Cabin crew wanted for documentary

If you are a cabin crewmember and have an interesting story to tell, consider contacting Meryl at meryly@monkeykingdom.com. This television production company is looking to research a behind the scenes look at the lives of cabin crews. Meryl is also interested in talking to people who worked for an airline in the past, but who aren't working at present.

This could be your 15 minutes!

Snarge

Snarge is the goo that results when bird meets plane, reports Wired News in Bird Plus Plane Equals Snarge. In fact, the Smithsonian Institution's Feather Identification Laboratory actually does DNA analysis of snarge to see what kinds of birds are hitting airplanes.

This is important work. The military uses the data for it's Bird Avoidance Model. The data supports engineering efforts to design more bird-resistant aircraft and engines.

Some folks find all that wierd, but wait, there's more.

It seems the snarge analysis sometimes yields DNA from things that are not birds. Like frogs, turtles, snakes, rabbits, and even a cat once. Can you figure out how such critters smash into airliners at altitude? Well, it turns out that sometimes birds drop their prey and they hit airplanes.

What I want to know is this: do the birds aim for the released animal to hit the plane? Someone should study that!

JetBlue Airways emergency landing audio

Listen to the captain discussing his options prior to the JetBlue Airways emergency landing at LAX. You'll find it at the Fly With Me podcast site.

The Fly With Me podcasts are produced by a pilot at a major airline, and are generally of exceptionally high quality. It's an outstanding aviation podcast.

If you still haven't seen video of the landing, the CNN piece, "Actress: Emergency landing surreal" has a link to a fairly nice one. It doesn't feature the close in shots of the undercarriage I've seen elsewhere (which really convey the pilot's skill), but it's good nonetheless.

NPR audio on the Predator UAV

National Public Radio (USA) provides an audio recording of their Sept 16, 2005 All Things Considered piece, The Nevada Home of the Predator Drone Craft:

"The Predator has emerged as one of the most useful weapons in the U.S. military's arsenal. The tiny Unmanned Aerial Vehicle played a role in catching Saddam Hussein, in killing a high-profile al Qaeda suspect in Pakistan this spring, and in trying to find the Navy SEAL team that went missing in Afghanistan this summer. But the pilots who actually fly the Predator are far from the action. They're sprawled in leather armchairs planted in trailers, in the middle of the desert in Nevada. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly visits the home of the Predator outside Las Vegas, for this look at how the Predator works and how it's being adapted for new challenges, like detecting explosives in Iraq."

Japan resumes testing of Concorde successor

USA Today reports:

"Japan's space agency plans to launch an arrow-shaped airplane at twice the speed of sound high over the Australian outback as early as [September 2005] in a crucial test of the country's push to develop asupersonic successor to the retired Concorde."

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA):

"aims to develop a plane that can carry 300 passengers at Mach 2... making the run from Tokyo to Los Angeles in about four hours. It will also underpin a June agreement between Japan and France to jointly research such a plane over the next three years."

"JAXA will launch the experimental craft, piggy backed on a rocket, at Australia's Woomera test range between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, Akuto said. The rocket will carry the plane to an altitude of 12.4 miles before releasing it at a speed of Mach 2 to collect information about the plane's
aerodynamics. The craft will float back to earth by parachute after the 15 minute flight."

EADS and Safran Group (formerly Snecma-Sagem) are investors in this effort. The successor plane is envisioned to make regular flights by 2020.

More JAXA information at this site, including an introductory video clip (in Japanese). JAXA also offers free e-mail news subscriptions.

Rock your world - inflight

Recently, I received an email from a fellow claiming to be a pro music journalist with over 30 years experience. It seems he has "an audio collection of interviews with hundreds of major classic rock artists - everyone from Aerosmith to Carlos Santana." His idea: air passengers might be interested to hear "interviews with Peter Frampton or Michael Jackson, or anyone of a hundred assorted artists."

