Our Antonov AN-12 ride for the day – Photo: Bernie Leighton | AirlineReporter
Yes, you read the title correctly. Mostly.
The crew rest “Business Class” area of an AN-12 operated by RubyStar Airlines – Photo: Bernie Leighton | AirlineReporter
It’s not technically business class. It’s the crew rest area. As you can see, it looks like it belongs on either a Soviet fishing trawler or submarine.
Even with my widest lens, I could not get a photo of the bathyscaphe-like curved office to cargo hold join. But the adjective of submarine-like is really all one can say. But I recently got to experience flying in this special “Business Class,” and of course wanted to share my adventure.
The money shot: 747 line inside the Boeing factory
Back in the 1960s Boeing made a big gamble. They decided to build the world’s largest airliner, the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet. To build such a beast, they would need a large facility. After careful consideration, Boeing decided to build a large factory in Everett.
Since the first 747 rolled off the line in 1968, every other 747 has been built under the same roof. Even today, the 747-8 is built in the same factory.
In case you didn’t know the aircraft type, there is a large sign on the wall.
Although Boeing offers public tours of the facility, they do not allow cameras. I was lucky enough to participate in a media event and take photos of the 747 line in the factory and I wanted to be able to share. Enjoy…
The KM Ground Effect Aircraft – Photo: Russian Navy (unattributed photographer)
Rostislav Alexeyev loved hydrofoils. He was so enamored with the idea of hydrodynamic lift, in fact, that he developed the world’s first commercially-viable hydrofoil. Remembering that Bernoulli’s principle applies to any fluid, it is no wonder that he loved hydrofoils. Underwater wings can reduce the hydrodynamic drag acting on a vessel.
Boeing made the 929 in the 1970’s; there are lots of AvGeeks that consider hydrofoils to be a worthy marine pastime. Alexeyev, however, took things a step further.
To understand where he was coming from, one needs to consider the concept of ground-effect. When an aircraft is in ground-effect (roughly 1/2 the distance of the wingspan of an aircraft and the ground) it has some very interesting drag and performance characteristics. For instance, for a given wing area the force of lift is stronger, the drag is lower, and the thrust needed to stay aloft is less. Either way, the aerodynamic drag is much lower than the hydrodynamic drag.
Aircraft in Russia had TsAAGi as their equivalent of NASA. Hydrofoils and ekranoplans were shuffled off to TsKB po SPK (it’s even longer in Russian) in 1958. Before then, almost all of the research was done directly by Alexeyev within TKB-19 (his equivalent of an aircraft’s OKB)
Alexeyev wondered what would happen if you put wings on a boat. The thing is, an extremely fast, fuel efficient, heavy lift ground-effect vehicle would be one of strong military interest. This happened sometime in either late 1957 or immediately prior to the creation of TsKB po SPK – the sources are ambiguous. Either way, the military was interested and they made it a top-secret priority.
Business Class on the American A321 – Photo: SouthpawCapture
I live in the Dallas area, and don’t often fly transcon flights. However, I recently needed to go to both LA and New York close to the same time, and I thought it would be fun to try American’s new Airbus A321’T’ they are flying between JFK and both LAX and San Francisco.
I am an Executive Platinum AAdvantage member (American’s top-tier elite for the unitiated) so I can often, but not always, upgrade on a regular coach fare. I looked for the flight with the most available seats in business class, reasonably figuring that this would give me the best chance of upgrading. It was a midweek flight leaving LAX at 1 PM, arriving at JFK at around 10 PM local time.
If it’s not obvious, I am a typical top-tier elite member – very spoiled. Sitting in the back of the bus is for the great unwashed, not I. Seriously, no, I am not above sitting back there, and as I make lots of last-minute changes, I often wind up squashed in with everybody else. Plus since I own my business, travel costs come out of my pocket. No high-end business class fares for me.
American’s A321 in flight – Photo: SouthpawCapture
So when you have the opportunity to take ’œAAdvantage’ of the few perks you get with business travel these days, you grab it. Considering this was a five-hour flight and I was already very tired, I was REALLY hoping for the upgrade, to say the least.
When I got to LAX, the upgrade still wasn’t there, and I was pouting. To make things worse, the flight was listed an hour late due to weather in JFK. But about 45 minutes before the flight left the gate, the clouds parted, the sun shone, and the upgrade gods smiled on me. Business class it was, Seat 8F on the new A321.
This mannequin is doing important experiments in the BA-330
Space… the final frontier. Sorry, I just always wanted to start a story with that and figured this was the time.
When I was recently invited down to Las Vegas to learn about Boeing’s CST-100 and Bigelow Aerospace’s BA-330 space habitat, I lit up. I love space and, even more so, commercial space. This is the area of space where maybe someday an average Joe might be able to experience what it is like to be up in the heavens. Until then, it will take companies and individuals with money to get commercial space off the ground (literally).
Once inflated, the BA-300 is quite large
The International Space Station is currently expected to have a useful lifespan until about 2020. Firms like Bigelow Aerospace are looking at ways to provide a commercial space habitat to nations and companies who are willing (and able) to pay. Although they have tried a few variants, they are putting quite a bit of effort into the BA-330 Space Habitat (no, it is not related to the Airbus A330).
It is one thing to see drawings of what the BA-330 will look like, versus having a full mock-up. And that is exactly what Bigelow had at their facility in Las Vegas – a true, life-sized version of the BA-330, and I was lucky enough to get a look inside.
