Inspire the Uninspired | JoeBurlas.com

History Says: It's Going to be Okay America

2017-04-26T14:44:00.001-04:00

After seeing a lot of outrage on social media from everything including politics to the recent United Airlines incident, I wrote something to friends and family on my Facebook account that I'd like to share with you all below.

I am hopeful that this may help some of you as we all look at an uncertain future. Until next time: Stay awesome, America.

"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're misinformed." - Mark Twain

OH-6 Helicopter Ceiling Fan

2017-03-18T22:30:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite pilot jokes goes "how do you know there's a pilot in the room?" to which the punchline is "they'll tell you." It's funny because it carries a lot of truth and you'll find that most of us bitten by the "aviation bug" tend to surround ourselves with our passion.

Common items you might find in a house occupied by someone in love with the skies (other than an understanding significant other) often include mounted propellers, aircraft models, and walls covered in system layouts, aviation achievements, or pictures of aircraft.

About a month ago, I saw something very different; a man had turned his ceiling fan into a helicopter.

After spending a good amount of time gawking, I sent the link over to my brother, Jim, who was also equally impressed. I thought that may have been the end of it but it wasn't.

A few days ago he sent me a photo of all the parts he had purchased to make our own and invited me over. I'm happy to report that as of this afternoon we have made our own and below is a video on how we did it.

Please see the links below the video if you're interested in doing the same and please share the joy. Aviation for all!

Links to help inspire your own helicopter ceiling fan:

Other photos from today:

"If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to." - Army Maintenance Manual

The 'miracle woman' who fell 33,000ft and survived

2017-02-22T19:37:00.001-05:00

There are some stories that we may have heard as children that gave us a mystifying sense of anything being possible. The story of Vesna Vulović would appear to be one of those. On January 26, 1972, 22-year old Flight Attendant Vesna was aboard JAT Flight 367 over what today is the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) en route from Stockholm to Belgrade when the DC-9 aircraft exploded, breaking into two pieces. Of the 28 passengers and crew on board the flight, 27 perished leaving Vulović, somehow miraculously, to be discovered by rescue workers at the scene of the accident.

According to a Telegraph article:

None of [other passengers] and crew survived An investigation concluded that flight JAT 367 had been destroyed while cruising at 33,000 feet by a bomb planted by Croatian separatists. For her remarkable survival Ms Vulovic won a mention in the Guinness Book of Records.

But mystery surrounds the crash. No one claimed responsibility, there were never any arrests and in 2009 two German journalists claimed the Czechoslovak air force had shot down DC-9 by mistake at an altitude of perhaps just 2,600 feet as it tried to make an emergency landing.

Ms Vulovic, now 62, can shed no light on the matter.

The last thing she remembers is greeting the passengers as they boarded. Her next memory, she said, is waking up in a Czech hospital and asking a doctor for a cigarette.

Much like my article previously in the week where I noted that the story of a Soldier who stole a helicopter and flew around Washington, D.C. left me thinking that it may have been a hoax, so too did this when I heard of her unbelievable story in the mid 1990s. And I'm glad I remembered her, too, since I doubt I would have paid much attention to the recent news of her passing away due to undetermined causes otherwise. Upon reading of her death this past December, and in a twist of irony, it seems that many of the readers were clear in expressing that it was only in knowing of her death did they now know the story of her life..

So how does one survive a fall from 33,000 feet? Despite starting this story describing a child-like mystery that stories like these bring to bear on things we cannot easily explain, the aviator and adult Joe Burlas who read multiple versions of the story would instead attribute her survival less to miracles and more to aerodynamics forces and wind resistance on the part of the wreckage she was discovered in. She certainly did not survive a 33,000 foot free-fall.

According to testimony of rescue crews that found her, she was discovered in the mostly intact tail section of the aircraft that slammed into and then slid down a snow-covered mountain side before finally coming to rest. Citing an often joked about truth in aviation that "it's not the speed that will kill you, it's the sudden deceleration," Vulović lucked out when her second of the aircraft did not come to land on a flat surface but instead glanced off of an angled surface which allowed her to be slowed down under obviously survivable, however still violent, circumstances.

An article in the Guardian describes the rest:

Trapped in the plane’s tail, Vulović plummeted to earth in sub-zero temperatures and landed on a steep, heavily wooded slope near a village. The fuselage tumbled through pine branches and into a thick coating of snow, softening the impact and cushioning its descent down the hill, crash investigators said at the time.

Vulović was rescued by a woodsman who followed her screams in the dark forest. She was rushed to hospital where she fell into a coma for 10 days. She had a fractured skull, two crushed vertebrae and a broken pelvis, ribs and legs. It was suspected that a bomb had been planted inside the jet during a stopover in Copenhagen. No arrests were ever made.

In 1985 Vulović entered the Guinness Book of Records for the highest fall survived without a parachute.

However, in 2009 two investigative journalists in Prague claimed the plane had probably been mistaken for an enemy aircraft and shot down by the Czechoslovakian air force, causing it to fall and break up at a much lower height than previously believed.

Based on secret documents mainly from the Czech civil aviation authority, unearthed after more than a year of research, Peter Hornung and Pavel Theiner said they did not believe the aircraft had been blown up by Croatian nationalists as the Yugoslav government, backed by Czechoslovakian authorities, claimed.

“It is extremely probable that the aircraft was shot down by mistake by the Czechoslovak air force and in order to cover it up the secret police conceived the record plunge,” Hornung said.

Initially paralysed from the waist down, Vulović eventually made almost a full recovery and even returned to work for the airline in a desk job.

She never regained memory of the accident or her rescue. She said in 2008 that she could only recall greeting passengers before takeoff from the airport in Denmark, and then waking up in hospital with her mother at her side.

She went on to put her celebrity at the service of political causes, protesting against Slobodan Milošević’s rule in the 1990s and later campaigning for liberal forces in elections.

"I enjoyed my service flying very much. That is where I learned the discipline of flying. In order to have the freedom of flight you must have the discipline. Discipline prevents crashes." - Captain John Cook

Man turns his garage into Boeing 737 simulator

2017-02-20T10:06:00.000-05:00

I was once told by a very smart woman that, "men will always be boys no matter how grown up they seem". After reading a story about Mark Lowen, a 53 year-old grown man who somehow convinced his wife that turning their entire garage into a functioning Boeing 737 simulator was the way to go, I can't deny there just may be some truth in that.

Now some of you may have just read the above statement and thought to yourself, "Hey! I'm a woman and I'd like a home-built flight simulator as much as any guy!" To which I reply, "I believe you since you're reading this obscure aviation themed website" but I'd like to also point out that with statistics on my side - you are in the vast minority. Unfortunately, I might add, as I'm a huge supporter of Women in Aviation and believe that aviation is for everyone.

That said, I will admit that until the article specifically mentioned that he had wife, I had my doubts on whether he even had a girlfriend; and then once again upon finding out that he was married, I began to wonder if this would even be a story if he were a single man. Probably not.

Feel free to throw your own perspective on that thought in the comments below.

I'll leave you with the full article taken from the UK's DailyMail:

A pilot has really made working from home take-off by installing a fully professional flight simulator in his garage.

Mark Lowen can fly anywhere in the world from the comfort of the garage of his home in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.

To make space his cars have been relegated to the driveway as the Boeing 737 simulator takes up the entire single-width garage.

Click here for a Video on the Flight Simulator
But 53-year-old claims buying the simulator was the best thing he has ever done despite complaints from his wife Wendy.

He's even turned his hobby into a business charging learner pilots and thrill-seekers to experience flying whatever route around the globe they wish.

He said: 'I was really excited to get it. Of course the cars had to come out, but I was more than happy to reverse those out fast.

'It's just a normal width garage, although it is long, and it took a lot of measuring to work out whether it would go.

'It just about fit in with a bit of a squeeze. I'm so happy it worked out well.

'My wife Wendy really was not sure about it when I first told her what I wanted to do.

'She still wasn't convinced when the business started.

'But now she sees the success of it, she does think it's a great idea'

Mark admits that it took a huge slice of luck to get his hands on a professional simulator.

The aircraft enthusiast, who has 20 years flying experience, became friends with the owner of a flight simulator company by chance, just as the company was looking to test new equipment.

And before long, he had so many of his friends begging for a go at the controls he started his own company, fly a flight, to recoup some of the cost.

Mark said: 'I love all planes. I fly light aircraft myself.

'I always wanted to be a commercial airline pilot but I couldn't as they thought I had a heart problem.

'It was pure luck that I happened to meet someone who runs a flight simulator company.

'He was looking to test a prototype. He had actually been doing a similar thing to me, allowing people to use it as an experience, but he got too busy and so passed it on to me to keep on testing.

