The Global Aviation Guru's Blog

ProTraveller published a great article listing the Top 10 of most dangerous approaches and landings in the world. The article comes complete with YouTube videos.

Click on the following link: http://www.otbeach.com/news/airlines-and-airports--1/top-10-most-dangerous-aircraft-landings-in-the-world--418.html

The Courchevel video link is something made in Flight Simulator, but here is a link to another video about this challenging airfield in France: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNFNFZq2BFY

Boeing is upset, as well as several lawmakers in the US Congress, that Airbus has turned out to be the major winner in a new contract from the United States Air Force.
The USAF has been looking into its options to renew its huge fleet of in-flight refuelling aircraft. Boeing has been working on its KC-767, based on its successful 767 airliner. Airbus has been working on its A330MRTT, based on the A330-200. And Airbus has won a contract to supply the USAF with no less than 179 aircraft over the next 15 years.

The USAF's current fleet of tanker-transports includes the KC-135, the military version of Boeing's original 367-80 model (but not exactly the same as the 707 airliner, developed from the 367-80.) Some of these KC-135s were born in the 1950s so the time is ripe for them to be retired.

Despite the heavy protests from Boeing and the US Congress, the USAF has acted as any other customer buying new aircraft and has looked at the advantages and disadvantages of both models. Conclusion: the A330MRTT, to be named KC-45A by the US military, is an overall winner offering a higher payload and longer range.

The Airbus contract doesn't mean that the American economy loses out on the deal entirely. Airbus will collaborate with Northrop Grumman in the project, and the final assembly of the aircraft will be done in Alabama. So while Boeing employees are upset, the ones at Northrop Grumman have wide smiles on their faces.

Where else than Japan could this news come from?
Japanese scientists are trying to figure out whether it is viable to make spacecraft out of paper. Paper? Yes, although it is very sturdy stuff that's been chemically treated to resist heat and water.

They tested small paper planes in wind tunnels, exposing them to temperatures of up to 250 degrees Celsius and winds up to seven times the speed of sound. The little aircraft survived the tests without any major scratches.
So now the next step is for a Japanese astronaut in the International Space Station to launch a number of paper planes towards Earth. It is said that it will take several months for the planes to reach the ground, and it is impossible to tell where they will land exactly. With three quarters of the globe covered with water, it might prove a bit tricky for any of the little flyers to land on dry soil. But the scientists plan to have some kind of message written on the planes, encouraging anyone who finds them to contact them.

Sounds something like sending the Voyager space probe into outer space with messages for any alien life forms it may encounter out there, but in this case hoping to be re-united with the human beings that made it...

The crew of a Boeing 727 of Lloyd Aereo Boliviano (LAB), the flag carrier of this South American country, made a successful emergeny landing in an open field surrounded by jungle near the town of Trinidad. At least, successful for the passengers and crew on board, as everyone evacuated the aircraft safely and without major injuries. The aircraft however was a write-off.

The aircraft was operating on a domestic flight from La Paz to Cobija but had to divert to Trinidad because of bad weather at the original destination. But the venerable 727 ran out of fuel before reaching the airport; all three engines stopped working and the crew could not reach the runway anymore. They put the aircraft down about three kilometres before the airport.

This incident makes me think straight away of two major accidents involving fuel shortage, both with far worse consequences. The first was the Avianca Boeing 707 that crashed near New York after running out of fuel because it had to hold for ages in very adverse weather conditions. The second is the Boeing 767 of Ethiopian Airlines, which was hijacked and ran out of fuel before it could land on the Comoros Islands.

Incidents like this LAB crash-landing show the importance of adequate flight planning, something which I have to deal with all the time in my line of work. A safe flight is a flight with multiple safety factors built into the planning; there need to be back-ups of back-ups of back-ups. It's not good nor acceptable to say 'close enough is good enough'. Unfortunately not all airlines, companies sometimes responsible for the lives of hundreds at the same time, have safety in the top of their priorities list.

The bad news: the famous official spotters location along the Kaagbaan, runway 06/24 of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, has been closed. This was done to facilitate the expansion of the airport's cargo facilities. The location was a favourite among Schiphol spotters, coming complete with a mobile snackbar. The control tower offered a nice background for shots of aircraft rotating right in front of you.

Now the good news: the airport authorities here are very friendly towards spotters, and have agreed to open a new official location along the Polderbaan, runway 18R/36L. This runway at the western end of the airport perimeter is quite a distance from the terminal area, but have no fear: the mobile snackbar moves along!

Apart from this official location, spotters can enjoy views from a McDonald's parking lot at the northeastern end of the airport, as well as from the huge visitor's terrace on top of the terminal building. This is one of the reasons that Schiphol is my favourite airport in Europe.