I have read quite a bit about Air France flight 447 that crashed on June 1, 2009. I think a recent story from Popular Mechanics is the best and really paints a picture about [...]]]>

F-GZCP, the Airbus A330 involved in Air France flight 447, taken in March 2007. Photo by Pawel Kierzkowski / Wikipedia.

I have read quite a bit about Air France flight 447 that crashed on June 1, 2009. I think a recent story from Popular Mechanics is the best and really paints a picture about what really happened in the cockpit of that Airbus A330 the day of the accident.

The story shows what was said on the voice recorder and explains what it all means, very interesting and worth the time to read it.

Thanks to Drew for pointing this out.

Air France-KLM announced today that they have ordered 110 Airbus A350 XWB and Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Currently there are 50 firm orders with another 60 options.

“For its first joint order, the Air France KLM group made its [...]]]>

Airbus A350 XWB in Air France and KLM liveries. Images from Airbus. Click for larger.

Air France-KLM announced today that they have ordered 110 Airbus A350 XWB and Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Currently there are 50 firm orders with another 60 options.

“For its first joint order, the Air France KLM group made its selection after a detailed assessment showing all the performance characteristics of each aircraft, including their energy and environmental performance” declared Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, CEO of Air France KLM.

Computer rendering of the 787 Dreamliner in Air France and KLM liveries. Images from Boeing.

The airline will purchase 25 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, with options for 25 more. They will also purchase 25 A350-900s with options for another 35.

“We’re proud to be a major part of the fleet renewal plan being undertaken by Air France-KLM,” said Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “The 787 Dreamliner will bring outstanding value to the two airlines and will be a great complement to their large fleets of Boeing widebody airplanes.”

Currently Boeing has over 800 orders from 56 customers for the 787 Dreamliner and Airbus has 567 orders for the A350 XWB from 35 customers.

The Boeing 747 starts her next chapter with the first flight of the 747-8 Intercontinental. As we look to the future of the jumbo jet, we also have started the begining of the end for the Boeing 747-400. In July 2010, [...]]]>

The second Boeing 747-400 (F-GITB) to be scapped. Photo from Air Salvage International Limited

The Boeing 747 starts her next chapter with the first flight of the 747-8 Intercontinental. As we look to the future of the jumbo jet, we also have started the begining of the end for the Boeing 747-400. In July 2010, the first three 747-400s were taken to Air Salvage International, located in Hampshire, UK and destroyed for salvage.

The first -400 first flew on April 29, 1988 and became the best selling 747 model. The -400 differed from the -300 with an updated cockpit, the addition of winglets, additional fuel and other odds and ends. The first three to be salvaged all served their entire lives with Air France. It is sad to think about the first Boeing 747-400′s being destroyed, never to fly again. Let’s get to know the three -400′s that were the first to go:

F-GITA:
This aircraft was delivered to Air France in February 1991. In September 1993, she was operating as flight AF072 from Paris to Los Angeles to Tahiti. The aircraft went off the end of the runway, but no one was killed and the plane was repaired and placed back into service. The aircraft was stored in February 2010 after serving Air France for almost 20 years. She has the official title of being the very first Boeing 747-400 to be scrapped.
* Photo of F-GITA being torn up via Airliners.net
* Photo of F-GITA off the runway via AirDisaster.com
* 88 pics of F-GITA’s life via Airliners.net

F-GITB:
She was delivered to Air France in May of 1991. During her almost 20 years of service for Air France, she mostly flew out of Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG). She was pulled out of service and stored in March 2010.
* 77 Photos of F-GITB via Airliners.net

F-GITC:
This is the newest of the first three to be scrapped. She was delivered to Air France in September 1991 and served just short of 19 years before being stored in April 2009.
* Photo of F-GITC wearing and experimental Air France livery
*72 photos of F-GITC via Airliners.net

While Boeing 747-400s are being destroyed,  there talk of two Boeing 747-200s  to fly US passengers. It might seem odd at first, but when you look at the fact that there were 694 Boeing 747-400s delivered and only 12 have been taken out of service to date, that isn’t too shabby.

“For more than 20 years, the 747-400 has helped foster the proud legacy of the 747 family. It has been the world’s favorite airplane and a proven performer,” Joanna Pickup with Boeing 747 Communications told AirlineReporter.com.