'After the testing had finished, he allowed me to keep it. I was incredibly lucky. The software for these things is incredibly expensive, more so than the hardware.'

The simulator is the same as those used by airlines to train their pilots to fly Boeing 737 planes.

The cockpit is realistic and different scenarios can be programmed in to the simulator to allow users to take-off, fly and land in all weather, all over the world.

Although he has never flown this type of aircraft himself, Mike used his connections to receive training from a 737 instructor.

Using this knowledge and his own experience, he now gives people the chance to fly off on their holidays from the comfort of his garage.

He said: 'I have made it my business and I absolutely love it.

'The vast majority of people who come to us are novices who just want to give it a go.

'It's wonderful to see people's reactions when they first feel like they are in control of a big plane.

'I still fly myself as a hobby and I know what a rush it is.

'To begin with we take-off from Nice, do a circuit, and then come back in to land.

'People then often want to try their holiday take-offs and landings, so I've taxied down runways from all over the UK and landed in Ibiza, Mallorca and New York a lot.

'People often like to finish off with a landing in Hong Kong, as it's one of the most difficult.

'You get to do what you want to do. Some people just prefer to pilot the plane, others prefer to control the speed as well. The entire time, I'm there instructing you on what to do and talking you through it.

'Fortunately we don't have too many crashes, although we would have needed the emergency services on one or two of the more bumping landings.'

People's experiences in Mark's simulator have even encouraged some of them to take up flying and begin studying for their own pilot's licence.

"Let's take flight simulation as an example. If you're trying to train a pilot, you can simulate almost the whole course. You don't have to get in an airplane until late in the process." - Roy Romer

PAL V Now Sells the First Commercial Flying Car

2017-02-19T10:09:00.003-05:00

Until recently, most of what I've written about on this website has been what interests me the most in aviation. If you go back and look you'll see a lot recommendations on aviation videos that I found informative, opinions on new aviation technology, and even a few lists where I rank a company's top aircraft in tribute to their aviation contributions. This site was all about writing on whatever caught my attention in the aviation-sphere of things as I progressed through my own pilot-based adventure within aviation-land.

Every once in a while, despite the limited content on this website, I find myself pleased to see something I found interesting in the past re-surface in the news. For instance in 2011, I wrote about China getting their first aircraft carrier and last month it was re-confirmed that they were well on their way to building their second.

Well as chance seems to have it, it also happened again this month. After writing a fanboy-esque article on the PAL V One in 2013 and noting it's unique ability to seamlessly transition between sky bound aircraft and road ready vehicle, I saw a Slash Gear article announcing that the PAL V is now the first ever commercially sold flying car. Congratulations to the engineering team!

Unfortunately, outside of the announcement that the PAL V will be commercially available in 2018, the Slash Gear article was quick to point out some of their concerns with the vehicle writing, "PAL-V assures that [it] was a designed to comply with aviation and car regulations both in the European Union and the United States. It implies that there doesn’t need to be any change of regulations to accommodate this flying car, unlike ground-based self-driving cars. But those regulations probably never envisioned a single vehicle that can both drive on land as well as fly in the air."

Despite the concerns it seems that the people over at PAL V are a bit more optimistic in the future of the flying car and are already taking steps towards ensuring safety and adherence to aviation regulations by opening up the first ever "flying car school".

According to an article in PC World:

Roosevelt, Utah, now has the distinction of being the first city in North America to have a flying car school. The location was chosen both for its mountainous terrain and concentration of reputable instructors, according to Mark Jennings-Bates, vice president of sales for PAL-V.

PAL-V is still in the process of receiving approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the European Aviation Safety Agency for its flying car, though the company says that EASA has certified all the vehicle's individual components and it's now just a matter of putting them all together. If all goes well, PAL-V plans on rolling out its flying cars to customers in 2018.

Regardless of where you believe the PAL V might fit in with respects to existing federal regulations, seeing innovation in aviation carry through into marketplace is always exciting. Consider all the costs associated with doing anything new in this industry and the PAL V is a rarity. Of course, time will tell how successful this variant of the flying car will actually become but for now I'd say they've earned themselves a little celebration.

"Aviation is for the common man. My goal is to enable everyone to fly. It shouldn't be only for the rich." - Tony Fernandes

Soldier Steals Helicopter Unleashes Havoc on D.C.

2017-02-17T20:05:00.000-05:00

This is one of the most bizarre aviation anniversaries I have ever known to exist. When the article was sent to me for consideration about two weeks ago, I really didn't believe it actually happened. In fact, after reading the event's Wikipedia article, which is the source of the details below, a part of me still thought that maybe Wikipedia was returning to its wicked ways of being an unreliable source.

Yet finally, after seeing actual photographed articles about the incident, I'm confident in saying that this odd yet thoroughly entertaining tale of a disgruntled U.S. Army Private First Class stealing a UH-1 Iroquois helicopter to joyride it around Washington, D.C. leading to an airborne pursuit by two Maryland State Police helicopters, one of which he out maneuvers, only to be slightly injured by small arms fire from the ground convincing him to safely land his aircraft on the White House lawn did in fact take place.

Quite a story but according to the article:

At 2 A.M. on February 17, 1974, Robert K. Preston, a United States Army private first class, stole a United States Army Bell UH-1 Iroquois ("Huey") helicopter from Fort Meade, Maryland, flew it to Washington, D.C. and hovered for six minutes over the White House before descending on the south lawn, about 100 yards from the West Wing. There was no initial attempt from the Executive Protective Service to shoot the helicopter down, and he later took off and was chased by two Maryland State Police helicopters. Preston forced one of the police helicopters down through his maneuvering of the helicopter, and then returned to the White House. This time, as he hovered above the south grounds, the Executive Protective Service fired at him with shotguns and submachine guns. Preston was injured slightly, and landed his helicopter.

In a plea bargain, he pleaded guilty to "wrongful appropriation and breach of the peace," and was sentenced to one year in prison and fined $2,400. This amounted to a six-month sentence, since he had already been in prison for six months at the time. He eventually served two months of hard labor at Fort Riley, Kansas, before being granted a general discharge from the Army for unsuitability.

As for the attributed motivation for the flight, the article states:

Preston was a 20-year-old private first class in the U.S. Army, stationed in Panama City, Florida. Although he was training to become a helicopter pilot, he abandoned the training due to "deficiency in the instrument phase". Preston had enrolled in the JROTC program at Rutherford High School in Panama City, Florida and had longtime aspirations to a military career. After being taken into custody Preston indicated he was upset over not being allowed to continue training to be a helicopter pilot, and staged the incident to show his skill as a pilot.

I may not have believed the details of the flight nor the slap on the wrist as a punishment were real but having heard the motivation behind the pilot's unique showcasing of his own self-perceived skill, there's no doubt that's an answer that could only have come from a particular breed of pilot. Progressing through flight training and into aviation, I'm willing to bet that many of us in aviation know 'a guy' could possibly arrive at the same conclusion. So what did learn on this day in aviation? Just because you take a man's wings away, doesn't mean he can't fly; and even more boldly put: just because a man has the skill to fly doesn't mean he has the capacity to think.

"Everyone is a student in a helicopter." - Attribution Unknown

Aviation Pioneer Chuck Yeager is Born Today

2017-02-13T15:42:00.001-05:00

On this day in 1923, former U.S. Air Force General and Aviation record-setter Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager was born in Myra, West Virginia. Yeager is best known for being the first man to break the speed of sound while in level flight, a record set on October 14, 1947.

Background on Chuck Yeager's Aviation career:

Yeager's career began in World War II as a private in the United States Army Air Forces.After serving as an aircraft mechanic, in September 1942 he entered enlisted pilot training and upon graduation was promoted to the rank of flight officer (the World War II USAAF equivalent to warrant officer) and became a P-51 fighter pilot.

After the war, Yeager became a test pilot of many types of aircraft, including experimental rocket-powered aircraft. As the first human to officially break the sound barrier, on October 14, 1947, he flew the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 m). Although Scott Crossfield was the first to fly faster than Mach 2 in 1953, Yeager shortly thereafter set a new record of Mach 2.44.

Yeager later commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany, and in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, and in recognition of the outstanding performance ratings of those units he was promoted to brigadier general. Yeager's flying career spans more than 60 years and has taken him to every corner of the globe, including the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War.

