Just as the complex failures of a delayed national emergency warning system hit the headlines about Black Saturday a startlingly simple suggestion, the Apocalypse Now proposal, has been made by an aviation authority.
Colin Weir, the managing director of the auditing service Flight Safety, says emergency services helicopters should be fitted with loudspeakers easily heard on [...]
Monthly Archives: February 2009
The Apocalypse Now tactic for saving bushfire lives
February 12, 2009 – 3:14 pm
Air traffic controllers endorse possible industrial action
February 12, 2009 – 2:22 pm
Air traffic controllers have voted by 701 to 42 in favour of industrial action as may be directed by their union Civil Air over grievances concerning pay negotiations and levels of overtime.
This is not a vote for an immediate strike. While it could lead to a strike controllers say overtime bans are a more likely [...]
Bowser theft by airlines continues to fall
February 12, 2009 – 9:22 am
Jetstar has just removed the last of its fuel surcharges by eliminating the remaining international imposts and savings its customers up to $68 each way. The benchmark fuel price has been below $US 40 per barrel in recent days and has sagged to $35 this morning.
This welcome move, which one would expect Qantas to follow [...]
FAA bends rules for Airbus as well as Boeing
February 10, 2009 – 8:53 am
The Seattle Times reports that the FAA has bent the rules for making fuel tanks lightning proof to help the much delayed Boeing 787 Dreamliner achieve certification. As usual with anything about the Dreamliner, this will inevitably cause a frenzy of fandom angst among those with a mental age of about 10. However the changes [...]
Fake Qantas engineers. Does CASA do anything useful?
February 8, 2009 – 9:46 am
The ‘discovery’ of another fake licensed engineer at Qantas and rumours of more to come begs the question as to whether CASA does anything useful.
In the previous two years CASA has shown that it can detect serious failings in small regional carriers like the defunct third level carrier Transair, which killed 15 people in the [...]
Branson’s unguarded moment concerning United Airlines
February 7, 2009 – 11:47 am
Richard Branson’s comments prior to the delivery of V Australia’s first Boeing 777-300ER would find strong support among many, many travellers but must have caused a bit of pain at Virgin Blue.
A report in the Sydney Morning Herald says:-
Sir Richard, the largest shareholder in Australia’s second-largest airline Virgin Blue, took a broad swipe today at [...]
Hansen sorry but sticks to jets and global warming comments
February 6, 2009 – 11:36 am
One of the clearest voices expressing concern over anthropogenic global warming, James Hansen, has revisited his controversial interview in The Observer in which he refused to support opposition to a third runway for London’s Heathrow airport and which was mentioned earlier in Plane Talking.
In a note Hansen says:-
I have relearned a basic lesson re interviews [...]
More rude wake up calls for airline investors
February 6, 2009 – 9:08 am
This morning’s cancellation of another 16 Boeing 787 Dreamliners, this time by Dubai based leasing company LCAL, has almost nothing to do with that airliner’s problems and everything to do with something far more worrying for all airlines and their shareholders regardless of their size or the aircraft they use.
The problem is finance. There is [...]
WARNING: Jetstar to go offline for more than two days!
February 4, 2009 – 4:54 pm
Jetstar is being incredibly up-front about what lies in store for its travellers from this Friday afternoon until sometime next Monday morning.
They are swopping computer reservations systems, and in what could be a world first, telling the punters that this could be hell. There will be among other things, no online bookings, in fact [...]
AGW authority refuses to support airport protest
February 4, 2009 – 3:58 pm
A climate change authority and campaigner for urgent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, Dr James Hansen, has refused to support activists opposed to the construction of a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Instead he has urged them to concentrate on the fossilized carbon emissions released by the burning of coal which he says in 80% [...]
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