Interesting to see Jethro’s site is quoting another A330 due from Emirates in time for May. Also the route is still showing as an A330 in GDS so maybe its not all signed and sealed yet.

Wishful thinking I’m afraid. The talk of A6-EAS/G-WWBC coming back from EK this spring have been widespread but are not correct – current expectation is that it will come back to BD in the fall.

Andy

Alpha1? 😉

Crap, especially the nose – it looks far too empty now they’ve taken the girl off the nose. I’d have thought Virgin would have a little more imagination than that.

Andy

I wonder if the test pilots will get a bit nervous before the first flight…? Now I’m sure it will fly, but there’s a lot of folks watching an dI think I’d get a bit twitchy if I was asked to fly a design that had never flown before.

Andy

Just wondering, what’s with all the smoke? Do new engines which have never been started always produce this effect when started for the first time?

Its unlikely that the engine will not have been run before now on the test bench. However, usually yes they do smoke on first start. If I remember correctly, they put some sort of corrosion inhibitor into an engine when its not going to be run for some time, and this burns off when the engine gets hot for the first time.

Andy

PS: Constellations especially, but 707s and 757s as well, look nice. The A380 looks fugly!

OK, well I hope that them not taking this airplane on means the TU5s will get more outings this summer then! 😉

Andy

LZ-BHD – its a former Balkan Holidays airplane. Hopefully their disposing of this A320 means that the TU-154s will be more prevalent on BH Air flights to the UK this summer!

Andy