Passenger cited for using cell phone on flight

A Dallas man was greeted by police when his Southwest flight arrived at Love Field on Monday after he refused to end a cell phone conversation during the flight from Austin. Southwest spokesperson Brandy King told the Dallas Morning News that “after multiple requests, the flight attendants were not successful in getting the passenger to get off the phone.” The jerk man, whose name was not released, was cited for disorderly conduct by the police. Unlike our European friends, it is still illegal to operate cell phones during commercial flights in the US. Airlines can even face a fine of up to $25,000 if cell phone usage is permitted according to Ms. King. Hopefully this will be a lesson to annoying d-bags everywhere who think they are so important.

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World's biggest plane...butt shot

I don't usually post random pictures, but I saw this shot on Airliners.net and wanted to share it. From a photography and art standpoint, it's an amazing shot of the sole Antonov 225, also known as the largest airplane in the world. This Ukrainian beast was shot on Boxing Day at Schiphol in Amsterdam last year. Very nice symmetry looking here at the business end.

Photo credit: Tim De Groot - AirTeamImages

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Qantas exec to face jail time for role in "Cargo Cartel"

This is collusion with a capital C. Former Qantas Airlines VP of Freight for the Americas, Barry McCaffrey, could be the first person jailed for his involvement in a price-fixing conspiracy according to Aviation Week. The US Justice Department has already laid out some pretty hefty fines for British Airways, Japan Airlines, and Korean Air for their involvement in the conspiracy. McCaffrey is trying to reach a plea deal with the DOJ now that will include admission of his role and outing of other co-conspirators who met over a period of 7 years to set prices on freight going to and from the U.S.

The crime carries a maximum $1 million fine and up to 10 years in prison, but McCaffrey will likely not see that extent with any kind of deal with the DOJ. Qantas has already paid their share for participating in the "Cargo Cartel" with a $61 million fine. The investigation has been ongoing since 2006 when German carrier Lufthansa reached a deal with EU and DOJ prosecutors for immunity in return for snitchen on other airlines in the cartel. If you've ever seen a mob movie, I don't have to tell you what would happen to them next.

The DOJ hasn't commented on any other indictments yet, although it appears other airline executives could also see jail time for their involvement. A spokesperson for the DOJ did say "The department remains dedicated to aggressively pursuing those who conspire to cheat American businesses and consumers with price-fixing schemes".

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FAA official gets free flight training from Southwest

More good news from the cozy couple that is Southwest Airlines and the FAA. Allegedly the manager at the federal office who oversees Southwest's regulatory compliance received $15,000 worth of free flight training from the airline according to USA Today. Bobby Hedlund, who was promoted last year to head up the Southwest office, received months of training gaining him the equivalent of a type rating in the Boeing 737 all on Southwest's dime. The training is under investigation by the FAA according to spokeswoman Diane Spitalieri, but it has already been called an "an arrangement that violates rules of conduct." This, of course, is all on the heels of an already embarrassing inappropriate relationship between the FAA and Southwest that was outed by FAA whistleblowers in March.

Often FAA inspectors receiving flight training to fulfill their inspection duties and to stay on top of changing technologies, but this training is supposed to be done at the taxpayer's expense, not airlines'. Robert Naccache, a former FAA inspector from the Southwest office called it "the most flagrant conflict of interest that I have ever witnessed in my 20-year career in the federal government." At least Hedlund should have a good career in 737 flying if the FAA decides to let him go.

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Lavatory Fire

An aircraft operated for Northwest Airlines made an emergency landing this morning in Fargo, North Dakota. The Compass flight #2040 was on its way from Regina, Saskatchewan to Minneapolis when it was forced to make an emergency landing after a passenger disposed of his doobee in the trash can a fire started inside a lavatory.

The 69 passengers, two pilots, and two flight attendants were doing fine. The passengers were put up in a hotel, and their flight was re-booked.

Sounds like someone forgot to watch/listen to the all-important safety briefing regarding no smoking in the cabin. At least they didn't tamper with the lavatory smoke detector -- a federal offense.

If I can find any actual pictures of the damage, I will put them up here.

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767 Panel Falls Off In Flight

A skin panel of a Boeing 767 fell off a short time after takeoff on a American Airlines flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Paris recently. The pilot noted that he heard a loud noise and felt some vibrations, having no idea what could be causing it, yet continued the flight on to Paris without incident. Come to find out the panel covering air conditioning components had fallen off. Oops. Oh yeah, and as standard airline language reads -- "the aircraft was never in danger."

