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

According to a posting on the Airliners.net message boards, Lufthansa becomes the launch customer for the 747-800I by ordering 20 airframes with options for up to 20 more. Great news for Boeing!

Related: 747-800I Launch Customer?.

It happened on Saturday:

A single-engine Cessna carrying two University of North Dakota students crashed into a farm field near Crookston early Saturday, killing the teenagers.

Authorities went to the airport at 1:40 a.m. Saturday after receiving a report of a plane crash near Crookston Municipal Airport. Searchers quickly found the plane and the two students dead inside about two miles from the airport.

Fortunately, the only "incident" at my school that happened while I was taking my flight training was very minor. A CFI and student working on his commercial certificate were doing maneuvers about 10 or 15 miles away from the airport when the engine quit due to a mechanical defect. They followed emergency procedures to the letter and put the aircraft down safely on a dirt road, only slightly denting the nose-gear landing light.

My heart goes out to the families of the two students killed in North Dakota.

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.

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

Boeing today announced 29 new orders that brought the year-to-date tally to 822 net orders, placing them within striking distance of breaking their current full-year record of 1,028 airframes. Included in that order was VIP 787 and 15 777s which were ordered by GE Commercial Aviation Services. The orders were worth a total of about $5 billion.

A VIP 787…it must be nice to have more money than God. I’d rather have a VIP 747-800 though, of which Boeing has sold a few already this year, probably to foreign governments.

A Boeing 777 is heading for the breakers yard for the first time, just 11 years after the twinjet first entered service.

Memphis-based Universal Asset Management says it has acquired a General Electric GE90-90B-powered 777-200 (MSN 27109) – the nineteenth aircraft off the line – for disassembly.

Only 11 years old and she’s headed to the scrapheap. I know that economics plays into decisions like this, such as the cost of refurbishment/leasing versus the value of the scrap metal. It also might be facing an expensive D-check. But it’s still very sad to see any aircraft go, let alone one this “new”. I salute you 27109.

As everybody knows, the 9/11 attacks created many new security procedures at airports around the country and around the world. And more recent events, such as the foiled plot in the United Kingdom to bring liquid explosives on board aircraft, have created even more security restrictions and hassles – especially for carry-on luggage. For this reason, many more people (around 25%) are checking their bags into the cargo hold than ever before. As a result, the number of lost luggage claims has skyrocketed in recent months:

The Transportation Department reported that 107,731 more fliers had their bags go missing in August than they did a year earlier, a 33 percent increase. It got worse in September, with 183,234 more passengers suffering mishandled bags, up 92 percent.

I certainly don’t blame the airlines for this, they are having to learn to deal with a much greater volume of bags than ever before. I’m sure they will get it all figured out eventually. But my advice for now…don’t bring anything that would require you to check your bags unless it’s absolutely vital.

Apparently there was a fairly major fire at one of Boeing’s suppliers for the new 787 a couple of days ago. The building, owned by Securaplane which is manufacturing wireless/battery operated emergency lighting for the 787, had no fire sprinklers in the building because it was built before such a requirement existed in building codes.

The air is clear tonight after that three alarm fire broke out at the Securaplane Technologies building on North Mavinne Drive.

Securaplane builds electronic components for business aircraft, such as batteries, converters, and security systems.

Fire crews are still investigating, but they know that one of the batteries caught on fire. An employee put it out with a fire extinguisher and then a cell started burning.

Hopefully this won’t put too much of a delay on the 787 program.

While browsing Google News this evening I noticed that Boeing picked up a couple substantial military-related orders today that are worth quite a bit.

The first is a deal with South Korea to sell them four AWACS-styled 737 surveillance aircraft by 2012, a deal worth ~$1.7 billion. South Korea currently uses US-operated AWACS flights based out of Japan for surveillance of their border with North Korea, so this deal will give them some measure of autonomy with those operations.

The second, and much more prominent, contract was awarded by the United States Air Force, and involved the ordering of one hundred and forty one modified CH-47 Chinook helicopters for use in their Combat Search and Rescue program. This deal is potentially worth over $13 billion. Boeing beat out both Lockheed and Sikorsky for this contract.

In previous posts I have pointed out some order cancellations that Airbus is receiving due to the delays and mis-management of its A380 program. But what exactly is the cause of these problems? Today I came across a Popular Mechanics article that attempts to explain just that. It’s an interesting read.

Five years ago, the A380 was being hailed as a turning point in aviation history – a plane that would reinvent air travel and leave Airbus’s rival, Boeing, in its wake. Today, the program is two years behind schedule and $2 billion over budget. Airbus CEO Christian Streiff proposed drastic changes to put production back on schedule. Frustrated by corporate governance that impeded this strategy, Streiff resigned. In a project of this magnitude, holdups and design changes are expected. More than 35 years ago, the first 747 rolled out of the Boeing plant in Everett, Wash., with 5000-pound concrete blocks dangling from its wings because the engines weren’t ready. But the A380′s woes go far beyond the normal setbacks. Says aviation consultant Scott Hamilton of Leeham Co., “A delay this big is really rare this far into the modern jet age.”