Aircraft-Industries

The Boeing 747 Family -- The Right Choice for the Large Airplane Market

noreply@blogger.com (nazmaz2008) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 12:37:00 -0700

Instantly recognized by passengers around the world, the Boeing 747 is in a class by itself. The 747-8 continues the 747 family legacy by integrating advanced technology into one of the world's most modern and fuel-efficient airplanes. The Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental and 747-8 Freighter are the new high-capacity 747s that offer airlines the lowest operating costs and best economics of any large passenger or freighter airplane. The 747-400 incorporates major aerodynamic improvements over earlier 747 models, including the addition of winglets to reduce drag, new avionics, a new flight deck and the latest in-flight entertainment systems. And, the 747 continues to be the world's fastest subsonic jetliner, cruising at Mach .855 -- or 85.5 percent of the speed of sound. Along with the popular Boeing 777, the 747 is a key element of the Boeing long-range market strategy. With the lowest operating cost per ton-mile in the industry, the new-technology Boeing 747-400 Freighter is the all-cargo transport member of the 747-400 family. It can carry twice as much cargo, twice as far, as the competitor's leading freighter. Along with earlier versions, 747 Freighters -- about 225 in all -- carry half of all the world's freighter air cargo. Boeing has taken another huge step in the continuing evolution of the world's most recognized jetliner, the 747. The 747-400ER Family -- available in both passenger and freighter versions -- provides the same size as current 747-400s, and offers an even more unbeatable combination of payload, range and speed. Did you know the 747-400 wing measures 5,600 square feet (524.9 sq m), an area large enough to hold 45 medium-sized automobiles? More

When your laptop goes down with the plane. Re-Post

noreply@blogger.com (nazmaz2008) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 12:01:00 -0700

You've heard the warnings: It's not if you'll lose vital data through some hard drive catastrophe but when. So backing up files is critical. As passengers of US Airways Flight 1549 have discovered, you may want to consider a backup service in the "cloud."

Few people suffer data loss in quite as harrowing a fashion as Bill Wiley. He was a second row passenger on the plane that was famously forced to make an emergency landing on the Hudson River. The passengers all survived the crash, of course. But Wiley still hasn't recovered the two computers he had on board, containing about 250 gigabytes of data from his employer Computer Associates.

Wiley had been good about backing up files on the two computers by sharing the contents of one hard drive with the other. He also kept data on thumb drives. And he rarely traveled with both machines, but had to in this case because of an assignment. "I had no idea how screwed I was about to be," he recalls.

Fellow passenger Paul Jorgensen was more fortunate, at least when it came to his computer. The night before the flight, Jorgensen backed up "a ton of data" on his IBM ThinkPad via a business account his employer had with the Mozy online backup service. Jorgensen works for Epocrates, a producer of medical software.

"Pretty quickly after I realized I was 100% safe [on the ferry] I realized I was going to be in pretty deep trouble without that laptop," says Jorgensen, who had been seated in the first row of the plane. "My life is in that laptop."

Within a day, Mozy sent him 6 DVDs with recovered data. "The accident was on a Thursday. By Monday I was completely back up and running."

Mozy says it stores more than 10 petabytes of data (roughly 500 trillion pages of text). The company charges home users $4.95 a month for backup. Businesses pay $3.95 per month for each license, plus 50 cents per GB. You can restore data for free over the Web but must pay a fee for a DVD.

My own experience is nowhere near as dramatic. But I too recently lost crucial files on my home computer that I was able to restore with an online subscription to Carbonite. Consumers pay $55 a year for this life preserver.

Wiley has since signed with Mozy. (Full disclosure: USA TODAY got in touch with the two passengers after being contacted by Mozy. Though neither works with the company, Mozy gave Wiley a comp subscription, and waived the fee for Jorgensen's DVDs.) The episode, he says, left him with a new meaning for the term crash.

By Edward Baig
Photo: Passengers are rescued after a U.S. Airways plane crashed into the Hudson River in New York January 15, 2009. (Eric Thayer/Reuters)

When your laptop goes down with the plane

noreply@blogger.com (nazmaz2008) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:18:00 -0700

Within a day, Mozy sent him 6 DVDs with recovered data. "The accident was on a Thursday. By Monday I was completely back up and running."

By Edward Baig
Photo: Passengers are rescued after a U.S. Airways plane crashed into the Hudson River in New York January 15, 2009. (Eric Thayer/Reuters)

A-10 Thunderbolt II

noreply@blogger.com (nazmaz2008) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:03:00 -0700

The A-10 Thunderbolt II, also known as the Warthog, is a twin-engine aircraft that provides close-air support of ground forces and employs a wide variety of conventional munitions, including general purpose bombs. The simple, effective and survivable single-seat aircraft can be used against all ground targets, including tanks and other armored vehicles. The aircraft is currently supporting operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.