patham

I think Boeings defence side has won quite a few contracts lately (T-X, MH-139 helicopter, MQ-25 Navy drone and re-start of the F-15 production line for the F-15X), that might also explain the perception of value.

I think the Trent 1000 is on the 787 Dreamliner. I understand they need inspection far more frequently than planned and have had their ETPOS duration reduced drastically. Air NZ has had to hire in old planes (I think even A340's) to take up the slack.

I hoiked the below off a similar thread on Avcom, where someone has compiled and compared incidents by type (might be oil leaks, fumes, smoke etc.). I don't think their maths is correct as not all planes enter service on day 1. But, given the simplifying assumptions, the numbers are not too dissimilar and the A380 and 747-8 seem evenly matched... A340: 220 incidents, 380 aircraft, EIS 1993 = 0.02 incidents per aircraft per year A330 691 incidents, 1441 aircraft, EIS 1994 = 0.02 incidents per aircraft per year B777: 616 incidents, 1584 aircraft, EIS 1995 = 0.02 incidents per aircraft per year A380: 157 incidents, 234 aircraft, EIS 2007 = 0.05 incidents per aircraft per year B747-8: 53 incidents, 130 aircraft, EIS 2011 = 0.05 incidents per aircraft per year B787: 250 incidents, 789 aircraft, EIS 2011 = 0.04 incidents per aircraft per year A350: 30 incidents, 249 aircraft, EIS 2015 = 0.03 incidents per aircraft per yea

Short term lease rates for either B737 NG (the previous generation) or the A320 family jets must have climbed through the roof over the last few days to cover the shortfall.

Well there was talk of industry paying for services during the recent US govt. shutdown (see link)..... https://simpleflying.com/southwest-airlines-government-shutdown/ I personally think that peer pressure got to them (rightfully or wrongfully), they were willing to risk it if everyone else was, but when they were suddenly the last agency letting them fly the situation probably became untenable. And I am pretty sure the lawyers had the last say, not the engineers. Disclaimer:- the above is just me joining the dots in my worldview - results may vary.

And we thought you had an "in" at the factory, we were just about to butter you up for an invite!

I don't know if its the same in NZ as in Aus, but just the fact the banks are happy to post you your bank and credits cards just blew me away. For my first issue cards just coming over from S.A., there was no way I was trusting the postal service, they were quite taken aback when I told them I would collect them from the branch.

The PC-12s in the far background were the key. BTW, they have just stopped production of the PC-6, after a mere 60 year production run. Personally I think they did that to divert all of their time and effort into their PC-24 bizjet, which they can't make fast enough. I think they have temporarily closed their order book for that model for the second time whilst manufacturing tries to keep up. But look at the timberwork in that factory - handrails and trusses. Awesome! Should be cross-posted on the woodwork thread. The Boeing factory might be bigger but this one looks far more polished.

Looks like a Swiss watch factory. Pilatus ?

And now the FAA have also grounded the Max. I think I saw on another forum this is supported by Boeing (which I think makes them liable to pay the operators costs for the grounding?). https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47562727

The second prototype 787 was on the production line inside the factory when I visited. But that factory is just huge - if you have a few hours spare its worth doing research on in itself.

Going though my old hard drive has made me realise I have spotted some interesting planes along the way. This must be Boeing least attractive model - 747 conversion into the Dreamlifter for carrying 787 components around. Seen at Paine Field, on an Everett Boeing factory tour. Unfortunately no photos allowed inside.

I see that overnight the UK and EU have also stopped the Max flights. KInd of leaves the FAA in the US exposed. I do recall from some of the Air Crash Investigations (how credible they are as sources is another matter) about how much political and commercial pressure is brought to bear on the FAA/NTSB not to ground the mainstream American commercial airliners unless the evidence is overwhelming.

I see the Australian civil aviation authority here has just grounded the 737 Max until they obtain more information that would indicate there is nothing systemic in the crashes. Not that there are any in domestic service, but they are not allowed to fly in from offshore. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-12/boeing-737-max-8-suspended-operations-australia/10894426

I recall one of the human interest stories after the AF 447 flight was about a French family of 4 (2 parents, 2 children) who always believed in flying as 1 parent & 1 child in two separate planes so that a plane crash would not get them all. Two of them perished on that flight. I just think the guilt that the surviving two family members would have must be so hard to bear that was it worth it? Sometimes cold, hard science is one thing (i.e. maximising the chance to have the family genes continue), but emotions must be another.

Some more random pics from my roadtrip. I think these are from a Strategic Air Command base that kept a bit of their history parked outside. Note the scale of me under the B52!

Tracked down my old hard drive with more pictures of interesting planes from a road trip in 2003 through Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota. The C119 and boneyard pictures are from what was an outfit called Hawkins and Powers, in Greybull, Wyo. They rebuilt old planes, generally into waterbombers, which they then used on government wildfire contracts. They lost 2 of their planes in crashes (in flight structural failures) in 2002 and the company went bankrupt shortly after I visited. Some of the planes went to museums but most got scrapped. If you saw the 2004 film Flight of the Phoenix (filmed in Namibia), the airplane had been rebuilt by them for the movie. They let us wander around freely - health, safety and security consisted of a request not to go into the spray paint hangar.

Yes they do according to this source, not too sure why Boeing have not updated their own website: https://www.businesstraveller.com/business-travel/2019/02/28/comair-takes-delivery-of-british-airways-liveried-b737-max-8/

Its not a sport for the cash-strapped.I gather most of the Reno team mechanics do it for love (and hence only for a few years) but the amount of cash that needs to keep the team floating and fuelled is huge. As they say; how do you get to be a millionaire in aviation ? Answer: start off with a billion.

Heres some you won't get to see at Lanseria. DHC-3 Otters in turbine floatplane guise.

Agreed. Interestingly enough, all the Fury and Sea Fury's there have had their original Bristol Centaurus engines replaced with American Pratt & Whitney or Wright radials. More spares and less reliability concerns. Must be Landrover engineering in the Bristols.... I used the shuttle bus from the city to get to the airport, and on the one trip was sitting next to a former mechanic for one of the teams. He was saying that the Merlin blocks are highly prized, as it's possible to get or make the normal spares, but when a piston gets thrown through the block it's a throwaway. There was a team that had a destroyed block and piston on display in their pits. He said that a bunch of the teams even clubbed together and hired a team of historians/archivists to go through all the RR and Packard manufacturing records, match with airframe records, and literally try and track down where all the engines could have landed up so they could try and acquire them. That story may have been an exaggeration, but seeing the amount of money and passion I saw on display there it would not surprise me.

Bucket list trip photos from the Reno Air Races 2007. Nothing like the sound of multiple Merlins, all souped up to the max. These pics are used as my wallpaper

KSC- I probably could go back there for days on end. That Saturn 5 is something to behold. On that trip I tried to line up a trip to watch a Delta rocket launch but that did not come right, but the shuttle landing more than made up for it.

That was a great book - I think I read it two or 3 times until I lost my copy when my house flooded in a big highveld thunderstorm. Pretty high page count if I remember, but then again most of his books were like that.

I was in Florida when the Discovery shuttle - mission STS 105 ended. So a perfectly timed visit to the Kennedy Space Center gave me a chance to see it land from the grandstands set up on the runway. The coolest things was hearing the two sonic booms whilst it was still at altitude. I gather there is one generated at the nose, and one from the main engine cluster at the back. A bit of google-fu actually says all planes have two booms, but because they are normally from small fighters, your brain interprets the sound as a single large one, the size of shuttle making the two more distinct. Same trip to the US gave me a day at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington. Also a very cool place.