Information on Yeager's Aviation records:

Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the X-1 at Mach 1.07 at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 m) over the Rogers Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert. Yeager was awarded the MacKay and Collier Trophies in 1948 for his mach-transcending flight, and the Harmon International Trophy in 1954. The X-1 he flew that day was later put on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

Yeager went on to break many other speed and altitude records. He was also one of the first American pilots to fly a MiG-15, after its pilot, No Kum-sok, defected to South Korea. Returning to Muroc, during the latter half of 1953, Yeager was involved with the USAF team that was working on the X-1A, an aircraft designed to surpass Mach 2 in level flight. That year, he flew a chase aircraft for the civilian pilot Jackie Cochran, a close friend, as she became the first woman to fly faster than sound.

On November 20, 1953, the U.S. Navy program involving the D-558-II Skyrocket and its pilot, Scott Crossfield, became the first team to reach twice the speed of sound. After they were bested, Ridley and Yeager decided to beat rival Crossfield's speed record in a series of test flights that they dubbed "Operation NACA Weep". Not only did they beat Crossfield, but they did it in time to spoil a celebration planned for the 50th anniversary of flight in which Crossfield was to be called "the fastest man alive".

The Ridley/Yeager USAF team achieved Mach 2.44 on December 12, 1953. Shortly after reaching Mach 2.44, Yeager experienced a loss of aerodynamic control of the X-1A due to inertia coupling at approximately 80,000 ft (24,000 m). With the aircraft simultaneously rolling, pitching, and yawing out of the sky, Yeager dropped 51,000 feet (16,000 m) in 51 seconds before regaining control of the aircraft at approximately 29,000 feet (8,800 m). He was able to land the aircraft without further incident. Yeager was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) in 1954 for this achievement. Yeager received the DSM in the Army design as the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal was not awarded until 1965.

For a more extensive overview on Chuck Yeager can be seen on his Wikipedia article from which the information above was sourced.

"You don't concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done." - Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager

Mat Best says "I Choose Life"

2017-02-13T14:12:00.004-05:00

After I started Burlas Aviation, I had an idea for a for-profit company that would that would make Aviation t-shirts. Some might suggest that there are already enough Aviation t-shirt companies and websites out there but if I'm being completely honest, I find the current market truly lacking both selection and style. It's understandable considering that those looking to promote Aviation through accessories are more often than not the ones who are also paying for the affectionately named "$100 Hamburger". Flying isn't cheap nor are well-designed quality clothes.

One of my requirements in going forward with the t-shirt idea was to identify manufacturing and logistical partnerships that would bring the cost down to a reasonable price point that even a Pilot waiting for his next paycheck to fly couldn't argue with. It was through this research that I discovered Mat Best, a Veteran and the CEO of Article 15 Clothing, a company by and for Veterans.

While the Aviation t-shirt company is still in the works, I think discovering Mat's band of Veterans over at Article 15 was one of the best things to come out of my research. While I'm no Ranger like Mat (I was a Cavalry Scout), I am proud to have served. Seeing a group of Veterans take the brotherhood out of the struggles found in the mixture of adventure and harsh realities of service leaves me inspired and truly thankful.

When I started Burlas Aviation it was because I wanted to take something I loved and use it to help others in the wake of my father's passing from pancreatic Cancer. I surrounded myself with my network of buddies from both the service and my journey into Aviation; doing so helped me to not feel so alone in dealing with the self-charged burdens that I found myself carrying. Seeing another group having served and lost those closest to them move forward to take their own burdens and use it to benefit others is affirmation of what I tell myself everyday - "your time is limited Joe, so use it in a worthy cause because this is all you get".

Below is a video Mat put up on his YouTube Channel. Millennials have dubbed this day of the week "#MotivationMonday" - so I think it's appropriate that I share this with everyone. The message is for anyone who chooses to rise above their own pains in life and take the path seldom traveled. It's a message everyone should here, whether you're prior service or not.

Thank you for the inspiration Mat, Rocco, and all the boys at Article 15 Clothing. Charlie Mike.

"The most important branch of aviation is pursuit, which fights for and gains control of the air." - Brigadier General William 'Billy' Mitchell

Air Force Delays A-10 Retirement

2017-02-11T05:57:00.000-05:00

The plans and details of retiring the A-10 Thunderbolt II (affectionately known as the "Warthog") has been discussed for quite some time. An article written back in 2013 on Killing the Warthog, even claimed that "hardly a day goes by without some rumor surfacing about the A-10 being marked for retirement. In fact, as recently as October [2013], the Air Force mused publicly that if it were allowed to remove its 326 A-10s from service, it could save $3.5 billion in maintenance costs over the course of five years". However despite this push for retirement from the U.S. Air Force and the cost cutting benefits that it would bring to the national defense budget, the aircraft has since remained in service.

In November 2015, the head of the United States Air Force's Air Combat Command, General Herbert J. "Hawk" Carlisle reportedly told the Air Force Times that he believed the Air Force "would probably move the retirement slightly to the right". Carlisle explained that, "eventually we will have to get there. We have to retire airplanes. But I think moving it to the right and starting it a bit later and keeping the airplane a bit longer is something to consider, based on things as they are today and what we see in the future." Still, he gave no concrete answer to the final fate of the A-10.

Then in January last year, the Air Force Times reported that "the Air Force is indefinitely freezing all plans to retire the A-10 Warthog". Without a real claim on how long the freeze would last, the article did speculate that "the retirement of the A-10 could be delayed by a few years to make sure the Air Force has the number of planes it needs — especially since top brass is re-evaluating the number of F-35’s (planes intended to replace the A-10) that the U.S. will purchase."

Finally, last Wednesday a Military.com article citing the Stars and Stripes reported:

The Air Force has reset the date for the earliest possible retirement of the A-10 Thunderbolt II to 2021, the service's top general said Tuesday.

Then we're going to have a dialogue within the department of what the long-term plan is," Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told reporters during a breakfast in Washington, D.C. "As a mission, we're fully committed to close-air support."

Last year, then-Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced the aircraft's retirement would be delayed until 2022 after officials opined the Air Force was ridding the U.S. military of a "valuable and effective" close-air-support aircraft.

However, fiscal 2017 budget documents revealed the service still hoped to remove A-10 squadrons in increments between 2018 and 2022 in order to make room for F-35A Lightning II squadrons coming online.

"We're going to keep them through 2021. Then, as a result of a discussion we'll have with [Defense] Secretary Mattis and the department, and review all of our budgets -- that's when we'll determine the way ahead," Goldfein said.

So there you have it. The A-10 lives to literally fight another day, at least for the next five years. And while the A-10 has a special place in my heart, having personally seen it perform it's Close Air Support (CAS) role from the ground, I also understand the Air Force's need to maintain the advancement of military air power. With the F-35 on it's way, it seems the room will eventually be made. Until then, I'm happy to know that the A-10 is still up there covering the boots on the ground.

"Close air support and friendly fire should be easier to tell apart." - Howard Tayler

First Flights of Boeing 747 and 727

2017-02-09T08:21:00.002-05:00

For commercial aircraft, February 9th holds a very special place in Aviation. Both the Boeing 727 and Boeing 747 took their first flights in 1963 and 1969 respectively.

From it's Wikipedia article, "the Boeing 747 is an American wide-body commercial jet airliner and cargo aircraft, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. Its distinctive "hump" upper deck along the forward part of the aircraft makes it among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and it was the first wide-body produced. Manufactured by Boeing's Commercial Airplane unit in the United States, the original version of the 747 was envisioned to have 150 percent greater capacity than the Boeing 707, one of the common large commercial aircraft of the 1960s. First flown commercially in 1970, the 747 held the passenger capacity record for 37 years. As of December 2016, the 747 has been involved in 60 hull-loss accidents resulting in 3,718 fatalities.

The four-engine 747 uses a double deck configuration for part of its length. It is available in passenger, freighter and other versions. Boeing designed the 747's hump-like upper deck to serve as a first class lounge or extra seating, and to allow the aircraft to be easily converted to a cargo carrier by removing seats and installing a front cargo door. Boeing did so because the company expected supersonic airliners (development of which was announced in the early 1960s) to render the 747 and other subsonic airliners obsolete, while the demand for subsonic cargo aircraft would be robust well into the future. The 747 was expected to become obsolete after 400 were sold, but it exceeded critics' expectations with production passing the 1,000 mark in 1993. By December 2016, 1,528 aircraft had been built, with 28 of the 747-8 variants remaining on order".

The Boeing 727's Wikipedia article describes the aircraft as "a midsized, narrow-body three-engined jet aircraft built by Boeing Commercial Airplanes from the early 1960s to 1984. It can carry 149 to 189 passengers and later models can fly up to 2,700 nautical miles (5,000 km) nonstop. Intended for short and medium-length flights, the 727 can use relatively short runways at smaller airports. It has three Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines below the T-tail, one on each side of the rear fuselage with a center engine that connects through an S-duct to an inlet at the base of the fin. The 727 is Boeing's only trijet aircraft.