When asked what aircraft type that Boeing is hoping customers will replace their Boeing 747-400 with, Pickup explained, “The 747-8 Intercontinental is perfectly suited to serve the 400 to 500-seat market served by the 747-400, with more range, more passengers, more cargo, and with lower operating costs.”

So if you are in the market to buy a Boeing 747-400 in the next few years, you are in luck. It is likely that we will see more -400′s looking for a new home (or maybe to be made into a home) for cheap.

UPDATE: “Note that to date Air France counts in its fleet 10 B747-400. This aicraft is foreseen to be maintained in the fleet until 2016, ” Air France spokesperson explained. “Indeed, B747-400 was one of the most successful devices of an economic point of view up to the arrival of the new generation 777-300ER.”

I love this video. Sure, the idea of seeing an entire flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Paris (CDG) is one thing, but to see it done like this and with the northern lights? Yes northern lights which there are no words to describe. This is one rad airline video you must watch.

The [...]]]>

I love this video. Sure, the idea of seeing an entire flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Paris (CDG) is one thing, but to see it done like this and with the northern lights? Yes northern lights which there are no words to describe. This is one rad airline video you must watch.

The creator, Nate Bolt, created a very cool set up (which you can see at the end of the video) on the Airbus A340 Boeing 747-400. He took a photo about once every two minutes and set it to a very catchy song. That added up to a whopping 2459 photos over the 5,576 miles. Cheers to Air France for allowing Nate to take the photos and thanks to Nate for creating the video.

UPDATE: Chris K (in the comments) is correct. This is a Boeing 747-400, not an Airbus A340 as I first thought. The engine gives it away. Although Air France does fly the A340 and B747-400 on their SFO-CDG route.

Tis the season for fooling. It is hard to know what is true and what is not true on this day. Some airlines have really gotten into it and come up with great April Fool’s news stories. Who says airlines can’t have a sense of humor? [...]]]>

Um...what? You are holding this blog upside down.

Tis the season for fooling. It is hard to know what is true and what is not true on this day. Some airlines have really gotten into it and come up with great April Fool’s news stories. Who says airlines can’t have a sense of humor? Here are the ones I have found so far:

* Air New Zealand promoted their new pay per pound program, which I have stated previous, it might actually work
* Ryanair  will start child-free flights
* easyJet announced the new royal couple will be flying them and honeymooning in Scotland
* WestJet will be adding helium to their aircraft to reduce weight
* Southwest now is able to travel through time and they brought a video back to prove it
* Air France will start Jupiter flights starting Bastille Day
* Swiss Air Lines will hand out different types of chocolate depending on your flier status
* Virgin Atlantic is to have fresh produce and herbs in upper class
* Virgin America announces Sir Richard Branson buys Pluto and re-instates it as a planet
* JetBlue is to get rid of free snacks, DirectTV, direct flights and more (via @hbaskas)

If you run into any more April Fool’s jokes done by airlines (or airline-related) let me know and I will add it to the list with a little shout out to you.

During the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental event, invited guests were allowed into factory to not only take a look at the Boeing 747-8I and 747-8F, but also the Boeing 777 Worldliner and Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

This is [...]]]>

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner line inside the Boeing Factory. Here are 787s for Air India, JAL and China Southern.

During the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental event, invited guests were allowed into factory to not only take a look at the Boeing 747-8I and 747-8F, but also the Boeing 777 Worldliner and Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

This is a huge treat, since Boeing normally doesn’t allow people to take photos inside the factory, but this time, cameras were allowed and I had a hard time cutting over 300 photos down to just 26.

I already posted photos being on the factory floor with the 747-8, but now it is time to share some photos of the 787 and 777. Unfortunately, we still weren’t allowed down on the factory floor with the 787, but we were able to get up close and personal with the 777 line.

VIEW ALL 26 PHOTOS OF THE 777 AND 787 LINES

Business Class is just not what it used to be anymore. Earlier this month, five passengers were robbed of over $5,000 on an Air France flight from Tokyo to Paris. It was a red-eye flight and many passengers were in a deep sleep.

