The Aviation Thread [Contains Lots of Awesome Pictures]

More trouble is on the horizon for Boeing, as they are forced to postpone the 737 Max' return to service. It's now likely it won't happen until after the summer. This is very critical for some airlines who will have many of these standing on the ground not generating revenue during the summer months. Don't know about the US, but here the summer months are imperative, as they tend to provide the boost in revenue they need to get through the slow winter months. Airlines will therefore be forced to wet-lease replacements, which is expensive.

This is bad. By comparison, the DC-10 was grounded for 37 days by the FAA over safety concerns, and that was generally viewed as a disaster for McDonnel Douglas in general, and for the DC-10 in particular. Soon, the 737 Max has been grounded for a full year, which shows how deep this goes.

Also, this comes on top of Boeing's other problems some of them minor, others large, like the 787 losing orders, the issues with the KC-46 (767) tankers, and recent problems during testing of the 777X, causing delays.
 
This is bad. By comparison, the DC-10 was grounded for 37 days by the FAA over safety concerns, and that was generally viewed as a disaster for McDonnel Douglas in general, and for the DC-10 in particular. Soon, the 737 Max has been grounded for a full year, which shows how deep this goes.

Also, this comes on top of Boeing's other problems some of them minor, others large, like the 787 losing orders, the issues with the KC-46 (767) tankers, and recent problems during testing of the 777X, causing delays.

Government bailout bad? I mean consolidation in the aircraft industry means Boeing is big big. Can they weather the storm economically? I thought it was like they said the airlines that crashed them... then I see nope they boldly lied. I was on a 737-800 with a women who was losing it and her husband trying to tell her he googled it wasn't helping. How long is it going to be (rough estimate) till we know if they really are screwed?
 
Well this is going to be awkward

uHOkP3I.png
 
Passenger at Chicago airport steals marijuana from ‘Cannabis Amnesty Box’

Who could have foreseen this?

Police in Chicago say an incoming traveler at Midway Airport managed to steal marijuana from one of the facility’s “Cannabis Amnesty Boxes” on Wednesday.

The boxes, which were installed only weeks ago to coincide with the legalization of recreational marijuana in Illinois, are intended for departing passengers wishing to dispose of their cannabis products before boarding their flights at Midway or O’Hare.
 
A truly victimless crime. Sick the dogs on them!
 
Nice tailwind... :D

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/british-airways-sets-new-transatlantic-speed-record/

According to a German news report, they achieved a top (ground) speed of 1328 kph (717 kn)...

Hmmm. My last JFK-LHR flight was rather quick too, I almost way to say it was quicker than 4:56.

EDIT: Found it in my App In The Air profile. VS10 on Dec 11. Left JFK at 22:26 UTC-5 (26 minutes late) and arrived at LHR at 08:59 UTC (51 minutes early). That's 5 hours 33 minutes, but I think App In The Air uses gate to gate time rather than wheels up to touchdown.
 
Last edited:
That storm made for some interesting landings and takeoffs :

 
Government bailout bad? I mean consolidation in the aircraft industry means Boeing is big big. Can they weather the storm economically? I thought it was like they said the airlines that crashed them... then I see nope they boldly lied. I was on a 737-800 with a women who was losing it and her husband trying to tell her he googled it wasn't helping. How long is it going to be (rough estimate) till we know if they really are screwed?
Well, if this goes really pear shaped, we may see a government bailout, as Boeing (and by extension it's suppliers and sub suppliers) is so big that the US economy would feel it if they went out of business. When the 737 Max returns to service you can be sure that all of the airlines will remove all Max-branding from them. Ryanair has even renamed them, 737-8200. Also, simply renaming it was also the fix suggested by the Very Stable Genius.

It's a shame really, as this will become a stain on the 737's long-lasting legacy. Boeing caved in to pressure from airlines in the US to make the Max as a quick-fix to keep up with the A320Neo-family, rather than doing a blank-sheet design, like they were originally planning to. This will entail enormous costs, as they will be forced to "unshelve" the designs they rejected when they went for the max.
 
Ryanair has even renamed them, 737-8200.

FYI - https://www.flightglobal.com/fleets/new-name-for-ryanair-737-max-is-not-actually-new/133547.article

Photographs circulating on social media purport to show a Ryanair 737 Max 8 – registered EI-HAY and parked at Boeing's Renton facility – with the 'Max' name no longer on the nose, possibly a response to perceptions that the 'Max' brand is tainted by poor publicity after the fleet was grounded five months ago.

The aircraft instead carries the identity '737-8200'.

Although the switch is notable, the name – contrary to a number of reports – is not a new designation for the aircraft, and actually predates both the Max grounding and the two fatal accidents which led to the type's suspension from operations.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency had been referring to the 737-8200 in documents such as its 2015 annual activity report, published in June 2016, almost a year before the first ever 737 Max delivery.

This designation has frequently been included in US federal regulatory filings from Boeing and the US FAA since at least early 2017.
 
Last edited:
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/france-fighter-jet-ejection-scli-intl/index.html

A 64-year-old man accidentally ejected himself from a fighter jet at 2,500 feet


A surprise company outing to an air base caused a 64-year-old French man so much stress that he flung himself from a fighter jet in midair, grabbing the ejector button in a panic and tumbling through the skies above France before landing in a field.
The man had been surprised by employees at his firm, who had organized a joyride in a Dassault Rafale B jet for him as a treat.
But they apparently didn't know their colleague as well as they thought. Once the man arrived at the Saint-Dizier air base in northeastern France in March 2019 and realized what his co-workers had arranged, he began to feel extremely stressed, according to a fairly remarkable aviation accident report by a French government agency.

The unnamed man had never expressed any desire to fly in a fighter jet and had no previous military aviation experience, investigators discovered.
And thanks to a watch he was wearing which could measure his heart rate, investigators noticed that "his heart was in full tachycardia" before the flight, with a recorded heart rate ranging from 136 to 142 beats per minute.
But the man went through with the ride, joining a three-plane training exercise as a passenger. The Rafale B is used by the French air force, and has a maximum speed of nearly 1,400 kilometers per hour (870 miles per hour).

When the jet was 2,500 feet above ground and the pilot began to climb, the passenger panicked and reached for something to hold onto.
Unfortunately, that something was the ejector seat button -- and the 64-year-old flew from the fighter jet.
To make matters worse, he had not securely attached his helmet, which went flying in midair.
Fortunately, the man avoided seriously injury after parachuting to earth in a field near the German border.
Investigators concluded that the error was caused by an involuntary reflex, prompted by stress and the jet's sudden movement.
The pilot was not ejected and managed to land the plane safely, despite suffering some minor facial injuries during the ordeal.
The passenger, meanwhile, was taken to a nearby hospital after the flight.
 
 
Last Friday the world largest plane, the AN-225, came to Montreal, I believe for the first time. It landed in Mirabel (an airport 40 minutes north of Montreal now used mainly for cargo), bringing COVID-19 related medical supplies, and departed back the next day.

I would have loved to see it land and take a few pictures, but with the rules on essential travel currently in place, I didn't think it would have been appropriate.

Ironic that the one thing that brought that aircraft here is also what prevented me from going to see it.
 
Top