Australian Continues to Hone DIY $300,000 Flight Simulator
plane posts
Facebook Fans Honoring Heroic US Airways Pilot
Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III, 57, of Danville, Calif., a former Air Force pilot and now hero to at least 154 other people and their families, is the focal point of -- at latest count -- six different Facebook fan pages, the most popular one with more than 300 members. Many people learned of the crash from their Twitter feeds. It seems a natural progression now to see pages like this one crop up on social networking sites.
Comments such as "I'm a student pilot working my way up the aviation ladder, and you have inspired me today" and "You are a stud. NICE JOB AND THANK YOU!!!!" grace the "The Wall" section of the page.
Continental Passenger Tweets About Plane Crash on Twitter
We've lately covered a number of interesting firsts on the Twitter site, including the first novel tweeted, the first NBA player to start posting, the first baby tweeting device, and the billionth tweet tweeted (a tweet, by the way, is the term for those little statements you send out to all your Twitter followers, which are generally just status updates about what you're doing at any given moment). This week, the site achieved another first: The first plane crash covered by a survivor on the site.
Site user Mike Wilson, who is known as 2drinksbehind on Twitter, posted the above picture and recounted his tale of the Continental 737 that veered off of a Denver runway and caught fire. At 5:25pm on the day of the crash, he posted "Holy f***ing s**t I wasbjust in a plane crash!" and, shortly after, "This was crash #2 for me. Maybe I should start taking the bus." He then continued to describe exactly what happened in the crash -- at least until the battery on his phone died. Thankfully neither Mike nor any other passenger was seriously injured in the crash or in the subsequent flames. It may be a small consolation, but Wilson seems to have definitely gained quite a few new Twitter followers out of the ordeal. [From: Silicon Alley Insider]
GPS Could Save Airlines Billions in Fuel and Reduce Flight Times
The GPS system would replace the currently aging system of aerial highways that use use radar and radio beacons to guide planes. The use of GPS would allow planes to fly the shortest route between two points, shaving time off of flights and saving fuel.
Unfortunately, NextGen isn't expected to be ready until at least 2020, but the airlines are expected to provide $15 billion of the estimated $35 billion the project will cost. The airlines will also have to retrofit their planes with a new $200,000 GPS system. Considering their current struggles to stay profitable, carriers are understandably reluctant to layout such a large amount of cash to start equipping aircraft with a system that is still 10+ years from being functional.
If the system ever actually gets off the ground, it could keep many carriers from slipping into the red, but as with any massive government-funded program it's unlikely it'll be completed on time or on budget. Expect to see the first NextGen equipped planes to be rolled out around 2130 at a price of $3 bazillion per plane. [From: USA Today]
Air Traffic Controller Text Messages Airplane to Safe Landing
Here's something you don't hear In an effort to establish any form of contact with someone back on the ground, he phoned a controller at the Cork airport and spoke only momentarily of his troubles before losing voice signal. The quick-thinking controller decided to switch up his conversation method to texting, eventually providing sufficient details to safely guide the pilot in. Can you say "promotion?" [From: Irish Times via Slashdot, image courtesy of StarWars Blog]
Emirates Flights Going Paperless to Save Fuel
United-Arab-Emirates-based Emirates Airlines has decided to banish all paper reading materials from flights on their brand new Airbus A380 jumbo jets. Pre-printed materials like magazines, pamphlets, and shopping catalogs (goodbye Skymall!) will no longer be available on planes. Instead, content that was previously in those printed publications and pamphlets will show up on the LCD video screens at every seat.
The removal of paper will lighten the load the plane is carrying by one ton -- each seat holds approximately four pounds of paper and the A380 has 500 seats. Do the math and it's quite obvious that this lighter load will greatly extend the range of the double-decker jets. Of course, those video screens at every seat must weigh more than the magazines, so go figure...The good news, for people who hate to read on smalls screens, is that Emirates has some of the biggest LCD video screens in the airline biz (about 10.3-inches in Economy alone).
Ultimately, Emirates hopes to lighten the plane's load by five tons, which would allow the airline to offer nonstop flights from Dubai to Los Angeles and San Francisco. The inaugural flight of the new paperless A380 will be on August 1st, with a trip from Dubai to New York City.
Considering the marathon length of these planned super-long-haul nonstop flights, let's just hope they haven't removed the paper from the restrooms. [Source: Times Online]
Airplane Mechanic Causes $100M Damages After Pushing Wrong Button
All three planes were destroyed, ultimately causing $100,000,000 in damages, not to mention nearly killing herself and 14 other workers, according to a report from Baton Rouge's WAFB-TV.
The entire incident took all of about five seconds according to witnesses, who are still dumbfounded as to how the whole hanger wasn't sent up in flames.
We all make mistakes, but we're pretty sure this woman will soon be out of a job. [Source: WAFB]
Green Tech, Man / Woman Who Has Everything
Airline Introduces In-Flight Showers
What if it's not enough to have your own private suite (see image above) on your flight from New York to the Middle East? Leave it to Emirates Airlines, out of Dubai, to top its own first-class offering. The airline has announced its new Airbus A380 jets will be the first in commercial use to provide first-class passengers with an in-flight shower. Sounds like a nice, refreshing way to improve that approximately 12 1/2 hour flight, but be ready to shell out nearly $18,000 for the privilege.
The showers will first be introduced on the airline's Dubai to New York City direct route on October 1, but plans are in place to expand the luxury perk across Emirates' entire fleet of 50 A380s.
