Tagged With "Planes"

Westjet also released a video about the unveiling of the plane, which might be fun if you're a "Frozen" fan.

I hope this doesn't happen anytime soon to commercial airlines.Part of the fun of a trip is looking out the window. I also wonder if airsickness would occur more without windows? I know in a car or bus, if I can't see where I'm going, I feel queasy.

The thought of flying in a small solid metal tube with 200 strangers pressed against me makes me feel very claustrophobic and definitely like staying home. Add a few windows to the mix and it becomes bearable.

As if Hello Kitty and Tintin weren't enough for the special-theme plane market, Etihad and Universal Pictures have teamed up to tart up an Etihad 777 with Fast and Furious 7 logos as the new film (partly shot in Etihad's home, Abu Dhabi) is released....

Two veteran Swiss pilots are at nearly the midpoint of a round-the-world flight on the Solar Impulse 2, a solar-powered plane with a wingspan greater than a 747's. Among other reasons for the huge wingspan is to make possible use of 17,000 solar cells...

Will a robot replace the pilot on your next flight?   No, this isn't a late-day April Fools' gag. Both NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (they started the Internet, remember...) are working on technologies for...

                              WestJet/Youtube   For those wondering what work is involved in painting...

A French design team has come up with a prototype for a private jet without windows, and suggests the idea could apply to bigger planes as well. Instead of windows, the inside surfaces of the plane would be lined with thin screens that could be used...

Swiss solar plane Solar Impulse 2 completes its delayed trans-Pacific leg to arrive in California on a round-the-world flight without fuel.

The space-age equivalent of the old cruise to nowhere—sail out into international waters and return—is now available for booking on Kayak.com, at prices ranging from £63-80,000 for a 40-minute trip from Curacao to Curacao. The  flights are being offered by XCor, one of several companies competing for rich space tourists. Passengers, one per flight, will take off horizontally, go vertical on rocket power to about 40 miles up and then glide down in a 'slow' sightseeing...

Bob Cranwell, the Amateur Emigrant, shares interesting thoughts and observations on the nature of travel and the traveler.

I wonder how they'll psychologically profile the robotic drone pilots? I don't think commercial aviation is ready for pilotless planes. Most of us like to know that there's a human in there who can take control if the robot malfunctions in some way. Perhaps in a generation, that will change as travelers who are more used to machines become the #1 travel demographic.

Let me first confess that I still don't understand how these huge contraptions full of me and my fellow passengers can get off the ground and back down again. Every flight a miracle! But this discussion reminded me of an early 60s comedy routine in which the voice on the PA system says "Welcome to the world's first automated airplane. Nothing can go wrong go wrong go wrong..." I couldn't find it today, but I did find two hilarious routines featuring comments on airlines and air safety; I...

Today's NY Times has an interesting Op Ed article on pilotless plane issues by Patrick Smith, who is both a writer on aviation and an active commercial pilot. He takes issue with the idea that the pilot is redundant, and points out that the studies that suggest pilots only work 3 or 7 minutes at the controls only refer to "hands on wheel" time, and do not take into account the amount of time the pilot spends setting and monitoring the instruments and communicating with ground sites. He also...

Samantha shares some of the different types of transportation she saw while in Juneau, Alaska earlier this year.

Not to be forgotten are the snowmachines and dog mushers in the wintertime.