Are you going to be in the Seattle area over the weekend? Then make sure you head to Paine Field to check out the Vintage Aircraft Weekend!
Historic Flight Foundation is hosting the Fifth Annual Vintage Aircraft Weekend going on August 31 ’“ September 1st, 2012. Together with other Paine Field Partners and the Snohomish County Tourism Promotion Area, ’œVAW’ is a great event for the aviation enthusiasts and families.
The festival begins on Friday with the arrival of aircraft throughout the day. At 6 pm, 250 lucky patrons will attend a “Big Band Dinner Dance” featuring the fifteen-piece, tuxedo-clad “Kings of Swing”.
The main event begins Saturday morning, at 9 am. VAW features a first-class Speakers Bureau, live music, two flying sessions of vintage aircraft, vintage automobiles and military vehicles, fine food, vintage bicycles, vintage clothing and uniforms, and a host of opportunities for kids and parents to interact with displays and vendors. The final flight will conclude at 5 pm.
LAN’s first Boeing 787 Dreamliner (CC-BBA) at Paine Field. Image by Tony Rodgers.
This weekend is Labor Day weekend in the US and what better way to celebrate than head down to Santiago, Chile with LAN Airlines on their 787 Delivery flight?
LAN will take delivery of the first of 32 Dreamliners that they have on order. Currently, the airline has 22 787-8s and 10 787-9s on order. The new planes will be used to replace their older 767-300ERs. Although LAN will be flying the plane from Everett on Friday, it is most likely the official paper signing and money transfer will happen sometime tomorrow.
I feel honored to be invited on the delivery flight and look forward to checking out Santiago and Chile for the first time.
During my time in Santiago, I will have the ability to check out LAN’s flight simulators and maintenance facility. As always, please feel free to follow along on my Twitter and Facebook. Hopefully there won’t be too much jetlag not only from testing out the 787 for a long distance trip (my previous flight was only 90 minutes), but also Santiago currently shares the same time as New York (and only three hours ahead of Seattle-time).
I will also end up with some free time while in Chile, so if you have any suggestions on things to check out — please let me know.
On my flight back to the US, I will be flying on one of LAN’s Boeing 767-300ERs. It will be quite interesting to compare the 787 back-to-back with the aircraft that it will be replacing. You can bet there will many photos and a few stories to share of this adventure.
Private berth in the Aeroloft, located above the 747-8I’s main cabin. Image from Boeing.
If you were a fare-paying passenger and had access to sleeping berths like this, you would be elite. But in a Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental Boeing Business Jet, this is where the “help” sleeps.
Today, Boeing celebrated the first Aeroloft to be installed on an aircraft. The additional space, located above the main cabin, behind the upper deck, provides an extra 383 square feet of additional space. That brings the total cabin space to 5,179 square feet. Yea… that is almost 5200 square feet… in a plane.
The Aerolof has eight private beds and a changing area for crew.
If the crew get resting areas this awesome, can’t wait to see where the VIPs get to sleep. Image from Boeing.
Installation took place in Wichita, Kansas and now the 747-8I is heading to Hamburg, Germany to have the rest of its interior installed by Lufthansa Technik.
Boeing is still sticking to this aircraft is going to an, “undisclosed customer,” but it has been well established that this plane will go to the government of Qatar.Currently, Boeing has nine orders for the 747-8I BBJ for heads of states. Time to get into politics.
Hurricane Issac is currently hitting the US, but a bit earlier, it hit Saint Maarten, which is a well known airline spotting site. This video, taken yesterday, shows an Air France Airbus A340 trying to land, but deciding to go around.
UTAir Tupolev Tu-154M RA-85057 arriving at Niederrhein Weeze Airport from Moscow Vnukovo, bringing in the soccer team of Anzhi Makhachkala for their match on Thursday Evening (9 August 2012, 8:00pm) against Vitesse Arnhem. Image by Marc Riedel.
Seeing a Tupolev TU-154 out in the wild is becoming a rare treat. Luckily, UTair still operates two Tu-154Ms, one in a striking blue and red livery.
UTair was founded in 1967 and is based at Khanty-Mansiysk Airport (HMA) in Russia. Originally the airline was part of the Aeroflot family and was renamed TAT after the break up of the USSR. Then, in 2003, the airline was again re-named to UTair.
The airline offers scheduled service to about 70 domestic and international destinations. UTair operates a diverse fleet of over 100 aircraft and 300 helicopters. They are in the process of updating their older aircraft with 20 Airbus A321s, 30 Boeing 737-800s and 24 Sukhoi SUperjet 100s on order.
This is a special livery seen on RA-85057. The livery has been with Samara Airlines and then South East Airlines before remaining with UTair. UTair’s standard livery is not nearly as colorful and a bit bland, so hopefully they keep the red white and blue flying until retiring the aircraft from their fleet.
