Aerial shot of the first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner (ZB001) Photo: Bernie Leighton/AirlineReporter.com
Did you just read a story about Bombardier’s first CSeries first flight potentially happening on Monday, only to find out the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner’s first flight could be as early as Tuesday, September 17th? Why yes you did. Boeing announced this week that their first 787-9 could possibly have its maiden flight at Paine Field early next week.
Yes AvGeeks, this is going to be a good week for all of us!
Bombardier CSeries FTV1 on the ramp at Mirabel Airport (YMX) Photo: Bombardier Aero
UPDATE: September 15th, 7:30 PM ET
Bombardier has just confirmed that the first flight of CSeries Flight Test Vehicle 1 (FTV1) will happen tomorrow morning, Monday, September 16th. Winds are expected to be light and the sky mostly clear. Remember to follow me @airchive – I’ll be live-tweeting the event starting at 8:00 AM ET. Bombardier has set up a webcast of the first flight HERE, with pre-flight activities starting at 9:30 AM ET.
PREVIOUS UPDATE: September 14th
Late on Friday, Bombardier announced that the first flight of CSeries Flight Test Vehicle 1 (FTV1) is expected to take place this Monday, September 16th. Of course, the test flight team will be looking for optimal weather and aircraft readiness before making the decision to fly. The timing for the flight is expected to be set sometime on Sunday.
I’ll be at Mirabel on Monday to cover this exciting event for our friends at Airchive.com and I’ll be live tweeting on @airchive, so follow along there!
Little Ford, a vintage Tri-Motor, takes to the sky at Oshkosh – Photo: Mal Muir | AirlineReporter.com
During my recent visit to Oshkosh, I managed to secure a ticket to fly in the oldest aircraft I have ever stepped onboard. On a grey and cool Tuesday morning at Oshkosh, I hiked from the main gate over to the Warbird Alley flight line to line up for a scenic flight onboard ’œLittle Ford’, a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor (Model 4-AT-E).
Little Ford (NC8407) was built in 1929 and was frame #146 from the Ford Aircraft factory. Sold to Eastern Air Transport (later Eastern Airlines), it served for three years before heading over the Straits of Florida to operate for Cubana on its new Santiago de Cuba to Havana route. Before returning back to the U.S., it served as presidential transport for the Dominican Republic as well. During the 1950’s, the aircraft was upgraded with higher-horsepower engines, becoming the most powerful 4-AT ever flown.
Gogo’s Test Plane – Photo: Gogo
Gogo announced today significant new technology upgrades that will boost the speed and enhance the reliability of their in-flight wifi service. These upgrades will be rolled out first with Virgin America (VX) in 2014, who also happened to be the first customer to introduce Gogo service fleet-wide, and the first to implement the enhanced ATG-4 high-speed service.
The essence of the new technology is a refined antenna that utilizes a “GTO” protocol (or “Ground-to-Orbit”). This system will build upon Gogo’s existing ground-based antennas to utilize multiple satellites for enhanced speed and reliability. Gogo claims upwards of 60 Mbps speeds to planes running their service. That’s up to 20x faster than what you can expect on most planes equipped with Gogo right now.
Another benefit of the new antenna is that it can communicate with multiple satellites at once, which increases stability. If one connection fails, another can pick up the slack. This will hopefully prevent what happened on my last Gogo-equipped flight; a 20-minute loss of coverage in the middle of writing an AirlineReporter.com story.
EAA AirVenture is more commonly known as Oshkosh – Photo: Mal Muir | AirlineReporter.com
In July of 2012, I saw my twitter feed explode from all of the #OSH12 tweets. After a week getting insanely jealous of everyone, I decided that for 2013 I would be going to the EAA AirVenture show. I managed to get myself to Oshkosh from July 28th through August 3rd, which enabled me to see a large portion of the show.
I really only missed out on the mass arrivals on the 27th and the final night show on the 3rd; I could live with that. This was my first time at Oshkosh, so I was given a whole range of tips from fellow AirlineReporter.com correspondent Howard, who had attended a few years prior. He also set me up with a contact at EAA for a tour of the grounds, which was helpful, since it can be a bit overwhelming.