One passenger lost about $4400 and is [...]]]>

Air France Boeing 747-400

Business Class is just not what it used to be anymore. Earlier this month, five passengers were robbed of over $5,000 on an Air France flight from Tokyo to Paris. It was a red-eye flight and many passengers were in a deep sleep.

One passenger lost about $4400 and is the one that notified the flight crew. When the plane landed in France, police were waiting, but the thief was not found.

It is the airline’s policy to be responsible for luggage, but not for personal items, including cash, that passengers bring aboard. It might seem odd that someone would bring so much cash on a flight, but a one-way Business Class ticket on this flight can cost around $7000. Comparability that would be like me bringing $94 cash on a $150 one-way trip from Seattle to New York, which doesn’t seem so bad.

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Dan Webb over at Things in the Sky took a look at Air France’s new, thinner seat to use on short haul flights. They are lighter, take up less room and are not as comfortable. That is why Air France is only installing them on their 37 all-economy [...]]]>

Air France's new short-haul thinner seats

Dan Webb over at Things in the Sky took a look at Air France’s new, thinner seat to use on short haul flights. They are lighter, take up less room and are not as comfortable. That is why Air France is only installing them on their 37 all-economy Airbus A319/A320/A321 fleet.  The extra room will allow the airline to install an extra row in the A320 & A321, but the A319 will keep the same number of rows.

The seats will not recline, but they will increase leg room 2-3″, which is always a nice thing. They will start showing up in aircraft starting at the end of the month and will slowly make their way to the entire A320-family fleet.

Check out Webb’s blog for more photos and information on the seats. Be sure to check out the picture of the separate cup-holder — which is a genius idea!

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When the TU-144 and Concorde first went into service in the 1970′s , it was a time of aviation excitement. Both  aircraft had the promise to completely revolutionize commercial transportation, providing speeds over twice the speed of sound (around 1100 mph vs 500-600 mph for other commercial airliners). [...]]]>

British Airways Concorde landing at Heathrow in 2003.

When the TU-144 and Concorde first went into service in the 1970′s , it was a time of aviation excitement. Both  aircraft had the promise to completely revolutionize commercial transportation, providing speeds over twice the speed of sound (around 1100 mph vs 500-600 mph for other commercial airliners). Most thought the supersonic transport (SST) would replace other aircraft, to become the norm in general aviation. It was thought the sonic boom experienced when a jet goes over the sound barrier would become part of daily life, and people would be willing to live with them to have fast transportation.

The Tupolev TU-144 was the first SST to take flight in December 1968, two months before the Concorde. The TU-144 hit a big setback when the first production aircraft crashed during the 1973 Paris Air Show, killing all six crew members aboard and 15 people on the ground. Then in 1978 another TU-144 crashed during a pre-delivery test flight, killing all aboard. The aircraft type flew 55 passenger flights with Aeroflot before it was pulled from service in June of 1978, less than ten years after its first flight.

At the time Boeing was also working on their own SST, the Boeing 2707. The US didn’t want Europe and Russia to have the monopoly on SST technology, so the US government funded a contract for Boeing to study making its own. In 1963 the National Supersonic Transport program subsidized 75% of development costs to help Boeing directly compete with the TU-144 and Concorde. Since the Concorde and TU-144 were almost twins, Boeing wanted to make something different and were aiming to make a 250 passenger SST, which would hold about twice the passengers of the other two. In March 1971, funding for the project was canned by Congress and although private funding was able to raise nearly $1 million, the entire project was shut down in May of 1971. At the time, the Boeing 2707 had 115 orders from 25 airlines and the Concorde only had 74 order from 16 customers.

The Concorde and Tu-144 might have looked similar, but Aérospatiale-BAC’s Concorde was superior in its avionics and capabilities. It has its first flight in March of 1969 and entered service in 1976. During that time, the first two prototypes traveled the world to build excitement and there were 70 orders for the plane. However, many orders were canceled after an oil crisis caused financial difficulty for the airlines, the crash of the similar TU-144, and concerns about the sonic-boom not being acceptable in populated areas. In the end, only British Airways and Air France took delivery of the Concorde. The plane was flown until 2003 when Air France flight 4590 crashed in France killing all 109 people aboard and raising questions about the safety of the aircraft. The aircraft was retired on November 26, 2003.