The 727 followed the 707, a quad-jet airliner, with which it shares its upper fuselage cross-section and cockpit design. The 727-100 first flew in February 1963 and entered service with Eastern Air Lines in February 1964; the stretched 727-200 flew in July 1967 and entered service with Northeast Airlines that December. The 727 became a mainstay of airlines' domestic route networks and was also used on short- and medium-range international routes. Passenger, freighter, and convertible versions of the 727 were built.

The 727 was heavily produced into the 1970s; the last 727 was completed in 1984. As of July 2016, a total of 64 Boeing 727s (4× 727-100s and 60× -200s) were in commercial service with 26 airlines, plus a few more in government and private use".

"The employees of Boeing are wise, and they are intelligent, and they are thoughtful, and they know what we need to do." - Alan Mulally

Boeing or Airbus: Who Makes a Better Aircraft?

2017-02-09T08:21:00.001-05:00

In a Fox Business article that highlights a podcast, Sean O'Reilly and Adam Levine-Weinberg discuss which aircraft manufacturer makes a better aircraft, Boeing or Airbus? The discussion is primarily focused on passenger comfort and fuel efficiency, though safety is briefly discussed. I've included the transcript of the conversation below, which concluded that in terms of safety both Airbus and Boeing are roughly tied however Levine-Weinberg gives Boeing a slight advantage in fuel efficiency and Airbus an advantage in passenger comfort.

Sean O'Reilly: I wanted to get you in here and answer the eternal question: Who makes a better plane, Boeing or Airbus?

Adam Levine-Weinberg: It's a great question. We're going to slice this a few different ways.

O'Reilly: I remember when I first posted this to you, and you were like, "Oh, that's a good one." Anyway, go ahead.

Levine-Weinberg: To start off, I wanted to say, safety-wise, both of these companies make very safe airplanes these days. There's really no difference. Both of them have incredible safety records. Obviously, there are accidents sometimes. Most of the time, it's pilot error or some kind of human error. So, safety-wise, both of these companies know what they're doing; they make very reliable planes. When you get beyond that, there's some really interesting comparisons between the planes of both companies. We'll start off with what's probably the most important for a lot of the Fools listening to this show out there, which is passenger comfort. How do you feel when you're on the plane? Is there space? Do you feel like you're cramped in like a sardine? A lot of that actually doesn't depend so much on the airplane as much as it does on the airline itself, because the airlines have a lot of leeway to set up the plane the way they like.

O'Reilly: So they can move the seats, is what you're saying?

Levine-Weinberg: They can move the seats around in their own configuration. There are some limits to that, but not a lot. What's interesting is that, in general, Airbus planes tend to have wider seats than Boeing. And there's a few reasons for that. On the narrow-body side, these are the single-aisle planes that you see flying all around the United States and on some of the shorter international flights, the Boeing 737 is the best-selling plane in history. The runner-up is Airbus' A320, which is their competitor. And it just happens that the Boeing 737 has been around since the 1960s, and Boeing keeps just redesigning it and redesigning it.

O'Reilly: Wow. So this is a 50-some-year-old plane now?

Levine-Weinberg: When it was originally designed, it was a small plane meant to carry about 100 passengers. And now it's gotten up to 150 and even 200 passengers in many configurations. They made it longer; they have obviously upgraded of the engines several times; they've upgraded all of the interiors and the cockpits. But what they haven't done --

O'Reilly: They downgraded leg room -- I'm kidding.

Levine-Weinberg: That's true, but again, that's up to the airlines. But what hasn't changed is the width. This was a plane that was originally meant for relatively short flights, so it's a little narrower than the Airbus A320, which was designed about 20 years later, in the '80s. The result is, generally speaking, the seats on a Boeing 737 are about a half inch to an inch narrower than the seats you'd see on an A320, and the aisle is often usually narrower, about a 7- or 8-inch difference.

O'Reilly: Which doesn't sound like a lot, but you're talking about that on every seat. It adds up.

Levine-Weinberg: Yeah. Critics of the industry have said that the average weight is going up, especially in the United States --

O'Reilly: I was going to make a joke, like, it's interesting that the European plane has the wider seats; what's up with that?

Levine-Weinberg: Yeah, it's just from when it was designed and what it was designed for. The 737 grew into its current mission. Five or 10 years ago, Boeing was really strongly considering sun-setting the 737, getting a completely new design. But the problem is, when you think about the cost of a completely new plane compared to what it costs to upgrade one when it's already selling --

O'Reilly: There's no incentive, yeah.

Levine-Weinberg: They've sold thousands of these, looking out five and even 10 years. So there's just no reason right now.

O'Reilly: That's so funny, because the joke is obviously, oh, you Americans and your big cars, and Europe makes the slightly bigger plane.

Levine-Weinberg: Yeah. You've seen the same thing on the wide-body side. These are the planes with two aisles that you typically see on the longer haul international routes. The Airbus A330 and A350 were designed with 18-inch seats. If you talk to Airbus, they'll talk to you about how they love passenger comfort and they have decided that 18 inches is the correct width, and the seat can't be any less than that or you're going to be uncomfortable, especially when you're trying to sleep, or just stuck in your seat for a 12-hour flight. The funny thing is that Boeing didn't intend to have narrower seats on its wide-body planes, which are the 777 and the 787, which is also popularly known as the Dreamliner. Those were actually designed with wider seats. The planes are actually so wide that airlines realized they could fit an extra seat in each row --

O'Reilly: Oh, here we go.

Levine-Weinberg: -- so that's what they did. So, originally, these were meant to have 18-and-a-half-inch or 19-inch seats, even wider than the Airbus ones, and now virtually every airline, especially the ones that are taking the airplanes now as opposed to the ones that got them 15 or 20 years ago, in the case of the 777, they're all configuring them with an extra seat in each row. So, now, they have 17 inches of seat width, which is OK for a while, but a lot of passengers find that uncomfortable if you're traveling for a really long time. Other aspects of travel, the newest planes from both Boeing and Airbus, so this is the 787 from Boeing and the Airbus A350, they have some really innovative changes because of the new materials they're working with, they can keep the cabin a lot more humid than it used to be possible to do. They've also increased the air pressure so it's closer to the ground level pressure. Usually, it's pressurized now at about 6,000 feet instead of 8,000 feet. They've said that it greatly increases passenger comfort, and can also help a lot with reducing jet lag. So, those are two big improvements that both manufacturers have made. But just based on the seat width alone, Airbus has a bit of an edge over Boeing in terms of passenger comfort.

O'Reilly: Got it. So I just took over an airline. I'm an executive at an airline. I was completely sold by Buffett's extremely modest investment in the sector. And I am coming to you and I am talking to Boeing and Airbus, and I'm like, "So, guys, biggest cost is fuel, it's oil, it's gasoline. Oil prices are cheap right now, gasoline, too, it's actually been a huge boon for the industry, but that might not last forever. Which of you guys is more fuel efficient?"

Levine-Weinberg: Yeah, this is another big point where the two manufacturers disagree with each other and put out all kinds of statistics that are usually doctored in one way or another to show why their planes are so much more fuel efficient. The best people to talk to on this are actually the airlines, because they don't have a dog in the fight. Generally, when you talk to either the airlines or the aircraft leasing companies, historically, Boeing has had a small advantage in terms of fuel efficiency. It's not a lot --

O'Reilly: What do you mean by small?

Levine-Weinberg: We're talking about maybe 2% or 3%, for a comparable generation of planes. So, obviously, a 20-year-old Airbus plane is going to be way behind a Boeing plane that just rolled off the assembly line today. But for what they're building at the same time, they've been pretty similar. On the narrow-body side, so, this is the 737 and the A320, historically, Boeing has had an advantage, and that may have disappeared just now. One of the problems with Boeing having this really old design that it keeps reusing for the 737 is that it can't use the same type of engines as Airbus has been able to use because the plane is very short. It's not very high off the ground. So without making really big changes to the landing gear to prop up the plane higher, they can't use bigger engines. And those bigger engines tend to have better fuel efficiency.

O'Reilly: Yeah, just because of more surface area on the blades and stuff.

