Airline world

A Swiss pilot, Yves Rossy made a big decision and took a big step out of a Pilatus Porter aircraft 7500 feet (2300 m) above the ground over the Swiss Alps. Before he stepped out of the plane, he unfolded a special wing attached to his back equipped with four jet tubines. The engines speed up the flier to 186 miles per hour (300 km/h).

He even maneuvered a little bit. He made a perfect 360 degree roll “just to impress the girls” as he said. Although he said the flight was not any more stressy than riding a motorbike, he had a yellow handle to pull in case a parachute would have been needed. It wasn’t.

Well, i think we will still have to wait a little until it will become a natural way to get to work during high traffic hours.

Source: AP

By Szafi

Foreign airlines have sent over 120 requests to carry out charter flights with British football fans to Moscow airports, as coordinator of the UEFA Champions League Final project Alexei Sorokin reports. According to his words, the first British football fans are expected to arrive on May 19 with regular and charter flights, but the majority of fans (around 30000) will come to Moscow early morning May 21.

The football fans will be delivered separately: Chelsea fans will fly to Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo airports and Manchester United fans to Domodedovo. Several thousand fans will stay in Moscow hotels which they have managed to book, Mr. Sorokin said.

From the airports the fans will be transferred to the city by around 600 buses decorated with logotypes of their favourite football teams.

Don’t give up!

If you are a Chelsea fan departing from London, apparently there are quite a lot of flights that are still bookable. Try BA, BMI, Aeroflot, Transaero Airlines for direct flights or check for non-direct flights with a travel agent or online travel consolidator like Expedia, Travelocity, Opodo etc.

If you are a Manchester United fan departing from Manchaster, Czech Airlines and Finnair have non direct flights, or check multiple carriers on travel portals.

Original article: russia-ic.com

By Szafi

Airline World Blog started a column that follows the events of this year’s Red Bull Air Race. Here you can read the first article that explains the race and presents the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Britain’s Paul Bonhomme defeated American Mike Mangold in San Diego on Sunday in a dramatic final showdown pitting the two dominant pilots of the last two Red Bull Air Race World Series seasons. It was another dazzling precision performance by the British ace, unbeaten in the first two races of 2008. Kirby Chambliss of the United States grabbed third place by beating Hannes Arch of Austria in the 3rd Place Fly-Off.

Bonhomme, who lost to Mangold by a heart-breaking fraction of a second in the 2007 World Series, gained a measure of revenge on his American rival with the hard-earned victory in front of a crowd of 63,000 spectators watching from the shores of San Diego Bay. Although Bonhomme made it look easy with his elegant style of flying through the challenging obstacle course just above the water, he was breathing hard and drenched in sweat after returning to the runway set up on the U.S. Naval Air Station on North Island. He won the final with a time of 1:18.01 to 1:19.24 for Mangold.

“I do like San Diego,” said Bonhomme, who also won the race in “America’s Finest City” last year. “I’m very pleased to take the win. All I can say is that it’s hard work. I’m chuffed to bits that we won. The guys on the team have done a brilliant job. But it’s not a walk in the park. And if anybody says they expect it to be easy, I would say it’s hard work and getting harder all the time. These other guys are not standing still.”

More than 120,000 fans attended the two-day race weekend lining the shores of San Diego Bay.

Source: redbullairrace.com

By Szafi

It has been quite a while since we last wrote about Bruce Dickinson and his big jet. As you learn from that article, celebs often fly themselves as pilots. Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of Iron Maiden for example is an official pilot for a UK based small charter airline called Astraeus.

Now the famous rock band Iron Maiden is again up for something fresh and new. They are on their new “Somewhre back in time” tour. Well, this is nothing special so far, is it?

The big thing is that now fans can join the band on board their tour jet - with Mr Brucwe Dickinson himself as first officer on it, fly with them to the scene of the next concert, stay at a hotel and fly back together with them the next day. The funky thing is that the whole package costs only £349 - £399 depending on the scene.

Costs also include:

- Exclusive themed Bruce Air ED FORCE ONE goodie bag
- Personally signed photo of Bruce in Ed Force One
- Standing ticket to the Iron Maiden concert
- Bus transfers at destination to venue and to and from hotel where trip includes hotel.

The aircraft itself has a special Iron Maiden livery with the skull known from the album cover on the tail of the Boeing 757. You can book your flight on the special charter with Captain Bruce Dickinson on Brucair666.com now. You can read more on Iron Maiden’s official website.

(Photo: www.ironmaiden.com)

By Szafi

According to ATW News, Emirates has initiated the next phase in welcoming the Airbus A380 superjumbo into its fleet in August: hiring flight crew!

Here is a video of the Emirates livery A380 flying above Dubai:

The Aviation College of Emirates will begin accepting A380 personnel to its crew training program in early June. Emirates will have 489 seats in its A380, and plans to operate it with 24 cabin staff onboard a normal flight meaning that there is one flight attendant for every 20 passegengers. Just as a comparison, a regular narrow-body Airbus A320 or Boeing B737 flies with around 4-5 flight attendants per 150 passengers meaning that there is one flight attendant for every 30-35 passengers only. It is interesting that they plan to have a little more than about six complete crews for every aircraft. There will be 158 employees trained for the first four A380s scheduled to arrive in 2008 and they will be selected from current Boeing 777 and Airbus A330/A340 staff, Senior VP-Service Delivery Terry Daly told ATWOnline in Dubai. This also shows just how complicated of a process it is to introduce a new aircraft to an airline’s fleet.