Supersonic Aerospace International's QSST rendering.

There was hope in the early 90′s for a resurgence of SST when a wealthy businesswoman, Judith DePaul, worked with Tupolev and NASA to use a TU-144 as a testbed for additional SST research. Over $350 million was spent on retrofitting the mothballed Tu-144 and it made a total of 27 flights through the 90′s, but was canceled in 1999 for “lack of funding.” Today, the aircraft is rusting away in storage with little hope of  being used again.

It has been over 40 years since the first SST flight occurred and almost 6 years since the last SST commercial flight. It has seemed unlikely there will be a revival of the Concorde or TU-144, but there might be hope on the horizon. The biggest hurdle has been the sonic-boom heard when an aircraft passes the sound barrier. The loud and disruptive boom caused previous SST’s to be flown only over water. Scientists are currently working on ways to “shape” the boom, making it sound more like distant thunder, something that the general public could live with to allow flights over land.

Even if the technology becomes available, it is not going to be cheap. A round trip ticket from New York to London on the Concorde before its cancellation ran about $10,000.00 USD. However, history has shown new technology can be expensive at first but as it develops can become more cost effective. The Concorde didn’t have time to become less costly since the technology became stagnant.

It would be a long while before Boeing or Airbus would start seriously considering making a SST line of aircraft. But smaller business jet companies are spending good sums of money researching new technology that is being dubbed Quiet Supersonic Transport (QSST). Supersonic Aerospace International is working on creating the next generation of SST starting in the business jet realm. They are hoping to have their first aircraft flying by 2014 with first customer delivery in 2016. Even if they wouldn’t be able to make those optimistic goals, it seems like there would be a big market for business people being able to save time while in-flight around the world.

Who knows where the future will go for SST? Will the start of space travel help in the development in the next SST? I would think there might be some overlap. There are those that already talk about post-SST and moving to hypersonic flight , but that is going to be far out in the future.  It seems it might be most beneficial for the technology to start on a smaller scale. It looks like smaller companies might create SST business jets and allow the wealthy to help pay for the development of the technology. As the technology grows, becomes more accepted and less costly, larger aircraft manufacturers could pick up the production of SST aircraft and usage would spread.

When the Brazilian military planes arrived they found a 3 mile long path of debris from the Air France jet carrying 228 people.

The ocean depth at the crash location is about 3 miles. With the [...]]]> The Brazilian Military has been heading to the location where another jetliner reported seeing flames on the ocean previously.

When the Brazilian military planes arrived they found a 3 mile long path of debris from the Air France jet carrying 228 people.

The ocean depth at the crash location is about 3 miles. With the area and depth of the crash scene, it will be very difficult to track down the cockpit and the blackbox, which records much of the flight data.

A few unverifiable objects (life vests, seats) have been found among the mostly unidentifiable wreckage, but no signs of any of the 228 aboard at this point.

There is still only speculation to what caused this crash. It is known the flight hit heavy weather and it seems there was little time for the pilots to make a Mayday call.

Our thoughts go out to all those who are affected by this tragic loss.

Read the most up-to-date information on this story.

Flight 447, carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members was scheduled to arrive at Charles-de-Gaulle (Paris) early Monday morning.  The Airbus A330-200 disappeared from Brazillian radar about 3 hours after take-off.  Brazillian Air Force has been searching near the coast of [...]]]>

Photo of the downed aircraft taken October 2007 A330-203 AIR FRANCE F-GZCP

Flight 447, carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members was scheduled to arrive at Charles-de-Gaulle (Paris) early Monday morning.  The Airbus A330-200 disappeared from Brazillian radar about 3 hours after take-off.  Brazillian Air Force has been searching near the coast of West Africa.

Before losing contact with Air France, Flight 447 sent an automatic message indicating an electrical problem.  An Air France spokesperson suggested it was possible that the plane was hit by lightning, though aviation experts are skeptical that the Airbus wouldn’t have been able to withstand lightning.

It will be a long, sad search for the black box, and until then, the true cause of this unfortunate occurrence will remain unknown.

Back in April a few milestones happened with one plane. Boeing was able to deliver its 777th Boeing 777 and Air France was able to show off its new livery. Overall, a very minor evolution from Air France’s previous livery.