Levine-Weinberg: It's very complicated science. The bigger engine creates more drag, which reduces the fuel efficiency, but the engine itself tends to be more efficient, and that usually more than balances it out. Boeing has found some workarounds. It got pretty close. But Boeing has typically talked about its next-generation plane, the 737 MAX, which is going to be available to the first airlines this year, as being about 13% better than the previous generation, whereas the new A320neo, which is the version of the A320 with upgraded engines, that's about a 15%-16% advantage in terms of fuel consumption. So that alone probably closed the 2%-3% advantage that Boeing had previously held over Airbus. So now, they're pretty much neck-and-neck on that. On the wide-body side, the Boeing planes are also probably a little bit better, but it's pretty close, especially with the new A350, which is a new Airbus plane that came out a couple years ago. Then there's an upgraded engine version of the A330 that will be available early next year. With those coming from Airbus, it's pretty much neck-and-neck. And that's really not that surprising, because these two companies are using the same engine suppliers. And the engine, obviously, is the most important part of the plane in terms of determining how much fuel it uses.

Unfortunately what I was looking for when I saw the article on my twitter feed was more of a pilot-centered analysis concerning automation. While the article does a decent job on highlighting the business considerations of each manufacturer when looking to purchase an aircraft, it omits human factors which I find important when looking at the two Aviation giants. Of course, this is to be expected when reading an article from Fox Business.

Still, I've included a video below where Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger looks at the Air France Flight 447 accident and discusses design factors that contributed to that particular accident. When looking at Boeing and Airbus automated and human design factors, Sullenberger concludes that the accident "would have been less likely in a Boeing". It's an interesting and, in my opinion, another very important consideration when looking at the two manufacturers.

"A commercial aircraft is a vehicle capable of supporting itself aerodynamically and economically at the same time." - William B. Stout

Amelia Earhart's Aircraft Registration is Retired

2017-02-08T09:10:00.003-05:00

On February 8, 1988, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) retires an aircraft registration number for the first time (USA) - that of Amelia Earhart's Electra 10E, which disappeared over the Pacific in July 1937.

According to a NewsOK article from 1988, "The Federal Aviation Administration has retired for all time the aircraft registration number of the plane Amelia Earhart flew when she disappeared in the vastness of the South Pacific 50 years ago.

At least Earl F. Mahoney, manager of the airmen and aircraft registry at the FAA Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, has done everything possible to assure that Earhart's plane number _16020 never again will be assigned to another plane.

Earhart's silver twin-engined Lockheed 10 Electra was marked with the number when she and Fred Noonan, her navigator, were lost at sea July 2, 1937, as they tried to set a record flying around the world. A seeker of records and publicity to popularize aviation, Earhart was almost 40 when she was lost.

Earhart soloed in 1920 and in 1928 became the first woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean as a passenger and not as a pilot. She never again sat in the back seat when there was a record to be set.

Founder in 1929 of the Ninety-Nines Inc. international organization of women pilots, she flew the Atlantic again in 1932 becoming the first woman pilot to do so.

The Earhart-Noonan around-the-world flight started in Oakland, Calif., May 21, 1937, via Miami, Fla., Puerto Rico, Brazil, across Africa to Calcutta, Bangkok, Singapore, and Darwin, Australia, before touching down at Lae, New Guinea. They took off from New Guinea July 2, 1937, flying east toward Howland Island.

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca, on station near Howland, reported hearing Earhart's last radio transmission at 8:44 a.m., as she vainly sought the island and apparently failed to receive the ship's transmissions.

Muriel Earhart Morrissey, of West Medford, Mass., urged in a letter to FAA administrator T. Allan McArtor Jan. 10 that her sister's aircraft number be retired.

"N16020 is a precious number," she wrote. "It would seem most fitting if this number were officially retired from the FAA's list of aircraft registrations.

"And it would be a great tribute to Amelia and her memory to have N16020 retired and preserved for infinity in her name."

FAA records show Lockheed Aircraft Corp. of Burbank, Calif., was given the number in 1936 for the Electra 10-E (for Earhart). A note on the file says it was canceled in July 1938.

The number was removed from the list of active numbers for a period by a bureaucrat's notation, "Not to be assigned to any aircraft (signed) FJB."

It was restored to the active the list in 1957 with an equally simple notation: "N16020 may be assigned. (signed) FJB."

Two planes, a Lockheed 12 which crashed and a Luscombe which was junked, have been given the Earhart number, and Continental Airlines reserved it for an airliner.

Continental relinquished it to Earhart's sister at her request.

In what he hopes will be the last paperwork dealing with the subject, Mahoney noted on the card, "This number is never to be used by anyone again. Reserved for Amelia Earhart for infinity."

"I can't say what a successor would do," he said. "But if I ran across a notation like that I'd sure do some checking before I'd ever put it back in use."

"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace." - Amelia Earhart

First Chinese Built Aircraft Carrier

2017-02-08T08:34:00.001-05:00

This website was originally intended to contain my journey as a student pilot and various articles about aviation that I found interesting. One topic in particular that I have seemed to write a lot about in the scattered articles of the past has been aircraft carrier operations. Past articles have included the F-35 Making It's First STOVL Landing, F-18s Conducting Pitching Deck Operations, and China's Acquistion of Their First Aircraft Carrier. It is the last article in the aforementioned list that is most relevant to what I'm writing about today.

According to The National Interest in an article titled Confirmed: China is Building 2nd Aircraft Carrier, China is building it's first domestically built aircraft carrier and first to be considered "combat ready". The first aircraft carrier acquired by China, the Liaoning, was a Soviet-era Carrier purchased by China from Ukraine, and used as a training ship for aircraft carrier operations. According to other sources from The National Interest the new ship is going by the name Shandong.

More details on the ship are listed in a report by Defense News, stating that "like Liaoning, Shandong will also utilize a STOBAR (Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery) system. Under STOBAR, aircraft are launched taking off from a ramp on the ship's bow. Although China has constructed traditional steam-powered catapults at its naval aviation base, it apparently wants to leapfrog to the latest Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) technology, which is being fitted to the U.S. Navy's new Ford-class carriers.

The short take-off ramp method of launching planes is less than ideal. In order to take off in such a distance without a steam or electromagnetic-powered assist aircraft must keep their takeoff weight down. That, in turn, limits the amount of weapons and fuel they can carry, curtailing their range and combat effectiveness. It also rules out using larger and slower propeller-driven aircraft such as the U.S. Navy's E-2D Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft.

Unlike U.S. Navy carriers, Shandong will likely be limited to an all-fighter fixed wing aircraft force, with early warning and control provided by land-based aircraft. This will ultimately restrict how far the carrier can operate from land-based support."

China has stated that this is one of four additional aircraft carriers that it intends to build. However before you get too concerned with the pending ramifications that a Chinese fleet of aircraft carriers may bring, keep in mind that the construction on the Shandong only recently began in 2015 and isn't expected to launch until 2020.

Below is a video on the aircraft carrier Shandong from NewsBeat Social.

"According to Ferguson, grey things are invisible. Apparently it's just total luck that planes manage to find aircraft carriers in the middle of the ocean." - Nick Hancock

Space Shuttle Columbia Accident

2017-02-01T20:46:00.001-05:00

Today marks the 14th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident when the shuttle was destroyed re-entering the Earth's atmosphere at roughly 9 AM EST on February 1, 2003. Seven astronauts were lost in the accident, including Shuttle Commander Rick Husband, Pilot William McCool, Payload Commander and Mission Specialist Michael Anderson, Mission Specialist David Brown, Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist Laurel Clark, and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon.

The Wikipedia article cites the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in determining that a hole was punctured in the leading edge on one of Columbia's wings, made of a carbon composite. The hole had formed when a piece of insulating foam from the external fuel tank peeled off during the launch 16 days earlier and struck the shuttle's left wing. During the intense heat of re-entry, hot gases penetrated the interior of the wing, likely compromising the hydraulic system and leading to control failure of the aerosurfaces. The resulting loss of control exposed minimally protected areas of the orbiter to full-entry heating and dynamic pressures that eventually led to vehicle break up. The nearly 84,000 pieces of collected debris of the vessel are stored in a 16th floor office suite in the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center. The collection was opened to the media once and has since been open only to researchers.

"The airplane has unveiled for us the true face of the Earth." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Sharing Your Flying Adventure

2017-02-01T19:45:00.001-05:00

When I began this website back in 2004, it was to chronicle my thoughts as I moved through the service to my country in Iraq. From there it morphed into a blog containing random thoughts from an early-twenties dreamer. In 2008, I decided to morph it into what it is today when I made the decision to become a pilot and I understood the importance of sharing a struggle with others. Making the decision to dive into Aviation, I knew that it would be what most things in life are when given an opportunity, and that's a "glorious struggle" with all the attributes and emotions attached to both of those words.

Looking back, I wished I had written more but if you browse through the earlier writing on here, I'd like to think I made it clear it wasn't always easy but it was certainly worth it. Having said that, I recently found a great site made by Aaron Ludomirski (Twitter: @FollowMeFly) that while in it's infancy is a great resource following his flight training as he reaches for the sky. You can see and follow the website by clicking here.

