Air New Zealand have two 744s due for scrapping in a month or so. Get your orders in now!

I focused on maths and physics at high school. Studied Mechanical Engineering at University, then became an Aeronautical Engineer. Depends what kind of Aeronautical Engineering you want to go in to. Mechanical or Aeronautical will suit you well for design. Electrical may take you in to Avionics or Systems.

It is stunning but with all that black paint it’ll be a nightmare to control the cabin temperature on the ground in hot countries.

The paint scheme won’t be the problem. The paint doesn’t actually heat up the aircraft that much more. The biggest heat contributor is from inside the aircraft, with the IFE.

Oh, and it does look great close up 😉

How long before they switch to a single A380….?

Sums it up nicely.

Transaero Airlines commits to four A380s

Was already posted in the A380 thread, but thought it should get a mention here too, hopefully it will go through to firm orders:

Transaero Airlines, Russia’s second largest airline, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Airbus for four A380 aircraft. The agreement was signed by Olga Pleshakova, Transaero Airlines CEO and Christopher Buckley, Airbus’ Executive Vice President Europe, Asia and the Pacific.

Transaero will become the launch customer for the A380 in Russia, the CIS and Eastern Europe. The Russian carrier plans to start operations with the A380 on its long-range network of high density routes from Moscow. The aircraft will feature a three class cabin layout, seating about 700 passengers. Transaero will announce an engine selection for the new aircraft in the near future.

http://www.airbus.com/newsevents/news-events-single/detail/transaero-airlines-commits-to-four-a380s/

Would the pax have been told that the landing gear was not down prior to the landing?

My first guess was that they would have been, so that everyone was able to prepare themselves and adopt the brace position in preparation for an unpredictable landing. Could be wrong though!

It looked like an amazing landing. So weird to see an aircraft so low at that speed and angle and ‘touch down’ relatively smoothly – with no landing gear down!