbus Industrie, established as a government initiative between France, West Germany and the UK that originated in 1967. The name “Airbus” was used as it was acceptable to the French linguistically! This video captures a stunning tribute to all ten of the Airbus models Which model is your favourite? I will be…
Happy 50th Birthday to the 747-the first plane I loved!
On the 9th of February 1969, the first 747 flew for the first time, a nearly two-hour flight from Everett, Washington and back again. My first flight with the 747 was on my birthday on a Pan Am flight to Sydney, Australia in 1971. My parents had organised for a birthday cake on the plane. I had already fallen in love seeing the plane from the Hong Kong airport window. Every second of that journey felt like magic (Pan Am was still a great airline at that time). For months afterwards, I would pretend I…
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