With his permission I want to invite any aspiring aviator who has been following this website to check his out. He gives a nice recap on what's been going on and his thoughts on the process. Definitely information gold as we all have similar thoughts as we baptize ourselves in 100LL. Below is a video of his first solo.

"It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears." - Helen Keller

Howard Hughes Sets Distance Speed Record

2017-01-19T23:18:00.000-05:00

On January 19, 1937, Howard Hughes flew non-stop from Union Air Terminal, Burbank (now Bob Hope Airport) in California to Newark Metropolitan Airport in New Jersey in his Hughes Aircraft Company H-1 Racer. He completed the flight in 7 hours, 28 minutes, and 25 seconds, breaking the previous record he had set one year prior in a Northrop Gamma.

The New York Times reported:

All landplane distance speed records were broken yesterday by Howard Hughes, millionaire sportsman pilot, who reached Newark Airport 7 hours 28 minutes and 25 seconds after he took off from Los Angeles, Calif. He was forced to stay aloft until the runway at the field was clear and landed at 1:03 P.M. His average speed was 332 miles an hour for the 2,490 miles he traveled.

"O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!" - Walt Whitman

Uniforms Making American Crews Sick

2017-01-19T22:25:00.003-05:00

Before I get too critical of American Airlines I'd like to say that I've been a huge fan of the new look that American Airlines is presenting to their traveler base. The uniforms appear to be classy and represent our beloved red, white, and blue very well. I'm also a huge fan of their decision to emblazon a giant American flag on the empennage of each aircraft carrying the American Airlines brand around the world. That said, there have been reports in both the news and personal testimony on social media that convinced me that there is something with the new uniforms that are causing flight attendants to become sick.

In an article at Bloomberg.com:

American Airlines flight attendants filed a grievance with the carrier over new uniforms they say have caused headaches, skin irritation and other health problems since being introduced in September.

The airline should either stop issuing the clothing or allow workers to wear their previous outfits, Bob Ross, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, said in a letter to American’s general counsel.

Now anyone, especially those working in the Aviation industry, should hear these complaints and know that taking care of your crew is the most visible way of showing your customers just how invested you are in those on board. If you go above and beyond to take care of your employees then you'll take care of the passengers. And whether the health issues experienced by cabin crews wearing these uniforms are actual or perceived, it would be in the airlines best interest to show their employees and customer base that the safety and health of everyone on board any American aircraft comes before everything else. So of course they're going to take care of it, right?

According to TravelandLeisure.com:

After months of controversy around health concerns, American Airlines executives are testing the company’s new flight attendant uniforms.

Since the uniforms debuted in September, employees filed more than 2,000 complaints that the new clothes caused problems like hives, wheezing, coughing, and headaches.

In a public effort to stand behind the uniforms, half a dozen executives and middle managers have begun wearing the wool outfits to work.

“It’s insulting. Instead of acknowledging legitimate concerns of their employees, American Airlines management is pulling a publicity stunt,” Taylor Garland, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, told the Chicago Tribune.

The union issued a formal complaint last week, asking the airline to either allow employees to wear their old uniforms or completely stop issuing them. They also asked that affected employees be compensated for medical bills and allowed time off to recover.

American Airlines has already conducted three labs tests on the uniforms—two before introducing them in September and another one since—all of which deemed the fabrics “garment-safe.” The airline has agreed to conduct a fourth test as soon as union leaders pick a date.

All I can say to that is "wow". It would be one thing if American Airlines executives had received complaints about the uniform, exercised some caution in the huge decision behind any recall, and finally, after 2,000 complaints, decided to take action to show that the safety of their working cabin crews comes first. It's an entirely different issue however, when those executives believe that despite the thousands of complaints from their own employees, further testing on the new uniforms should take place to confirm that there is in fact an issue.

And three lab tests on the uniforms? Alright, so the first three showed the clothing to be "garment-safe" and let's assume that the fourth returns the same results; is it really that important for American to maintain the decided upon clothing manufacturer or materials? I think not.

This is obviously not an isolated incident and from a public relations standpoint it now appears that the airline is propping up loyal airline employees in clothing that they say is making them sick. One particular Flight Attendant, Heather Poole, who I follow closely on Twitter and regard as the ideal embodiment of who I want to look to for direction in an emergency, writes about her issues with the uniform:

Now let the record also state that every time I go to work I feel terrible. I’ve been a flight attendant for 20 years and I’ve never felt like this before. This is not a coincidence; so many other flight attendants have suffered a variety of ailments since the uniforms were introduced in September. From rashes and hives to serious respiratory issues.

In addition, flight attendants for Alaska Airlines had the same set of health issues a few years ago with uniforms made by the same company. Even though their uniform tested safe, those illnesses must mean something.

I agree. When Alaska Airlines crews were having similar issues with uniforms made by the same company and your own veteran flight attendants are saying that they, too, are getting sick, there should be alarm bells ringing at American Airlines. Additionally, the cost of the uniform tests seems to highlight a more economical point that justifies replacing the uniforms outright over using lab tests to justify keeping them in service.

In a memo reported on by BizJournals.com, American Airlines Vice President of Flight Service, Hector Adler, addressed the issue:

Adler's memo repeatedly stressed airline management's confidence that "our new uniform meets the highest safety standards," but went on to note "we are committed to resolving individual concerns together with APFA."

But getting to the root of the concerns AA flight attendants have about the uniforms won't come cheaply.

In an interview last week, Adler said fabric testing like that the uniforms have already been subjected to can cost around $130,000. And such tests take time — about two months.

So using the figure of $130,000 above and applying that to the three tests already performed on uniform fabric that has not cleared the issue amounts to $390,000. Almost half a million dollars has been spent with another $130,000 test coming and the issue remains regardless of the results. Why not instead take that money and find a new manufacturer or different material and issue out new uniforms? Fiscally speaking it's money that is scheduled to be spent anyway and lab tests aren't going to fix what flight attendants are proclaiming, sometimes from hospital rooms, is something that affects the performance of their duties.

Clearly what is important to the airline has been lost along the way. Again, whether the uniforms causing health issues is perceived or actual, it should be the duty of every airline to put the needs and safety of crew and passenger before anything else. Parading test results around in public view and claiming that you are an airline "committed to addressing individual concerns" while paying for tests that could instead fix the issue with new uniforms is absurd.

Furthermore, presenting lab results in contrast to 2,000 complaints of crew illness is a form of mockery in the face of every flight attendant who has chosen a profession dedicated to ensuring passenger comfort, while being the face that represents your brand, and most importantly opting to be the voice of reassurance in the event of an in flight emergency.

The flight attendants of American Airlines, or any other airline, are the best insurance policy a "business in the skies" can have. They are the front line in fielding passenger complaints; they help the pilots to safely conduct the flight when issues occur quite literally off the face of the earth; and they understand they may have to remain calm if there's an emergency because they're the ones being looked to - even when the outcome of an emergency seems particularly grave.

They deserve better than what is being done. The least you can do is buy them a uniform they feel safe in. They take care of us; they take care of you; American Airlines - please take care of your flight attendants.

"Flying is so many parts skill, so many parts planning, so many parts maintenance, and so many parts luck. The trick is to reduce the luck by increasing the others." - David Baker

Airbus A380 is Revealed

2017-01-18T00:02:00.000-05:00

On January 18, 2005, the Airbus A380 is revealed to an ecstatic crowd in France. The A380 is currently the largest passenger carrying aircraft in commercial service. The A380's upper deck extends along the entire length of the fuselage, with a width equivalent to a wide-body aircraft. This gives the A380-800's cabin 550 square metres (5,920 sq ft) of usable floor space, 40% more than the next largest airliner, the Boeing 747-8, and provides seating for 525 people in a typical three-class configuration or up to 853 people in an all-economy class configuration. The A380-800 has a design range of 8,500 nautical miles (15,700 km), serving the two longest non-stop scheduled flights (as of March 2016) in the world, and a cruising speed of Mach 0.85 (about 900 km/h, 560 mph or 490 kt at cruising altitude).

"Lovers of air travel find it exhilarating to hang poised between the illusion of immortality and the fact of death." - Alexander Chase

Ten Facts About Charles Lindbergh

2017-01-17T23:05:00.001-05:00

History.com ran a pretty cool article titled "10 Fascinating Facts About Charles Lindbergh" and in an effort to keep this Aviation history alive, I wanted to share it's contents below.