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F-18 comes crashing to the ground after crane drops it

Judging by the beam coming out the business end of this Canadian F-18, I imagine the CAF was attempting to have it mounted as some sort of display aircraft at Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake in Alberta. That was until one of the cables holding the F-18 snapped and she dropped violently to the ground. Good thing that one guy had moved out of the way just in time. I'm thinkin' she'll need a good nose job after this.

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Pilot View Camera

The Pilot View FPV 2400 is a wireless (obviously) camera system that can strap on any remote controlled aircraft and stream images to the pilot on the ground, who is wearing video goggles. Range is about 1 km (.62 miles) over the 2.4ghz spectrum and the video quality is surprisingly good -- it the aircraft wasn't a 1/8 scale model, it would look like you were flying a real aircraft from the cockpit. See the video below for actual footage of the video quality. As an added bonus, you don't have to look like a tard when you are flying the aircraft toward you and turn right when you meant to go left, or vice versa. You only have to feel like a tard because you look like Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) from Star Trek.

It will set you back $550, so don't go out buying this camera system to strap on your inaugural flight or even the 10th flight of your new R/C craft, unless you have $$ to burn or are feeling lucky.

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King Air goes unicycle in this wierd "gear up" landing

I don't think I've ever seen an aircraft land with only its nose gear before. It is a very bizarre sight. This King Air 90 did just that on May 6 at Dunn Airpark in Titusville, Florida after it lost it's main gear on a previous landing attempt. The pilot does a very nice job of easing her down on a grass strip near the runway. No injuries on this one and the FAA is investigating.

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Launch Complex 40 comes crashing down...sorta

The last exciting thing to happen at Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, Florida was the final launch of the Titan IV rocket in 2005. That was until April 28th, when a group of rocket scientists NASA and the Air Force orchestrated an "interesting" implosion of the mobile service gantry. As you can see in the video, instead of collapsing straight down, the gantry kind of leans over and falls to ground before sort of bouncing a little. Good job, NASA, now you still have a giant structure to get rid of.

The actual launch tower of LC-40 was disassembled earlier this year. The site is probably most famous for it's launches of Titan rockets carrying the Mars Viking lander and the somewhat more recent Cassini spacecraft. Twon't we launching anything else anytime soon.

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How to land a helo in Nepal

Not to sure on my Russian helicopters, but this looks like a Mil Mi-8 to me. Video was taken on April 19th at the "Makalu" Basecamp in Nepal. The helicopter slams down on its nose before performing a nice little pirouette. Pilot's lucky he didn't lose any rotor blades on this landing.

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Thermal Imaging Rats Out Laser Pointing Man

A helicopter pilot was hit by the same green laser twice in one night and decided to investigate. Mark Westwood flipped on his thermal imaging camera and found the 20-year old, Dean Bottomley, pointing his laser out of his bedroom window. The pilot reported he was temporarily unable to see anything and called police who arrested Bottomley. Bottomley admitted to pointing the laser and said he was just having a laugh according to the Mirror UK. For for having "a laugh" Bottomley is facing up to 5 years in jail for admitting to endangering an aircraft and will be sentenced on June 6 sentencing date.

I'll give you one second to guess where he purchased the laser pointer...




...you guessed it, eBay.

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NASA Delays Shuttle Mission

NASA's final visit to the Hubble Space Telescope has been delayed at least a month due to the extra time needed to build the shuttle fuel tanks needed for the flight and a potential rescue mission. The Hubble mission is unique, in that it is the first non-ISS flight since the Columbia disaster in 2003. As such, should something go awry on the first shuttle's launch, a rescue shuttle would need to be launched to pick up the stranded astronauts. Up until this point, if a shuttle was damaged during launch, the astronauts could hang out at the ISS and not be in danger.

Atlantis and her crew were supposed to launch in late August but now won't make the journey until the end of September or early October.

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Dookey...the jet fuel of tomorrow

Poopy petroleum...feces fuel...green apple splatters gas...whatever you want to call it, tomorrow's airliners may be running on excrement. A Washington D.C. company is currently designing a plant to be built in California that will turn garbage, tree bark, and yes, even manure into synthetic jet fuel. Solena Group's plan will include collecting the raw waste from Norcal Waste Systems, one of California's largest biomass waste collectors, and converting it to fuel using the Fischer-Tropsch method. This is the same method the US Air Force has already used to make it's synthetic based jet fuel out of coal. The Fischer-Tropsch method can essential coax petroleum out of any carbon-based compound, including scat. Solena Group intends on producing the feces fuel by 2011.

