Plane / Planes / Aircraft / Aeroplane / Airplane appreciation

Guess they don't use an IR tracker then

Anyone actually have a home sim?

random internet picture.

Indeed. The only computer game I play 🙂

Have bought material to build a better antenna but super pleased with that ADS-B thing

I am surprised at
a) How much US military traffic there is
b) how much other militay traffic there is
c) How often the police helicopter is up
d) I know this shouldn't impress, but radio is pretty impressive isn't it?

(and while I am on aviation, I learnt about Bob Hoover tonight

What type of antenna are you building?

Can highly recommend a coaxial colinear but they are a ball ache to make.

That is what I had in mind.

I am going to see if I can find a better location though. I am right in the middle fo Amsterdam, with no roof access which is not helping me.
I will see if I can get access to the roof at work, but I am not that hopeful.
We do actually also have some space on towers and indeed some of our own towers, I wonder if I could get something there (though they are not in Amsterdam, or even Netherlands)

Flying Machine passing by just now

2 Attachments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f906Sy79hA

Excellent series if anyone is interested

Just seen BA have retired their entire 747 fleet. It was due to happen in 2024 but still a shame. Always liked seeing them on the approach over London.

Ugh. Hesitate to post this here because of golf thread but fuck it, I'm not ashamed.

I got to fly in seat 1A on a BA 747 a couple of years ago. First and only time I had been on a 747 before. Didn't have holidays abroad when I was a kid, by plane anyway. I chose that particular flight just so I could experience the 747 before it was retired. It was epic. You're actually in front of the cockpit and one of your windows has a very slightly forward looking view. No pasenger in 1B either so felt like I had the plane to myself.

It was an awesome experience as a plane nerd, but flying back in 1A on a 777 really demonstrated how far things have progressed in terms of comfort and noise levels.

EDIT: If you want to know how wanky it actually was, this is a good write up of 747 1a. https://airlinegeeks.com/2019/07/04/trip-report-seat-1a-on-british-airways-queen-of-the-skies-from-washington-dulles-to-london-heathrow/

You have the very front two windows to yourself...

Could you not give the Pilot a poke with a stick if he started to nap, like an elderly housemate?

No, but you can bang on the ceiling with a broom if there's too much noise from the staff quarters

demonstrated how far things have progressed in terms of comfort and noise levels.

This. Flew to Vancouver on an a A380 and the quietness and comfort upstairs was simply incredibly. The return leg on a 747 was not quite as nice, but still miles better than the Q400's I used to regularly have to fly in before lockdown work.

Still glad I managed to get on a BA 747 before they're gone for good.

Have you flown on a 777?

In terms of noise and comfort with BA:

777 > 380 > 747 > 320

Emirates wipes the floor with all BA services.

In another life myself and two other people were responsible for building the full-scale mock-ups of the first full length beds which went into BA business class in maybe '98 or '99.
In a shed at Heathrow, we had half a cabin mocked up, with a mirror as the wall which ran down the middle - to give the impression of a complete cabin. The seats/beds were interlocked and facing opposite directions. One of the purposes of the mock-ups was for cabin crew to figure out how they were going to serve coffee to the passenger furthest from them without spilling it over the closest passenger. It was the last freelance job I did (It was for Jony Ive's old company) before I moved to The Science Museum.

One of the most perplexing business class design decisions ever...BA to this day are the only operator currently flying with business class seats where you need to step over other passengers to get to the bogs. Or pour coffee over other passengers if you are staff.

They lost a lot of customers over that decision.

Frankly, I'm amazed that it is still like that ( I can only imagine they've been updated several times since I worked on them). It was such a glaringly obvious mistake when we were working on them. Getting BA's execs to make a firm decision on anything was another story of hilarity. They're all so highly paid (or were) that no one is prepared to put their salary on the line by (possibly) making the 'wrong' decision. Bunch of faffers.

ETA - Unsurprisingly, that decision was down to the bean-counters figuring how they could maximise bums on seats for a given square footage of cabin floor space.

Unsurprisingly, that decision was down to the bean-counters figuring how they could maximise bums on seats for a given square footage of cabin floor space.

And it had the opposite effect of driving people to other airlines. Not least of all because the soft product was worse than the rivals too. There's the weird situation that the new BA business class hard product is more luxurious than the current BA first class hard product. Not sure how they are going to square that with their more well heeled customers who basically make the plane profitable.

Apropos of nothing in particular, over the few months I worked on that job at Heathrow, a number of interesting facts came to light:
Number of parking places BA owns at Heathrow = 4. Everything else, they rent.
I guess if it isn't flying, it isn't making any money.
Concorde, when parked up in the hangar adjacent to a 747 is absolutely tiny.
80% of workshop space in the hangar is dedicated to overhauling landing gear.
I guess if you are throwing ~300 tons of aircraft at concrete on a regular basis, that makes sense.

Anyone know what the RAF cargo plane is up to over SE London at the moment?

A friend just saw an Atlas fly over in Caterham...

BA to this day are the only operator currently flying with business class seats where you
need to step over other passengers to get to the bogs.

Not exactly true. There are still plenty of carriers who have business cabins where the window seat doesn't have direct aisle access. That's on wide body aircraft - I'm discounting narrow body European business class.

However, the effects of Covid-19 on airlines might mean that a lot of these older aircraft with original cabins are 'retired' soon.

Sure, I was being rather slap dash with the reality. Air France has loads for example. That is the case with loads of older fleets. Was being quite selective in terms of who I see as BA rivals and didnt make that clear.

Great, couldn’t tell if it was Atlas or C17 - just it had a massive tail. Was notably low, and did few passes between Greenwich & Caterham, then across to Croydon and back.

Concorde, when parked up in the hangar adjacent to a 747

Whilst Concorde was still in service, a group of us railwaymen from up north, managed to get a visit to the maintenance hangers at Heathrow. It was one hell of trip. In effect as they stopped one Concorde for a major exam, they robbed it of parts to get the one that was coming off exam in to service. There was a stack of olympus engines all with little labels describing what had been taken off.
On the service boards next to the aircraft was a list of faults reported by air crew, the sign off reports included phrases like, unable to fault. Awaiting more reports, more information needed.

The whole job was run exactly the same as the system we used on repairing trains.

They let us have any access and we took advantage. I had a great photo taken of me, sat in the pilots seat with the side window open and my arm hanging out like was in a Ford cortina. Unfortunately the photos have got lost, but I keep the memories.