On May 20, 1927, 25-year-old pilot Charles Lindbergh strapped into his famous airplane, “The Spirit of St. Louis,” and took off on the first ever non-stop flight from New York to Paris. The 33.5-hour crossing vaulted Lindbergh to international stardom, but he was later visited by tragedy in 1932, when his 20-month-old son was kidnapped and murdered in what was dubbed “the Crime of the Century.” Below, learn 10 surprising facts about the heroic and controversial life of the aviator known as “The Lone Eagle.”

1. His father was a U.S. Congressman. When Lindbergh was four years old, Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District elected his father, Charles August Lindbergh, to the U.S. House of Representatives. The elder Lindbergh would serve five terms in Congress, where he won a reputation for his independent stances and fierce opposition to the Federal Reserve System. Congressman Lindbergh was among the few members of the House to speak out against U.S. involvement in World War I, and was later censored and accused of sedition after writing an anti-war pamphlet called “Why is Your Country at War?”

2. He worked as a daredevil and stunt pilot. After learning to fly at the Nebraska Aircraft Corporation in Lincoln, Lindbergh spent two years years as an itinerant stuntman and aerial daredevil. During “barnstorming” excursions through the American heartland, the young aviator wowed audiences with daring displays of wing-walking, parachuting and mid-air plane changes. After purchasing his own plane, he became one of the nation’s top stunt pilots, often twisting his machine into complicated loops and spins or killing the engine at 3,000 feet and gliding to ground. Despite the hazardous nature of stunt flying, “Lucky Lindy’s” closest brushes with death would come during his time as a U.S. Army flier, test pilot and airmail pilot, when he survived a record four plane crashes by bailing out and parachuting to safety.

3. He wasn’t the first person to make a transatlantic crossing in an airplane. In the years before Charles Lindbergh’s New York to Paris flight, dozens of other pioneering aviators completed airborne crossings of the Atlantic. Most made the journey in multiple stages or used lighter-than-air dirigibles, but in 1919, British pilots John Alcock and Arthur Brown famously flew nonstop from Newfoundland to Ireland in a Vickers Vimy biplane before crash landing in a bog. Lindbergh’s major achievement was not that he was the first person to cross the Atlantic by airplane, but rather that he did it alone and between two major international cities.

4. He experienced hallucinations and saw mirages during his famous flight. Along with the perils of navigating the foggy Atlantic, Lindbergh’s biggest challenge during his transatlantic flight was simply staying awake. Between his pre-flight preparations and the 33.5-hour journey itself, he went some 55 hours without sleep. Lindbergh went so far as to buzz the surface of the ocean in the hope that the chilly sea spray would help keep him awake, but 24 hours into the journey, he became delirious from lack of rest. He later wrote of mirage-like “fog islands” forming in the sea below, and of seeing “vaguely outlined forms, transparent, moving, riding weightless with me in the plane.” Lindbergh even claimed the apparitions spoke to him and offered words of wisdom for his journey. The hallucinations eventually faded, and only a few hours later, the exhausted aviator landed in Paris to a crowd of more than 150,000 jubilant spectators.

5. He achieved several more “firsts” in aviation. Lindbergh’s transcontinental crossing made him one of the most famous men in the world. He received millions of letters from adoring fans, rode in more than a thousand miles of parades and was even given the Medal of Honor. Still, it wasn’t long before the “The Lone Eagle” took back to the skies on another ambitious journey. In December 1927, he piloted “The Spirit of St. Louis” on a solo, non-stop flight from Washington D.C. to Mexico City as part of a goodwill tour of Latin America. While in Mexico, Lindbergh met Anne Morrow, the daughter of U.S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow, and the two married only a few months later. Anne later became Lindbergh’s trusted copilot and radio operator, and the couple made several groundbreaking flights, including a 1931 trip from the United States to Japan and China.

6. Gangster Al Capone offered to help find Lindbergh’s kidnapped baby. On March 1, 1932, Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., was mysteriously kidnapped from his home in New Jersey. The family received thousands of offers of assistance, including one from none other than “Scarface” himself—Al Capone. While waiting to be transferred to prison on charges of tax evasion, Capone released a statement offering the Lindberghs his condolences, saying, “I know how Mrs. Capone and I would feel if our son were kidnapped.” The gangster put up a $10,000 reward for information that would lead to the arrest of the perpetrators, and even proposed to use his criminal connections to help find the kidnappers in exchange for his release from jail. Lindbergh didn’t accept the offer, but he did work with other underworld figures who claimed they had information on the crime. The search would ultimately end in tragedy in May 1932, when the body of the murdered Lindbergh baby was found only a few miles from the family home.

7. He played a role in the advent of the space program. Lindbergh was a famous proponent of early air travel, but he also helped sow the seeds of the space program through his work with Robert Goddard, the so-called “father of modern rocketry.” Lindbergh first learned about Goddard’s experiments with liquid-fueled rockets in late-1929, and the two soon struck up a lifelong friendship. Convinced that Goddard’s work might one day facilitate a trip to the moon, Lindbergh became the physicist’s greatest champion and even persuaded philanthropist Daniel Guggenheim to give him $100,000 in funding. Goddard’s breakthroughs would later prove invaluable in the development of early missiles and space travel. When Apollo 8 became the first manned space mission to orbit the moon in 1968, Lindbergh sent the astronauts a message saying, “You have turned into reality the dream of Robert Goddard.”

8. He helped invent an early artificial heart. Lindbergh was known for his hands-on approach to repairing and prepping his aircraft, and he later turned his mechanical wizardry toward biology. Inspired by his sister-in-law Elisabeth’s battle with heart disease, he teamed with Nobel Prize-winning French surgeon Alexis Carrel and spent much of the early 1930s working on a method for keeping organs alive outside the body. By 1935, Lindbergh had developed a perfusion pump made of Pyrex glass that was capable of moving air and life-giving fluids through excised organs to keep them working and infection-free. The pump was hailed as a medical breakthrough, and helped pave the way for the development of the first true artificial organs. Lindbergh and Carrel later collaborated on a 1938 book on the subject called “The Culture of Organs.”

9. He was a major opponent of U.S. involvement in WWII. In the late-1930s and early 1940s, Lindbergh’s ironclad reputation took a serious hit for his opposition to World War II and his apparent fascination with Nazi Germany. The aviator had made several trips to Germany in the 1930s to inspect its air force, and returned home convinced that the Luftwaffe was capable of overpowering the rest of Europe. He became one of the most vocal opponents of American involvement in the conflict, and gave dozens of public speeches and radio addresses criticizing President Franklin Roosevelt and Jewish-run newspapers and arguing in favor of isolationism. As the United States edged closer to war, many began to denounce the former hero as an anti-Semite and a traitor. Lindbergh gave up his crusade and tried to win a commission in the military after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but President Roosevelt—who privately called the aviator a Nazi—barred him from serving. Lindbergh later spent time as a test pilot and aviation advisor before travelling to the war’s Pacific Theater as an observer. Though officially a civilian, he eventually flew around 50 combat missions and even shot down a Japanese fighter plane.

10. He was a staunch conservationist. Lindbergh traveled widely after World War II, and later claimed that his wanderings had made him acutely aware of the toll modern civilization was taking on animal and plant life. Arguing that he would rather have “birds than airplanes,” in the 1960s, Lindbergh threw his support behind the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. He used his travels to lobby for environmental causes, and fought against the disappearance of dozens of endangered species including blue and humpback whales, tortoises, tamaraws and eagles. Before his death in 1974, he also lived among indigenous tribes in Africa and the Philippines and helped procure land for the formation of Haleakala National Park in Hawaii.

"Flying is a great equalizer. The plane doesn't know or care about your gender as a pilot, nor do the ground troops who need your support. You just have to perform. That's all anyone cares about when you're up there - that you can do your job, and that you do it exceptionally well." - Lt. Col. Christine Mau

LZ 2 Zepplin Takes First Flight

2017-01-17T22:21:00.001-05:00

According to ThisDayinAviation.com, on January 17, 1906, Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin’s second airship, LZ 2, designed by Ludwig Dürr, made its first—and only—flight at Lake Constance.

LZ 2 was 414 feet (126.19 meters) long and 38 feet, 6 inches (11.75 meters) in diameter. It had a volume of 366,200 cubic feet (10,370 cubic meters). The rigid structure was provided by triangular-section girders that provided light weight and strength. Buoyancy was provided by hydrogen gas contained in bags inside the airship’s envelope.

The airship was powered by two 85 horsepower Daimler engines. It was capable of reaching 25 miles per hour (40 kilometers per hour). The airship’s ceiling was 2,800 feet (850 meters).

An engine failure forced the ship to make an emergency landing close to a small town named Sommersried, Allgäu, in southern Germany, and was so badly damaged by a storm during the night that it had to be scrapped.