The showers cost much more than money, though, according to an environmental watchdog group called "Plane Stupid," which cites the enormous carbon footprint for this kind of over-the-top extravagance. The showers will require an extra ton of water to be transported onboard -- the same as having 12 extra passengers come along for the ride -- and will have carbon cost of 48,455 pounds for every flight.
Despite the cost and environmental impact, we'd still prefer a high-end shower as opposed to a flight attendant dousing us with water.
From Crave.
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American Airlines and JetBlue to Offer In-Flight Wi-Fi
It appears as if this whole Wi-Fi on airlines thing is finally taking off (sorry, couldn't help it). Four months after announcing that it intends to put Wi-Fi on some of its planes, American Airlines is starting to reval some specifics on the plan. Wi-Fi access to a broadband data connection will be provided by Aircell (which has also partnered with Virgin) on transcontinental 767-200 flights starting in 2008. The best part is the price, which we were worried about back in August when we heard the first rumblings of this program. How much, you ask? Well, it's going to cost $0. Thats right, it's free.
Not to be out done, JetBlue yesterday announced that it, too, would be offering free Wi-Fi on some of its planes -- as long as you're using it to access your Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, or BlackBerry Mail. This amounts to nothing more than a tease. The airline might as well not offer anything at all.
So far, efforts to bring the Internet to the air have failed. And pretty miserably, we might add. Connexion and Lufthansa (among other international airlines) teamed up a few years ago, but the service was shut down last December since no one seemed willing to pay for it.
Will these new efforts succeed where past ones have failed? In the case of American Airlines, we'd say there is a strong possibility, since it's offering access to any site, just like on the ground! And it makes a lot of sense to focus only on long-haul flights, since a long 14-hour flight to Tokyo is exactly when you need to be getting online.
Let's just hope people don't start using Skype or other Internet phone services and yap away the hours.
From CrunchGear
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In-Flight Cell Phone Use Moves Forward in Europe
The plight of in-flight cell phone use has been more turbulent than the last time we flew from Philly to NY in the middle of a blizzard. Airborne cell use was looking promising at one point in the US, but the FCC has been staunchly against the idea. That said, earlier this year, things started looked promising in the European Union, and now are looking even better, with regulators requesting the introduction of technology that would allow for safe mid-flight calling on European flights.
Not wanting to have to hear the babbling of your fellow passengers while you're trying to sleep through that red-eye out of LAX is a perfectly valid reason for not wanting in-flight cell phone use, but the real reason it's currently disallowed is safety. Studies have shown that phones have the potential to mess with an aircraft's navigation systems, meaning your pilot might think he's making a safe landing at a runway while actually lining up over a cow pasture. To prevent this, the system proposed in Europe would place transmitters on the aircraft themselves, allowing calls to be safely routed by the plane to a satellite and then back down to the terrestrial phone system.
The problem with this approach is, of course, that it will require the installation of hardware on planes before calls would be allowed. No estimated costs have been given at this point, but we can only imagine what sort of extra fees you'd see on your cell bill (and plane ticket) if you were, say, to pull out your iPhone mid-flight and make a few calls over Spain. We've already seen what kind of bills you can get there when you stay on the ground.
From BBC News
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Cell Phones, Computers, BlackBerry, E-Mail Addiction
Virgin America Details In-Flight Internet
When Richard Branson rolled out the Virgin America airline in August, he promised us in-flight Internet -- though left out the how and when. While the latter is still a mysterious "sometime in 2008," the how will be dealt with through a newly announced partnership with a company called AirCell. AirCell will provide air-to-ground broadband Wi-Fi access to Virgin's fleet, allowing passengers to access the Internet through Virgin's seatback entertainment center or via their own Wi-Fi enabled laptops, smart phones, PDAs or new iPod Touches. In addition to Web access, the seatback system will provide e-mail access and chat through AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN and Google Talk.
But, that's not all. The seatback system also supports Skype, as will passengers' own laptops and BlackBerrys. Despite an FCC ban on in-flight cell phone calls, this definitely opens the door to in-flight voice chatting. The horror....the horror...
From Engadget
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Peek Inside the Gigantic Airbus A380
Want to step aboard the spankin' new, Godzilla-sized Airbus A380, but don't have a trip planned on Korean Air anytime soon? No worries. Aving.net has you covered with a full-blown photo tour of the new planes, including shots of the cockpit, wine bar, first class accommodations and even the latrines.
We do not recommend this photo gallery to anyone about to board one of the sardine-cans-with-wings we're stuck with here in the U.S.
From Aving.net
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United Adds Cool Gadgets to First and Business Class
Both Business and First class have picked up some leg and elbow room, as well as filled up the new space with a 15.4-inch LCD screen that features 150 hours of on-demand TV and movies, an iPod dock (for charging), a USB port (to charge your computer or camera), access to 20 XM Satellite stations, and noise-canceling headphones.
That's more than enough to make those of us stuck in Economy green with envy, but there's more: First and Business class passengers will get to pick from a new menu prepared by world-renowned chef Charlie Trotter (It's also paired with a selection of fine wines from Master Sommelier and Master of Wine Doug Frost).
Besides the same dry discolored ham and cheese on a stale roll, bag of snack sized pretzels, and coffee that tastes so bad it can't be described in family friendly terms, the Economy class perks will remain relatively no-frills in terms of technology, so make sure you stock up extra battery packs for your iPod if you're planning on going to Europe or Asia.
From Sci Fi Tech
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