So my first reaction was to be sceptical. Afterall, this is the Internet we're talking about! Anybody can claim anything in their search for a buck.

I bit, a little, and Steven Rosen forwarded his resume to me. It describes published stories in the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Playboy, US, Musician, Guitar World, Guitar Player, Circus, Creem, Classic Rock, Total Guitar, Guitarist, Player, and Australian Musician. I've heard of some of those.

There was more: he's developed videos and audio cassettes. He wrote/co-produced Van Halen: The Early Years. He provided interview material and appeared in the Ozzy DVD Crown Prince Of Darkness for Chrome Dreams. (I remember Black Sabbath at the Filmore East in NYC around 1971, I think. My ears rang for 3 straight days - I thought I'd gone deaf. Ozzy is my hero!)

He documented and published stories of life on the road with major rock acts: Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, The Who, Van Halen, ZZ Top, Deep Purple, and more!

Gee, it would be really ballsy to make this stuff up, but just to be sure, I Googled "Steven Rosen." Looks to me like he's the real deal. Looks to me like he stole my '70's fantasy job and lived it for real! (Actually, in my fantasy, I was more of a photographer.)

So, here's the bottom line and the plug: If you have anything to do with putting together inflight entertainment, and you'd like to consider some rock-oriented interviews, send Steven an email at scrosen@sbcglobal.net. He's got the goods and he's ready to talk. Tell him Max at Thirty Thousand Feet sent you.

Hurricanes, labor strikes, and cell phones

SpeedNews This Week is an aviation industry newsletter read by over 40,000 professionals worldwide. Subscription is free and worth looking into. Here are some interesting items from the September 2, 2005 edition of STW:

The National Air Transportation Association has published a resource page of important information about Hurricane Katrina. The page includes links to information about Hurricane relief and contributions to the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Additionally, the page offers information about aviation and jet fuel prices and shortages resulting from the hurricane, operational information for airports in the affected areas, opportunities to assist in the airlifting ofsupplies and aid workers, and much more.

Boeing's 18,000 machinists in the Puget Sound region, Portland and Wichita today began a strike after voting to reject's Boeing contract offer with an 86% "no" vote. Boeing halted assembly of its impacted airliner products. The last IAM strike against Boeing was in 1995 and lasted 69 days... You can download the rejected Boeing contract offer at http://www.speednews.com/boeing-iam.pdf.

Also see the STW article, "Get the Facts on Cell Phone Use" where you can learn about use of personal electronics (cell phones, wi-fi equipped computers, etc.) from the FAA and FCC standpoints, as well as where this is all going. Much of this piece is taken from the August 2005 FAA Fact Sheet of the same name.

If you're really interested in this subject (or the technology), you'll want to read the Subcommittee on Aviation Hearing "Cell Phones On Aircraft: Nuisance Or Necessity?" from July 2005. This provides a lot of information about in-flight cell phone and wi-fi use.

A key technology here is the Qualcomm-developed "pico cell" network that uses a special transmitter to collect "all wireless signals from airborne cell phone calls and transmit them directly to a specialized ground-based cellular network or a satellite-based network."

Further, "Pico cell systems are equipped with a control panel that would allow the flight crew to control the type of communications service(s) allowed (e.g., disabling incoming calls to prevent the cabin from filling with ring tones, disabling all cell phone calls in response to passenger complaints, etc.) depending on the policies set by the airline, including safety considerations."

This will be interesting to follow because emerging technology wants to be open, and regulators will want to keep it closed. The former leads to innovation, the latter leads to, well, you know.

More coverage of the social and technological issues at Avionics Magazine.

Basic background information in the "Privateline.com: Cellular TelephoneBasics" sections Why can't I use my cellular phone on an airliner? and The Future of Cell Phones on Airliners.

The later has a link to the .pdf file, Personal Cell Phone Use Inflight (649K) which describes Air Cell's vision of how in-flight calls would work.