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Not everyone so lovey dovey with Bombardier in the Show-Me-State

About a month and a half ago, we told you that Bombardier is considering a new assembly plant for their proposed C-Series of airliners in Kansas City, Missouri. And although the state was willing to give them the biggest tax credit in Missouri history to entice the aerospace giant, not everyone from the Show-Me-State is as interested in aiding our neighbors to the North. Here's a anti-Canuck video being aired in Missouri right now by one interest group with a very one-sided approach.

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Dallas Air Traffic Controllers Lied (and then got canned)

Dallas-Fort Worth Terminal Radar Approach Control (Tracon) management investigated errors and pilot deviations, but misclassified them as pilot errors or non-events, according the the FAA. That conclusion was reached after an investigation by the Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General (OIG).

The OIG report, prompted by some beloved whistleblowers' allegations, determined that between November 2005 and July 2007, Tracon managers misclassified 62 air traffic events as pilot deviations or non-events when, in reality, there were 52 operational errors and 10 operational deviations.

The FAA has since "removed" both the facility manager and assistant manager at the DFW Tracon. Some other DFW controllers may also be without a job soon. The OIG report will be investigated further by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. The FAA's already in progress Traffic Analysis Review Program will be implemented ahead of schedule -- at DFW Tracon by then end of 2008 and nationwide by 2009.

Don't you feel safe knowing pilots are being blamed for air traffic controllers' screw ups? Wonder what other Tracons have been up to.

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Air Marshals' Names Tagged on "No Fly" List

This one makes no sense to me. According to the Washington Times, some federal air marshals have been denied boarding onto flights on which they were assigned to protect because their names matched those on the terrorist no-fly list! The Transportation Security Administration is not denying this and has said they are taking steps toward fixing this problem. The air marshals said that this problem has persisted for years.

One air marshal said he has been harassed for the last six years because his name matched a suspected terrorists name. This is ridiculous...the people who are hired by our government to protect the citizens are not being allowed to fly on their flights because their names happen to be the same as a suspected terrorist. Sweet job TSA.

In traditional reactionary form, a new directive has been issued that “mitigates any misidentification concerns by empowering airlines to quickly clear an air marshal’s status after positively identifying their law enforcement status.” Sounds like fancy mumbo jumbo that should have been understood and implemented back when the "no-fly" list was created.

The worst thing about it is that the Federal Air Marshal program is administered by the TSA.

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Russians to Fly Superjet 100 in May

You say what is so exciting about the Russians flying a new plane? Well it just happens to be Sukhoi's Superjet 100, the fruit of almost a decade of efforts by Russia's largest warplane maker -- with big hopes to re-enter the global market for commercial aircraft (fat chance). According to Reuters, the Russians will perform the long-delayed test flight in the first half of May.

The Superjet 100 is designed to seat 75-95 passengers. The flight was originally scheduled to take place in late 2007, but was moved to 2008 for unknown communist reasons.

Also, see the comparison photo of the Boeing 787 to the Superjet 100 -- and in my opinion there really is no comparison...but interesting nonetheless.


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Phenom 300 First Flight Video and Pictures

Embraer's Phenom 300 had its first flight yesterday, pretty exciting. Check out the pictures and video of the event below. The first Phenom 300, serial number 99801 is expected to enter service in the second half 2009.

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Guy Gets Rolled by Hot Air Balloon

Funny video of a bunch of people trying to stop a hot air balloon and losing.

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Spectacular Earthrise Photos

These are some amazing shots captured using the onboard High Definition Television of the lunar explorer "KAGUYA " (SELENE) on April 6, 2008. The KAGUYA is currently flying in a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km. An "Earth-rise," or the rising Earth over the Moon, was first captured by the NASA Apollo project.

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Clinton Gets Bigger Jet

The Hillary Clinton campaign recently upgraded its chartered plane from a Boeing 717, to a larger McDonnell-Douglas MD-81.

The longer, yet older aircraft offers seating for 143 passengers, versus a mere 88 seats on the smaller 717-200. The larger aircraft also provides Senator Clinton with her own entrance at the front of the plane, as well as a separate lavatory; on the 717, she had to stoop to using the same facilities as the press, at the back of the plane -- gasp. And she says Obama is the elitist.

Members of the media also now will use the rear entrance to the aircraft rather than the forward entrance on the 717. Like the 717, the new/old aircraft was chartered from Midwest Airlines, which configured the MD-81 to charter sports teams and the seats also offer increased legroom over those on the 717.

I am a bit stunned that Al Gore hasn't blasted the Clinton campaign for selecting the far less efficient MD-81 over the 717. And yes, the picture is of the actual aircraft she flies on: N805ME.