"There isn't a flight goes by when I don't star out and thank my lucky stars for what I'm seeing and feeling." - Sir Richard Branson

Search Halted for Missing MH370

2017-01-17T18:59:00.003-05:00

The underwater search for MH370 is now at an end, according to various media reports, without any luck finding the final resting place of the downed aircraft. I had hoped that this would wrap up another way. This is possibly the greatest Aviation mystery in the history of manned flight, and if not number one, then certainly among Amelia Earhart and Flight 19. Regardless of where you might place MH370 amongst the larger mysteries of Aviation history, leaving this mystery unsolved has implications on everyday flight operations that are conducted over open oceans with limited or no radar coverage.

A Boeing 777, one of the larger commercial aircraft, goes missing and with vague certainty investigators can surmise that it's somewhere on the bottom of the South Indian Ocean. The topography and depth make it hard to just "have a look". Yet without the Flight Data Recorder or Cockpit Voice Recorder, no motive or actual human actions can be definitively looked at; leaving only speculation to match up with the known flight path of the aircraft. Was it pilot error due to hypoxia after a catestrophic event that caused a pilot in limited mental capacity to steer a doomed aircraft away from a civilian populace and out to sea? Maybe it was pilot suicide? Is there a way for a ground station to override manual flight control and communication systems and steer a helpless crew to their deaths?

Nothing, not even the assurance of answers, can be guaranteed even if the aircraft is in fact found, but our greatest hope in establishing any clear answers just might lie with the wreckage. It is important for investigators to be able to tell the story of MH370 in it's entirety in order to understand it's actual course of events and assist the airline industry in ensuring that a flight like that won't ever happen again. Speculation, no matter how great a case one might make, can never replace actual fact based analysis in mitigating future events.

That's my two cents; a quote from a CNN report can be found below.

Hong Kong (CNN) The underwater search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has been suspended nearly three years after the plane vanished without a trace over the Indian Ocean, according to a joint statement from Chinese, Australian and Malaysian officials.

The three countries had been leading the search for MH370, which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.

"Despite every effort using the best science available, cutting edge technology, as well as modeling and advice from highly skilled professionals who are the best in their field, unfortunately, the search has not been able to locate the aircraft," the statement said.

For more information please see the entire CNN News Article.

"I will say that I cannot imagine any condition which could cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that." - Captain EJ Smith, RMS Titanic

First Presidental Flight on Official Business

2017-01-16T18:41:00.003-05:00

On January 14, 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt became the first United States President to travel on official business by aircraft. According to a History.com article, "on this day in 1943, Franklin Roosevelt becomes the first president to travel on official business by airplane. Crossing the Atlantic by air, Roosevelt flew in a Boeing 314 Flying Boat dubbed the Dixie Clipper to a World War II strategy meeting with Winston Churchill at Casablanca in North Africa. With German U-boats taking a heavy toll on American marine traffic in the Atlantic, Roosevelt’s advisors reluctantly agreed to send him via airplane. Roosevelt, at a frail 60 years old, gamely made the arduous 17,000-mile round trip.

The secret and circuitous journey began on January 11, with the plane stopping several times over four days to refuel and for its passengers to rest. Roosevelt and his entourage left Florida, touched down in the Caribbean, continued down the southern coast of South America to Brazil and then flew across the Atlantic to Gambia. They reached Casablanca on January 14. After a successful meeting with Churchill, as well as some sightseeing and visits to the troops, Roosevelt retraced the route back to the United States, celebrating his 61st birthday somewhere over Haiti."

"It's congenital really. We're an aspiring species that doesn't have wings. What else would we dream of?" - Mark Vanhoenacker

Remembering Gene Cernan

2017-01-16T16:01:00.001-05:00

Today we say farewell to one of NASA's most beautiful souls and the last Astronaut to have walked on the moon, Gene Cernan. I've always enjoyed hearing Gene's interviews and I believe he saw walking on the moon as on the beginning to his duties to the American public whom he continues to champion the cause of exploration for right up until his death. Below is an interview with Fox News as he proclaimes, "We need to get America back into space".

I personally thank Astronaut Cernan for the sacrifices both he and his family made while helping America reach for the stars and believe in the realization of hard to reach dreams. You, sir, will always remain an American hero.

"I felt that I was literally standing on a plateau somewhere out there in space. A plateau that science and technology had allowed me to get to. But now what I was seeing and even more important what I was feeling at that moment in time, science and technology had no answers. Literally no answers because there I was, and there you are, there you were, the earth dynamic, overwhelming.. And I felt that the world just.. There is too much purpose, too much logic, it was just too beautiful to happen by accident" - Astronaut Gene Cernan

Turkish Cargo Plane Crashes

2017-01-16T13:51:00.001-05:00

This occurred last night while I was sleeping. It's important we don't weigh in on speculation while allowing the accident investigation to take its course. Reports are still coming in about the initial details but according to a New York Times article:

HONG KONG — A Turkish cargo plane approaching the airport in Kyrgyzstan’s capital crashed early Monday, killing at least 37 people, most of them on the ground, according to the Kyrgyz government. The Boeing 747, with a crew of four, was owned by ACT Airlines, and it was on its way to Istanbul from Hong Kong with a stopover in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, according to airport officials in the Central Asian city.

The plane was approaching Manas International Airport in Bishkek when it crashed into a village adjoining the airport. Kyrgyz officials said that 23 of the village’s 43 houses were destroyed, and some buildings burst into flames. There was fog at the time, but it was not clear if the weather played a role in the crash.
The Kyrgyz Emergencies Ministry said that at least 12 people had been taken to the hospital.
An image on the website of the television station owned by Kyrgyzstan’s government showed a large section of the nose of the aircraft, including the cockpit windows, on the ground after the plane apparently crashed through a building. Wreckage was strewed across a wide area.
A video of the crash scene showed emergency workers in a snow-covered neighborhood, with pieces of the plane interspersed among houses and wreckage in flames. Tents were set up to help shelter displaced residents from temperatures of about 13 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 11 Celsius).

300 Miles

Lake Balkash

KAZAKHSTAN

Bishkek

KYRGYZSTAN

UZBEKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN

CHINA

TURKMENISTAN

AFGHANISTAN

PAKISTAN

INDIABy The New York Times

Kyrgyz officials said they would create a government commission to investigate why the plane came down. The plane, built in 2003, was owned by ACT Airlines, a Turkish company that is 49 percent owned by the Chinese conglomerate HNA Group, which has aviation, tourism and logistics units. ACT operates under the name MyCargo Airlines.

The airline said on Monday that the crash was not the result of “technical reasons or factors linked to the freight” on the plane, according to The Associated Press. The news agency, citing the airline, said that the aircraft’s crew of four — two pilots, a freight specialist and a flight technician — were all killed in the crash. The Manas airport was the site of a United States military base that was used mainly to support operations in Afghanistan until 2014, when the base was handed over to the Kyrgyz military.

Again, there's always speculation that follows the loss of an aircraft but it's my duty as someone who has followed accident investigations for over the past decade to remind the reader that Boeing is providing all available resources to the investigation and it is in everyone's best interest to allow the investigation to run its course.

"The point is that being able to demonstrate ‘due diligence’ is not about having a thing (a policy or a system or a heap of procedures and checklists) it is about doing a thing" - Max Geyer

British Airways Receives Concorde

2017-01-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

On this day in Aviation, January 15, 1976, British Airways took delivery of it's first Aerospatiale/BAC Concorde (G-BOAA). Scheduled flights began the following week on January 21st via two routes, London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio de Janeiro via Dakar. To alert ATC to the aircraft's abilities and restrictions all British Airways flights used the call sign "Speedbird Concorde" while the French continued to use their normal route numbers.

Due to protests primarily concerning the Concorde's Sonic Boom, the United States had banned landings of the Concorde preventing the aircraft from flying a North Atlantic route. William Coleman, the then U.S. Secretary of Transportation, finally gave permission for the Concorde to land in the United States and on May 24th both British Airways and Air France began service to Washington Dulles International Airport (KIAD). On October 24, 2003, after only 27 years of service British Airways withdrew Concorde from operational service.

Will Concorde every come back? Despite British Airways telling the BBC that it will not fly again, a start-up named Boom Technology has bet that customers do in fact want to fly supersonic and is looking to create an aircraft that flies faster than it's predecessor. In addition to Boom Technology, NASA's "Son of Concorde" and Airbus' AS2 aircraft are on record and set to take on the perceived gap in supersonic passenger travel.

Only time will tell whether or not another supersonic aircraft with the capabilities matching or exceeding Concorde will actually take to the skies, however in celebration of this amazing aircraft that once upon a time carried passengers from New York to Paris in just over three hours, please see the video below.

"If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it." - President James Garfield