Caracas is a nightmare now. Security and power are daily issues. Not safe to take personnel off the airport, or even away from the international terminal. Payments need to all be in a stable foreign currency. The aircraft basically has to arrive fully provisioned for the outbound leg. Fewer Venezuelans are able to travel now so load factors can’t be great. Strange choice for a flagship route.

(Written on 2019年 05月 08日)(Permalink)

Traveled on n AF A380 from LAX to CDG, including 1/2 the flight in the cockpit. Impressive aircraft, front and back. And very comfortable. Also saw them test fly it out of Toulouse. They they did a straight ahead deep stall with minimal altitude loss on recovery. Pilot said it was quite docile.

(Written on 2019年 03月 29日)(Permalink)

Yes! I love ForeFlight and would be soooo disappointed if they ruined It.

(Written on 2019年 03月 06日)(Permalink)

Sounds like ice. Just a guess, but can’t imagine otherwise.

(Written on 2019年 02月 24日)(Permalink)

We always seem surprised when new aircraft designs are behind schedule and over cost. But when was the last time that anyone delivered an new plane on time and within budget? Really, the problem is with the bidding and contracting process. The people that build these planes know that they can't deliver when promised and the people that buy them know the same. The shock and outrage on the part of the airlines or military is theater at best. All that being said, we have amazing aircraft being built all over the world. And while the KC-46 has the same basic airframe as tshe 767, the wings, engines, control surfaces, and certain the avionics are all quite up to date.

(Written on 2019年 02月 01日)(Permalink)

Very surprising but not uncommon. Day-VFR requires only 30 minute reserves. That’s tight. I tend to use 60 minutes.

(Written on 2019年 01月 30日)(Permalink)

Saw the old small Air Force 1 (DC-8) with Clinton aboard do the same at KCMI. Slowed down traffic for the rest of us.

(Written on 2019年 01月 23日)(Permalink)

There is a trend with airliners to land well past the TDZ. Most of the previous accidents like this one (Burbank, Chi Midway, Montreal, Sao Paolo) were: toofast + toolong + wetrunway. 5800’ on rwy 8 at KBUR, which is just under 5000’ past the TDZ. Enough for most 737s on wet runway.

(Written on 2018年 12月 07日)(Permalink)

Yes, but it is the same computers controlling the same actuators. The computer is always a part of the flight control system. Turning off the autopilot is just really turning off some software features.

(Written on 2018年 11月 16日)(Permalink)

We live in an age of fly-by-wire. Control sticks and yokes are no more of a flight control than the mouse on your computer. There is no such thing as "hand flying" any more. The question is where the software and hardware engineers separated out functionality cleanly enough that pieces (like the angle of attack sensing) can be separately and reliably disabled. This is more expensive in design, coding and testing.

(Written on 2018年 11月 16日)(Permalink)