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TNT 737 Lost Gear Thanks to Distracted Crew

Poor airmanship is to blame for an accident that happened during a night time approach which occurred when a TNT Airways Boeing 737-300 lost one of its main landing gear during a balked go-around two years ago. The aircraft was on a actual instrument conditions Cat IIIA approach when air traffic control passed a company message to the crew requesting a diversion to Liverpool. The captain attempted to reply but inadvertently disconnected both autopilots.

The 737 then descended rapidly as the captain tried to re-engage the autopilots and belatedly tried to execute a go-around, but the aircraft struck the ground at 300 feet to the left of the runway centerline.

Even after the right main landing gear was gone, the aircraft became airborne again. To make matters worse, the aircraft's right and left trailing-edge flaps were stuck at 40° and 32° respectively and its messed up gear remained extended. It then diverted to Birmingham for an emergency landing, which is shown on the above video. The accident happened on June 16, 2006 and the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch accident report was just released.

Also revealed in the report was that it was the Captain's first Cat IIIA approach in actual instrument conditions since being promoted from first officer four months prior. Further, the first officer did not appear to understand that he could make the go-around call. The first officer made the go-around call as the aircraft struck the ground...nice timing.

Thankfully no one on-board the aircraft was injured.

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Airbus "Reviewing" Ramp Up in A380 Deliveries

Airbus CEO Tom Enders said Airbus is reviewing its delivery targets for the A380 and they might make it happen -- raising those pesky possibilities of further delays. Airbus' targets called for 13 deliveries of the world's biggest passenger aircraft in 2008 and 25 in 2009.

The bad thing for Airbus is that it builds aircraft that are primarily with European products purchased with the Euro and a large portion of their aircraft are purchased with US Dollars, which puts it at a disadvantage to its US rival Boeing.

We will see if Airbus makes it all happen. Oh yeah, and for those of you who haven't heard, there will be hot showers available for some wealthy first-class passengers aboard Emirates A380s.

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Sweet A10 RC Airplane

Looks so real, only 1/5 the real A10 size. The $12,000 beast has with two jet turbines, three on-board microprocessors, 24 servos, a 1" OLED display in its cockpit, and a fully-functional gatling gun. At first glance, you might mistake it for a real A10.

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Crazy Fighter Jet Crash

This is an interesting video of a MiG 29 crash taken at an airshow from multiple angles, pretty amazing.

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787 Comes Out to See the World...Briefly

Over the weekend, Boeing rolled out a couple of the production 787s on a special day. The rollout marked the one year anniversary since major structural components began to come togther to make this beauty. See all the hi-res pictures below:


Images: Charles Conklin

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Drunk Passenger Duct Taped to Seat

Lesson to be learned...don't attack a flight attendant, especially when drunk. This man did not get the message though. He attacked a flight attendant and was then wrassled back into his seat by a group of passengers and crew during a United flight (#862) flight last week from Hong Kong to Los Angeles.

The unruly man was then duct-taped to his seat by several passengers aboard. Yes, he was duct taped and I think that adds another use to the already existing 1001 known uses. Needless to say, he was arrested when the plane landed in LA.

To add to his criminal charges, he injured a number of the passengers who were trying to restrain him after his outburst. There were 329 passengers, 15 flight attendants, and 4 pilots on board the United B747 flight. The name of the passenger was not released, but I've learned that he was from the Orange County, California area.

Update 3:27pm: For those of you who are concerned, this is not the picture of the dude who was strapped to the aircraft seat...it was used for illustrative purposes only. If you are so concerned, where was your concern for this post, do you think this is actually the pilot?

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SnoPo bound!

Well, I'm off to the land where Buffalo Wings were created for the 42nd Annual Snow Symposium this week. Better known as the SnoPo, this annual event is the pinnacle for aviation nerds like myself who engage the evil art of airport snow removal. While I'm in Buffalo I'll have some sketchy connections to the internet and PointNiner. If I come across anything major, I'll give it the ole' college try to post it up, otherwise Aaron will be left at the helm.

See you on Friday (hopefully),

Steve

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Lockheed flips the switch on first F-35B

Lockheed Martin announced today that they successfully completed the first power-on test of the F-35B which is the STOVL (Short TakeOff and Vertical Landing) variant of the upcoming Joint Strike Fighter. This milestone gets them even closer to a first flight scheduled sometime around early June. The test, which actually took place on April 18th, was the first time that the Pratt & Whitney F135 engine has ran while integrated to an F-35B airframe. BAE test pilot Graham Tomlinson was at the controls for the engine run that took the F135 all the way up to full military power without afterburner. Tomlinson, a Brit, will also be the first for fly the F-35B. Program officials were quite pleased with the engine run that lasted nearly one hour and included opening and closing the shaft-driven lift fan doors. Can't wait to see this baby hover.

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