A Pilot’s Blog
A blog about aviation, aviation news, and space.

A rather intriguing article surfaced at the Airliners.net forums today:

German flag carrier Lufthansa is considering buying around 15 Boeing 747-8 long-haul jets, a source close to the airline said.

The airline wants to fill a gap in its fleet between the Airbus A340-600 and A380 aircraft.

Could this finally be the launch customer that Boeing needs to jump-start the 747-800 passenger version? I certainly hope so.

One of my favorite airline liveries on one of my favorite aircraft models. You better get out of the way, because the seven-four-seven is coming through!

Picture courtesy of Airliners.net.

May the force of the 747 be with you.

Picture courtesy of Airliners.net.

Who do you call when your 4 foot tall nose-gear tire needs changed? Why, the excellent mechanical services of Northwest Airlines, of course!

Picture courtesy of Airliners.net.

While it’s not really aviation-related, I’ve been playing around with this software a bit today and it’s just too cool not to mention. It’s called Stellarium and is a free and open source planetarium for your computer. The graphics are absolutely amazing. You can set your location anywhere in the world and have a real-time view of the sky at that point. As time moves along, so do the stars, planets. nebulas, etc. You can even move time forwards and backwards at accelerated rates and see how the stars line up and move around. Great fun if you have some time to kill, or a passion for astronomy.

A KLM 737 has an avian escort upon arrival at Amsterdam - Schiphol airport in the Netherlands.

Picture courtesy of Airliners.net.

Earlier this month I posted about the USAF awarding a contract to Boeing to produce new HH-47 helicopters for search and rescue operations. Lockheed, one of the losing bidders, has challenged the award and believes that their bid was judged unfairly. They want the GAO to review the award process.

"We believe the criteria used to evaluate were not applied uniformly," Lockheed spokesman Greg Caires said this week. A review by the Government Accountability Office "is essential for us to more fully understand the reasons the decision was made."

The complaint may delay the order and fuels debate about the contract after a separate protest announced Monday by United Technologies Corp.’s Sikorsky, whose Pave Hawk aircraft was the incumbent on the order.

I don’t know how the decision was made, so I can’t comment as to the validity of Lockheed’s claims. We’ll see how it turns out in the end.

Related: Boeing Wins Military Orders

While the angle and distance of this shot somewhat exaggerates how close the gentlemen are to the aircraft, it’s still an amazing picture. It takes solid nerves to stand there while an aircraft speeds towards you at a couple hundred knots.

Picture courtesy of Airliners.net.

A very busy and detailed livery from Malaysia Airlines.

Picture courtesy of Airliners.net.

One of the more unique uses for the 747 has been devised by NASA as a transporter for the Space Shuttles when they need to be moved back to Cape Canaveral from Edwards AFB in California after diversions from the Cape. I imagine this assignment is a pretty fun one for NASA pilots. “Yeah, I fly the Space Shuttle around.”

Picture courtesy of Airliners.net.