patham

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.

I picked Bonus's mail to reply to in case I win a prize. Just joking - its not a contest- but a test of my memory. Boeing 717 Boeing 720 (variant of the 707) Boeing 737 -200/300/400/800 Boeing 740 - SP/400 Boeing 767 - ??? Boeing 777 -??? Airbus A310 Airbus A320 Airbus A330 Airbus A340 MD-80 EMB 135 EMB 170 CRJ 700 Vickers Viscount (that and the B720 should give away my country of origin) Fairchild Metroliner DHC - 8 / Q400 ATR 72 Dornier Do 228 (noisy bugger but takes off like a bat out of hell) DHC-2 Beaver Cessna 172 (drop plane - so I have never landed in one) Cessna 206 Gipps Airvan Bell 206-Longranger AS 350 Squirrel Might be a few more if i get the right brain cells to spark.

That is a great photo, although exaggerates the size of the 707 somewhat. I have flown in 6 of the 9, including that elusive 717 (Qantas has a small number in their domestic fleet).

I always had a sweet spot for those wide bodied tri-jets, but never got to fly on one. They (DC-10 and MD-11) are getting even rarer to spot at the cargo terminals nowadays.

The very reason why I bought my Sony pair at a layover in Singapore.The first leg of the flight was a nightmare with crying babies. To tell the truth, I did not mean to go top of the range, but the salesman found me an easy target to upsell to.

I bought the top of the range Sony MDRxxx 6 years ago. It is still going strong, with great battery life. Leather over-ear cups are still very comfortable and in great nic. I am sure the newer ones are even better, but I am in no rush to upgrade. And yes, most high end makes are better than Beats. I understand Beats have a built in equaliser that pumps up the bass. Beats just have really good marketing, enabling them to dress up lower quality componentry, and sell it for premium prices. It was/is a really high profit margin business, which explains why it was snapped up by Apple.

I was forced into commuting in January after my vehicle was written off. The incident happened at a bad time of year when all the repair shops and assessors were on leave, and it took about a month for the claim to be sorted out with insurance. That prodded me to cycle in to work (its about 10 km), which is what I have been promising to do for years but never got round to it. The route is a mix of suburban road, one steep off-road section and small length of single track, then bike path next to a highway, some on road cycle paths, finishing up on a dedicated cycle path on the Brisbane River. Doing it on my Trance is a bit overkill, but so be it. The trip home I vary, I go a long way round (14 km) to avoid peak hour traffic on a section of suburban road I do not feel comfortable on. Anyway, I now have a replacement new car, but still commute in twice a week. There is a certain satisfaction of making a good time, and a great sense of satisfaction when you overtake the cars going slowly on the highway. The advantage of using a Trance as a commuter is that when all the racers and e-bikes overtake you, you can just say to yourself - well its all about the bike. But after a month of cycling, the ratio of overtakee to overtaker improves, not that its a race. Well maybe an informal competition to make it interesting.... What I have learnt: integrating commuting into your work routine gets your fitness levels way up. I am probably more fit than I have been in years. When I did some trails recently, hills that used to render me breathless are just simply pedalled away without fuss. I admit the commute has not improved my trail skills - those are now the limiting factor. I just hope I keep it up in winter. Luckily it does not get excessively cold /wet here, but I probably need to get lights that light up the road, not just safety strobes.

#2. If its lean bacon - practically just warmed through is my personal fave.

Took the family up the the Sunshine Coast to a bike friendly part of the world (Marcoola), where one can can cycle on dedicated bike paths to the local cafes, restaurants, beaches etc. Didn't use the car once over the three days.. Cycled to Mt Coolum - which must be one of the smallest national parks in the world to climb up the 208 m to the peak. Well worth the burn in the legs.

The old JIMC - I remember them well from my old CRC import days. I also had to phone plenty times to get a pick-up, but the person who finally answered gave me the gold: their fax number. From then on, all I ever did was fax correspondence off, and a few days later the parcel would have been released. It never failed.