Happy Groundhog day! It looks as though we’ll have six more weeks of winter. I don’t think London could/would disagree with this assessment today.
GTF Update & CSeries
Pratt & Whitney is hosting a media day on Tuesday recapping the initial results of ground and flight testing and looking ahead to 2009 for the PW1000G engine. Going hand in hand with this event could be an announcement of firm orders from Lufthansa and a lessor for the Bombardier CSeries. Holding a media day for the CSeries engine in conjunction with firm launch customer announcement would give Bombardier’s new narrowbody a big (and much needed) boost.
SPEEA and Boeing IDS
The union that represents 700 engineers in Wichita, KS at the Boeing
IDS site will be voting on a new contract this Thursday and the union
leadership has recommended a rejection of the three-year contract. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out with the significant layoffs coming for Boeing, Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft.
A380 to Auckland
Emirates launched service on the Auckland-Sydney-Dubai route yesterday with one of four (of 58) 489-seat A380 aircraft. Auckland is the seventh city served by the A380. Also, A380 No. 10 for Singapore Airlines (MSN045) also popped up on the Toulouse flight line with its engines parked next to MSN033, the first superjumbo for Air France. MSN045 had just begun its final body join during my visit to Toulouse last May.
A Peek Inside Everett
Fleetbuzz got a tour last week of the Boeing factory in Everett and got a peek at the 787 line. He’s got some photos of ZA002 at position four, with its engines mounted and plenty of work going on inside. The photos were taken early last week.
FAA Administrator
Another day, another dollar, and still no FAA administrator. Terminal Q takes a look at what qualities the new administrator might need to tackle the biggest issues facing aviation.
777F Delivery
As February gets underway, we should see the first 777F delivery to Air France sometime this month. N5020K (unit 1) returned to Everett on January 23, where it joined three other 777Fs (2 for Air France and 1 for China Southern) on the flight line.
77th 777 for SIA
In other 777 news, Boeing delivered the 77th 777 for Singapore Airlines. 9V-SWT is a 777-300ER the 91st member of the SIA fleet and its 19th 777-300ER. Finally, V Australia took delivery of its first 777-300ER on January 26 (official handover set for February 6). VH-VOZ (Didgeree Blue) was flown to Victorville on Saturday as VAU9090, leaving VH-VPE and VH-VPD in Everett. V Australia kicks off service on February 28.
N106US gets an entourage & a new home
A fully intact A320 fuselage, formally known as US Airways 1549, made its way to a Harrison, NJ scrap yard where it will remain for the next 12-18 months as the NTSB continues its investigation. It received a presidential-sized entourage on its trip, captured by Anthony Quintano with his handy HD video camera.
U.S. Airways Flight 1549 Being towed to Harrison N.J. from Anthony Quintano.
New Look Video Page
Speaking of great video, Flightglobal.com has a new set up for our video page that really takes advantage of the brightcove platform. The new layout looks great and is really easy to navigate.
This new setup will come in handy come Paris when we’re going to have loads and loads of video. We’ve got some really exciting plans coming up to give you wall-to-wall coverage of the Paris Air Show that will top anything we’ve ever tried before.
This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.
This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.