Ah, Saturday Night Live is always (or sometimes) good for a laugh. Every once in a while a nice airline-related gem will pop up. This one is a bit old, but still a good one, making a little fun of Captain Sully and US Airways flight 1549.
UPDATE: I didn’t realize you could only see HULU in the US. Here is the video on NBC.com as well.
It is hard to believe it has been over a year since US Airways flight 1549 hit a flock or birds and successfully landed in the Hudson River. Now a time-lapsed video has been posted showing the Airbus A320 being taken out of the river. The video was taken by David Martin, who lives right above where the plane was extracted (check out his blog for photos and more information).
Now the plane is waiting to find a new home and if you have enough money you can place a bid on it. It is being sold “as is” and most likely won’t be flying anytime soon.
More information:
* Additional photos of N106US from Airliners.net
* Photos at ground level of N106US being salvaged
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Source: Flight Blogger
Long Exposure of STL Airport from across the highway the evening before STLavDay
Airports across the U.S. are recognizing the value in opening up and partnering with local aviation enthusiasts (AvGeeks.) We have been delighted to recognize, encourage, and report on this trend. To that end, AirlineReporter recently featured two airports looking to forge relationships in their own unique ways. How can we tell that this is indeed a trend rather than a few random events? Now, even airports known for being aggressive are looking to thaw relations. While this should not come as a surprise to locals or anyone who has recently tried PlaneSpotting in the area, it’s worth stating: The St. Louis airport has a well deserved, longstanding spot in the “AvGeek unfriendly” category.
But the airport’s recent #STLavDay event suggests that may very well be changing.
One of two avian radars located at SEA. This one is in a ditch adjacent to the third runway.
Have you ever looked up in the sky, seen a hawk or eagle soaring, and admired the beauty? Although exciting, the birds can cause major problems for aviation.
The ’œMiracle on the Hudson’ is a prime example of why birds and aircraft do not mix. But what do airports do to ensure that our journeys, from one airport to the next, are safe? I recently took a tour of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) and saw what their wildlife management team was doing to keep both airplanes and birds safe.
A Snowy Owl is captured at SEA, then released in the upper part of Washington state, near Bellingham – Photo: SEA
SEA has been a leader in wildlife management since the 1970s, when they were the first airport to hire a dedicated wildlife biologist onto their staff. At the moment, Steve Osmek runs the wildlife program at the airport and has done so for a number of years. Previously coming from the USDA and NOAA, he gets to combine his love of animals and an interest in aviation into on job. It was Steve who took me around the airport and introduced me to a number of ways that the airport is helping to mitigate bird strikes.
Normally when people talk about the “good old days” of flying, they aren’t talking about the early 1930’s. But this was a big time in aviation and one of the most interesting aircraft of that time was the Dornier Do X seaplane.
It would be hard to mistake the Do X for anything else. It was a plane powered by 12 motors and it required a crew of 14, including an engineer who operated the engines more like a steam liner than an airliner. The aircraft could hold a total of 66 people on long flights and up to 100 on shorter. It offerred a smoking room, a wet bar, a dining salon and sleeping berths. The amenities might sound amazing, but flights were rough and took a long time.
On August 27, 1931, two Lufthansa (called Deutsche Luft Hansa at the time) pilots, landed on the Hudson River after travelling from Europe to Rio de Janeiro to New York. That trip required 16 stopovers and 22 days, much longer than one would experience today. One of the passengers was a woman American millionaire and aviation enthusiast, Clara Adams (who was also on the Hindenburg’s madain flight).
Overhaul work was completed after the long flight in the US and on May 24th 1932, the Do X returned to Berlin to a crowd of 200,000 cheering fans.
Only three of the aircraft were ever produced and due to a number of non-fatal accidents and world economic downturn, the Do X was never a successful airliner. It doesn’t stop the aircraft from going down into history as one of the most unusual airliners.