In average, 90 new flight attendants join Emirates each week and the carrier currently employs 9,200 cabin staff from 116 countries. “Four years ago, the number of cabin crew was around 4,000. By 2012-13 we will have a total of 18,000,” Daly said. The carrier is sending recruiters throughout its worldwide network to hire more staff. He said just 5% of applicants eventually are hired.

by balint01

500 years ago renessaince genius Leonardo da Vinci designed the parachute. Now, 5 centuries later a Swiss amateur parachuter built it and made a successful jump with it.

The Swiss jumper, Mr Vietti-Teppa was not the first person, who tried it. A British parachuter, Adrian Nicholas jumped with it in 2000, but had to use a modern backup parachute to complete the jump.

Leonardo’s parachute is made of 4 equilateral triangles and shapes a pyramid. The specification was written in a document originateing from 1485.

The only problem it has - says the Swissman - that it is impossible to maneuver with it. You just come down at the whim of the wind.

By Szafi

A small turboprop plane hit the crowd of spectators at an air show in Germany, Kindel Airfield near Eisenach on 26 April. The small plane failed to take off and it ran into the crowd of onlookers.

1 person, a 45-year-old woman was killed and 10 suffered serious injuries including the 35-year-old pilot. Other seven were lightly injured, including 2 children.

The plane also hit a children’s carousel, which luckily did not operate at the time of the accident.

The aircraft involved was a Zlin Z-37 Cmelak, a Czech built single-seater plane which had been used by authorities in former East Germany as a cropduster.

By Szafi

The 2008 Red Bull Air Race Series have just gone underway last Sunday with the season-opener in Abu Dhabi, and in recent years, the Red Bull Aerobatic Helicopter has visited most of the races as well. So watch out for this customized Eurocopter BO-105 CBS 4 Twin engine helicopter that has a Rigid Rotor system (fixed rotor) why it can do aerobatics. We hope it will be present on the Budapest Race as well, following last year’s amazing and really breathtaking show. If you attend any of the races this year, try to keep your head up all the time even in between the rounds of the actual Race, to see this helicopter piloted by Chuck Aaron.

one from Budapest in 2006:

And the last one including Chuck’s comments live while doing the loops:

You can find a lot more videos on YouTube if you like these just search for the Red Bull Helicopter and enjoy your Friday!

by balint01

Cavity search, biometric data, pat-down, body screening. What is next? A regular passenger is checked more often than an average criminal in jail. Is it really necessary?

As CNN reported yesterday (April 16), two majos US airports - Los Angeles LAX and New York JFK - will start to use body screening machines. The machines had been tested in Phoenix, Arizona and apparently it proved to be useful as more passenegrs chose to go through the body screener than having a pat-down.

When I read this part of the article, I was really surprised. I am not pleased by a pat-down, still I would prefer it to a body screening machine, where all bits of my body could be seen for a complete stranger. May be it just my “feminist aggression” that says: no, I have the right to decide who can see my body.

Then I kept on reading and I understood it:

Travelers will continuously and randomly be selected to go through the machine. While signs will inform them of the pat-down option, screeners will not announce that choice. But passengers electing not to go through the millimeter wave machine will be given the option of the pat-down.

You have the right, you just won’t be informed about it. Now that is nice, isn’t it? Bad news for passengers departing from the US is that TSA is planning to buy 30 more machines. Once a business is blossoming…

I understand it, that they just want to protect us, regular travellers from being blown up on a passenger jet and I agree that airline safety is first priority for them, but is it really necessary? Is there anything on earth that this wil show on a human body and those beeping gates do not filter out? Is it still about safety?

Basically it has become a nightmare to fly in or out of the US. Hours of queues at the immigration when travelling in including fingerprint and eye check and now body screening when travelling out. Why is it much more simple in the EU?

By Szafi

As Airline World reported earlier, huge chaos followed the grand opening of Terminal 5 at London Heathrow Airport. At that time probably the whole world thought it was going to be some temporary inconvenience and after a few days everything would turn out right. But it has not happened. 3 weeks after Terminal 5 was opened for British Airways’ passengers exclusively, still baggages get lost due to technical problems.

Although it is still not quite clear who is to blame for that as the planning went on in cooperation with British Airport Authorities, British Airways CEO Willie Walsh had some tough moments in the past few weeks in front of tv cameras and microphones of reporters. (The toughest meeting with the shareholders of BA is yet to come for him….) Again a lot of people expected him to resign. Instead he released two high-level executives: operations director Gareth Kirkwood and customer service director David Noyes.

The next big step will be the long haul flights to depart from Terminal 5. Originally this move was planned for April 30, then a delay for June was announced, but yesterday (April 15) Mr Walsh said it was more probably to happen only in October.

By Szafi