Last Friday I showed off Boeing’s 360 view of a Boeing 737 (nicknamed the “gigaplane”) and asked how many photos it took to make this one of a kind view. When the first few “around 20,000” answers started rolling in, I thought people were pretty good. Then I realized that other sites and even Boeing had covered the 360 view and stated it was “around 20,000.” I guess I cannot blame people for doing research, but luckily the “real” answer is not an even 20k — I do not have that many prizes.
So what is the exact answer? According to Boeing it is 22,240.
There were a lot of guesses and I appreciate the involvement, but who got closest? Well, I am giving props to the two who were the closest: Ariff Shah from Moscow who was only off by 240 and Allen Cheng from Langley, BC who was off by 260. So what do they win besides uber props on the blog?
These are the fabulous prizes for the Boeing 737 360 giga-plane contest. Good stuff.
They will both be mailed the prizes above: three AirlineReporter.com stickers, one magnet of an ANA Boeing 737 and last, but surely not least a coffee cup holder I got during the first flight of the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental. For the average person, the paper coffee holder means nothing, but for the true aviation geek, this is gold.
The video above shows behind-the-scenes on the making of the gigaplane image created by Boeing. It seems that fans are not the only ones excited about the giga-image. Rahsaan Johnson, the Director of United’s Communications told AirlineReporter.com, “Boeing is a great partner and the 737 is a great airplane, so we’re happy to join them in showing it off.”
A huge thanks to Boeing for creating and sharing this image with the general public — I hope we see more like it in the future.
The first Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental after landing at Boeing Field after her first flight.
Some media outlets are reporting that the FAA partial shutdown could affect the certification of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the 747-8 Freighter and 747-8 Intercontinental. According to Boeing, as of now, the partial shut down will not affect the certification of the aircraft, but could affect airports looking to be certified to operate the new 747-8.
“The FAA says airplane certification activities will continue– so we don’t expect any impact there,” Boeing spokesperson Doug Alder Jr explained to AirlineReporter.com. “As for airport certification, if furloughed FAA personnel don’t return to work in time to finish the remaining airport approvals for the 747-8, customers wouldn’t be able to fly the airplane into certain airports until that work is complete (SFO, Newark, O’Hare and Houston are the major ones).”
This is just another reason to be angry at the partial FAA shutdown.
I wanted to find a sad picture that made me feel disapointed. I think this one does nicely. That is an old TWA 707 nose and landing gear located in Tuscon, AZ.
While US House leaders start summer recess today, there are still 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees that will remain furloughed and about 70,000 construction and support workers that will not have jobs until the the recess concludes on September 6th. Of course there are no guarantees that congress can even come to an agreement when they return. Due to the lack of cooperation, the FAA will continue to lose about $30million per day totaling over $1billion during the recess.
According to CNN, representatives continued to argue, “over an issue they said was the real subject of the dispute — new National Mediation Board rules that make it easier for airlines to unionize. Democrats favor the new rules; Republicans oppose them.”
While the country has been concerned about the raising of the debt ceiling, not as much attention has been given to the funding issues facing the FAA. Not everyone is losing due to the shutdown — at least for the short term. As part of the shut down, FAA taxes are not longer being collected by airlines and some have decided to pass the savings on to passengers, while others decided to keep the additional funds to offset the increase in fuel prices. While it seems that passengers and airlines are celebrating the savings, long-term it will only end up hurting airline infrastructure.
If passengers purchased tickets for travel after July 23rd and paid the taxes, they have the option to request a refund from the IRS. Delta Air Lines is hoping to make the process much easier, by offering the IRS tax refund directly though them.
Part of me wants to support the effort of passengers getting their refunds, since it is the government who messed up and they should be “punished” by having to give tax money back. However, the airline part of me feels that asking for a refund will just further hurt the airline industry and I rather “donate” my taxes I already paid.
This story is extremely angering and is NOT okay. The airline infrastructure and hard working employees should not be suffering while members of our political system go on holiday. I do not think that most politicians realize that their school-yard politics actually affects real people and this inability to work together will have a negative impact that will be felt for a long time.
Image: Telstar Logistics
Throughout the week, I upload photos to my server and share them on Twitter. They are photos I find interesting, but not quite enough to write a blog on. For those of you who don’t use Twitter, I want to share them, but not exactly sure how. Why not post a collection of links in a blog? Let’s give it a try and see how it goes — click on the links below for photos.
Lots of interesting photos. Click the links below to see larger versions.
* On Tuesday July 26th, United Airlines Boeing 767 Flight 635 enroute from Chicago, landed in Seattle with brake issues and was met by fire trucks who quickly sprayed water on the aircraft’s brakes. No injuries were reported.
* Last week, Lufthansa announced 30 firm orders for the Airbus A320neo family of aircraft. The order consists of 25 Airbus A320neo and five Airbus A321neo aircraft.
* No in-flight entertainment system is safe from me. I have a way of requiring them to be restarted quite often and on my recent Singapore Airlines A380 flight was no exception.
* I have had a goal of catching a ride on a Beechcraft Starship and Dan Webb caught Starship N514RS at Oshkosh AirVenture last week.
* While on a long layover at LAX, I caught a glimpse of Eva Air’s special 777 livery on a Boeing 777-300ER.
* I had the “opportunity” to see JAL’s new livery for the first time in person while stopping in Narita. I have to say that I was not that impressed — a bit too plain for my taste. Also caught an Asiana Boeing 747-400 in the same shot.
* Have you ever wondered how United Airlines goes about cleaning their front windscreens? I caught a worker cleaning the windscreen of the special Friend Ship livery A320 in Chicago during a recent trip.
* A little blast from the past, I wanted to share probably the happiest Lockheed L1011 I have ever seen. Great photo by LAXramper.
An Adam Air Boeing 737-200 (PK-KKF).
Adam Air started operations in 2003 with its main base of operations in Jakarta, Indonesia using two Boeing 737s. It seemed the airline might have a bright future, offering cheap fares, combined with higher end service. At one point they operated 22 737s to over 20 different destinations. Unfortunately, Adam Air was plagued by multiple accidents, safety violations and corruption.
The worst incident occurred on January 1, 2007 when Adam Air Flight 574, a Boeing 737-400, crashed into the ocean, killing all 102 people on-board. The airline was heavily criticized for their safety practices and were forced to shut down their operations in June 2008.
Although the airline had a lot of issues, at least they did the livery right. They made good use of the color orange on the fuselage, but I am not a huge fan of the green “AIR.” I think the livery even makes this older Boeing 737-200 look newer. There really should be more airlines that make orange their main color (ie easyJet).
Image: Bob the airplane nut
