Ah Meiegs Field in Chicago. Any of your Flight Simulator fans you will remember it as the default airport. There was quite a bit of controversy surrounding its closure. The Chicago Mayor at the time, Richard Daley, wanted the airport closed and a park made. Although people were trying to fight and keep the airport open, Daley had crews destroy the runway in the middle of the night, stranding the airplanes that were parked there. The aircraft were later able to take off using the taxi way, but it was an end to a special era.
This video takes a look at a Boeing 727 that was flown in to Miegs field to be barged to the Museum of Science and Industry. The issue is, the runway was never made for such a large plane, so the pilot had to be careful in his landing.
Impulse Airlines was founded in 1992 and was a low-cost carrier that operated in Australia. It brought low-cost competition to long standing Qantas and Ansett airlines.
In 2001 Qantas wet leased all of Impulse’s services, gave the airline cash, and opened an option to later purchase the airline. A few months later, Qantas decided to purchase the airline and Impulse’s fleet of Boeing 717s and Beech 1900s were absorbed into QantasLink. Later the Beech 1900s were removed and the Boeing 717 fleet was expanded for QantasLink.
In 2004, all operations under the Impulse banner was ceased, however what remained was used as a springboard to start Qantas’ lowcost carrier, Jetstar.
The Parrot really gives the livery a mascot and is much more “fun” than their first more standard style livery.
Southwest wingtip at Seattle. I am cheating, this is an older photo, but there are no Southwest planes at gates right now at SEA.
The air show of the year is going on right now in Oshkosh, WI and I can’t miss it. I am once again back at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (and loving their free Wi-Fi) waiting for my Southwest flight to Chicago (MDW). Then tomorrow, Southwest will be flying a special flight to Oshkosh from Midway just for the day. Only having one day to look around might be very, very hard, but I am excited to be going. I need to make a list of MUST-SEE’s.
Last time I flew Southwest, I slacked and ended up in the B-group. However this time I was vigilant and got in to the much coveted A-group. Window seat, here I come!
On Sunday I was looking at FlightAware and noticed that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner ZA001 (the first one) was set to make a visit to Paine Field. Since I live close by, I decided to go check it out and caught it doing a low fly over. The video isn’t the best since I was trying to video and take pictures on my iPhone (bad idea), but it works.
Oh please! Are the airlines to blame for everything now-a-days? Well it sure seems passenger Jean Barnard thinks so, since she sued Qantas for, “physical and mental suffering, medical expenses and loss of income,” because a three year old passenger screamed into her ear on a QantasLink flight from Alice Springs to Darwin.
Don’t get me wrong, the hearing loss seems real. Barnard had to be taken off the plane and taken to the hospital for permanent ear damage. There is some question if she had previous hearing damage, but getting the blood-curdling scream into her ear, surely didn’t help.
However, how can this be seen as Qantas’ fault? In court, Qantas argued that they are not responsible for a child’s actions and, “Flight attendants cannot predict when children aboard an aircraft are about to scream. There is no evidence that the child was screaming in the terminal, or on board the aircraft prior to the particular scream which allegedly caused the damage.”
Qantas must have felt her argument or the idea of bad press was too great and (confidentially) settled with Barnard out of court. That is too bad, since I feel that Barnard was more out to make a few bucks than to really change how an airline operates. Other than putting a muzzle on every child, what could Qantas have done? If Barnard was walking on the street and a child did the same thing, what would she have done then? Sued the city that owns the street?
