Free Flight Video Magazine

Impulse Airlines Boeing 717-200

Impulse Airlines was founded in 1992 and was a low-cost carrier that operated in Australia. It brought low-cost competition to long standing Qantas and Ansett airlines.

In 2001 Qantas wet leased all of Impulse’s services, gave the airline cash, and opened an option to later purchase the airline. A few months later, Qantas decided to purchase the airline and Impulse’s fleet of Boeing 717s and Beech 1900s were absorbed into QantasLink. Later the Beech 1900s were removed and the Boeing 717 fleet was expanded for QantasLink.

In 2004, all operations under the Impulse banner was ceased, however what remained was used as a springboard to start Qantas’ lowcost carrier, Jetstar.

The Parrot really gives the livery a mascot and is much more “fun” than their first more standard style livery.

Thanks Chris J!

Image: Boeing

Source: David Parker Brown

Southwest wingtip at Seattle. I am cheating, this is an older photo, but there are no Southwest planes at gates right now at SEA.

The air show of the year is going on right now in Oshkosh, WI and I can’t miss it. I am once again back at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (and loving their free Wi-Fi) waiting for my Southwest flight to Chicago (MDW). Then tomorrow, Southwest will be flying a special flight to Oshkosh from Midway just for the day. Only having one day to look around might be very, very hard, but I am excited to be going. I need to make a list of MUST-SEE’s.

Last time I flew Southwest, I slacked and ended up in the B-group. However this time I was vigilant and got in to the much coveted A-group. Window seat, here I come!

Source: David Parker Brown

It seems to be fairly well understood these days that planes have slots – it’s common for the flight crew to announce delays because the flight missed its slot or was given a bad slot. However, I’ve noticed a tendency to blame the airport, passengers mumbling about overcrowding and bad organisation. Slots are not about sharing the runway with other planes – I’ve flown from some very busy airfields including Málaga, and I have never been allocated a slot. That’s because I am VFR traffic, I fly visually and choose my route as I go, much like a sail boat. IFR flights, including but not limited to commercial passenger flights, are based on routes which they must apply for in advance and which are then approved. An IFR flight is not working on a basis of see-and-avoid and so the traffic must be managed to ensure that no two flights are at the same place at the same time. A slot time or a slot is a part of this flow management.

So if Cliff files a route to fly IFR from Málaga, he will be allocated a slot, even though he’s flying the same plane as I am out of the same airfield. He will be given specific clearance and expected to stick to his route. I am following instructions and getting permission to enter taxiways and use the runway at specific points, but I don’t have a detailed route. I am not given a slot, although I may cause someone else to miss their slot (by not getting out of the way in time).

I’ve struggled to explain this in the past (as I think you can tell) but this week I stumbled upon a perfectly brilliant explanation on the PPRuNe Forums.

A journalist asked about a rumour that an airline could not get enough ATC slots for the flights because the airline didn’t have enough staff available to man the planes due to staffing cuts. A further poster commented that an airline wouldn’t advertise a schedule unless they had already secured the ATC slots for the flights. This exhance shows fairly typical confusion regarding how slots are allocated for commercial flights. Luckily, Jumpseater came to the rescue and set everyone straight.

It seemed a shame that the guide would only be available on PPRuNe. I contacted Jumpseater, who blogs at Norven Munky’s Weblog, and he kindly allowed me to share his explanation with the rest of the world.

Idiot’s Guide to ATC Slots

by Jumpseater

ATC slots are issued as a function of airspace capacity.

It’s very simple: if you have a room that holds ten idiots, you can’t put eleven idiots in the room, as much as you might like to.

Idiot number eleven has to wait until one or more idiots come out or the room is made bigger, so the idiot (No11) is given a slot time. This is the time the idiot has to present himself to commence his journey to the room.

If there’s only seven idiots in the room, then you can get three further idiots in there without restricting their progress at all, but the fourth idiot and any subsequent idiots will have to wait their turn.

If that room is in fact a corridor joining two rooms, then you can only get so many idiots down that corridor at any one time, even if the room at either end has a limitless supply of idiot capacity. Therefore any idiot wishing to pass through the corridor may get a slot time for the corridor, depending on how many idiots wish to use the corridor at any given time.

If there is another different corridor joining the rooms, you can send the idiots down those corridors, which may mean that the idiots will not be restricted at all.

So using the above Idiot’s Guide, you should be able to see that ATC SLOTS do not get secured by an airlines schedule or their staffing levels, they are a tactical daily/hourly response to airspace capacity.

Any questions?

Source: Sylvia

Boeing 787 Dreamliner flies over Paine Field from David Brown on Vimeo.

On Sunday I was looking at FlightAware and noticed that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner ZA001 (the first one) was set to make a visit to Paine Field. Since I live close by, I decided to go check it out and caught it doing a low fly over. The video isn’t the best since I was trying to video and take pictures on my iPhone (bad idea), but it works.

Also went looking for the Allegiant Boeing 757′s getting winglets put on at Paine Field, but couldn’t find them. That is alright, I was able to see quite a bit of other cool stuff instead. Going around Paine Field never gets old.

Source: David Parker Brown

QantasLink Boeing 717-200 (VH-NXH)

Oh please! Are the airlines to blame for everything now-a-days? Well it sure seems passenger Jean Barnard thinks so, since she sued Qantas for, “physical and mental suffering, medical expenses and loss of income,” because a three year old passenger screamed into her ear on a QantasLink flight from Alice Springs to Darwin.

Don’t get me wrong, the hearing loss seems real. Barnard had to be taken off the plane and taken to the hospital for permanate ear damage. There is some question if she had previous hearing damage, but getting the blood-curdling scream into her ear, surely didn’t help.

However, how can this be seen as Qantas’ fault? In court, Qantas argued that they are not responsible for a child’s actions and, “Flight attendants cannot predict when children aboard an aircraft are about to scream. There is no evidence that the child was screaming in the terminal, or on board the aircraft prior to the particular scream which allegedly caused the damage.”

Qantas must have felt her argument or the idea of bad press was too great and (confidentially) settled with Barnard out of court. That is too bad, since I feel that Barnard was more out to make a few bucks than to really change how an airline operates. Other than putting a muzzle on every child, what could Qantas have done? If Barnard was walking on the street and a child did the same thing, what would she have done then? Sued the city that owns the street?

Thanks Chris S!

Source: David Parker Brown