Safe and sound in my Qantas First Class suite, cruising towards back to my new home in the USA, I was relaxed and enjoying myself. The crew was there to make my flight as enjoyable as possible and Ahead of me was almost 8000 miles of open sky and 14 hours of bliss, luxury and pampering.
I was nicely settled into my seat with a hot towel and drink from the crew and the majority of other passengers (it was a full flight today, 100% in all cabins) were hitting the menu pretty hard. After my indulgent breakfast in the lounge, I was happy to delay my lunch for a bit and get some work done. Pretty easy to do with the suites since they have power at the seat and a gigantic tray table; big enough to allow you to spread out any files that you might be working on.
The video above has been on the internet for years and is nothing new. What is new, is that recent unclassified documents confirm that it is real and give additional details of the incident.
According to Spiegel Online, the clip was taken from an 88lb LUNA Drone that shows the UAV about to strike an Ariana Airbus A300 aircraft while flying over Afghanistan. The German drone came with-in about six feet striking the left wing and could have potentially caused an accident. Although an object that size, hitting the end of the wing, would not necessarily mean the aircraft would crash to the ground.
After passing the jetliner, the drone hit the A300’s wake and crashed in Kabul.
A350 XWB (MSN1) First Engine Run, Toulouse, France. Photo by Airbus.
On Sunday, The first Airbus A350-900 (MSN1) successfully completed starting up its engines, making it one step close to flight. Although Airbus is not stating when the A350 will have its first flight, many are hoping it will be in time for the Paris Air Show, which will run from June 17-23.
When the first flight occurs there will be six crew members on-board: two flight test pilots, one test flight engineer and three flight test engineers. The two test pilots will be Peter Chandler, an Experimental Flight Test Pilot with Airbus since 2000 and Chief Test Pilot since 2011 and Guy Magrin, an Experimental Flight Test Pilot with Airbus since 2003 and Project Pilot for the A350 XWB.
Airbus plans to deliver the first A350-900 XWB in the second half of 2014 to its launch customer: Qatar Airways.
Hainan Boeing 787 Dreamliner at Paine Field. Photo by moonm.
Here we have the third installment of showing off the beautiful Boeing 787 Dreamliner liveries that have been seen at Paine Field and around the world. There have now been 22 different liveries on 15 different airlines and one aircraft manufacture (Boeing). Last update was from August 2012 and we have seen quite a few new ones since then.
Let me know in the comments: which 787 livery is your favorite? Your least favorite?
JA806A pulling into Gate 15 at San Jose Airport (SJC) – Photo: Mal Muir | AirlineReporter.com
A beautiful, clear, sunny day awaited guests as they checked in at San Jose’s Norman Y Mineta International Airport (SJC). Saturday was the day a lot of people have been waiting for: All Nippon Airways (ANA) is resuming their Tokyo flights into the Silicon Valley, providing a direct link from the bay area to northern Asia. I was lucky enough to be invited on this flight by ANA to help celebrate this re-introduction [ANA only flew the 787 for only a few days into SJC before the aircraft was grounded].
This flight into San Jose also sees the reintroduction of the 787 to international skies for ANA, who operate the world’s largest fleet of Dreamliners. As NH1076 touched down at San Jose a few minutes ahead of schedule, the gate area was quiet, the staff scurried around preparing for the flights arrival. This could’ve been any flight on any other day, but it wasn’t.
