Long story short, ETOPS is switching to EDTO (Extended Diversion Time Operations) which will apply to 3 and 4 (don’t know about 6 and 8?!) engine aircraft.

It infuriates me, people complaining of wind farms.

Maybe they can be unsightly. Maybe they can be expensive. HOWEVER (once the emissions generated during manufacturing have been neutralised), they are clean energy producing devices. Devices that will not cause any long term damage to the world unlike fossil or nuclear (though I’m not really against nuclear).

They may not produce energy all the time but if you have enough of them in enough places, there should always be some that is being fed into the grid. And when you combine on-shore and off-shore wind devices with geo-thermal, hydro, tidal, wave etc energy, you can soon meet a large chunk of the populations energy requirements.

It seems like a no-brainer for me. Stop being selfish, think of what our future will have to live with. We’ve been burdened by the enormous coal usage of our ancestors and without renewable energy contributing in the future, the next generations will have even less to work with.

Again: expensive? Perhaps. Necessary? Yes.

Great photos! I wonder when we’ll see the first Star Alliance A380???

Yeeeaaaahhhhh…..would NOT catch me doing that, or the linked video, or that video of the crazy Russian kids up some massively tall structure, walking out onto cantilever beams.

I’ve done a couple of bungees, a 15,000 skydive and will go on any rollercoaster/thrill ride….but doing anything like that where you have no harness/parachute would turn me right off the idea.

Anyone seen the film Man On Wire? Very interesting film but again, no.

Tornado, I heard a couple of months ago that once you are above X amount of feet/meters, the human brain can’t comprehend heights properly any more. Which is why some people (myself included) find bungee jumping much scarier than skydiving – because with skydiving you are so high up, the brain doesn’t register the same fear. Still, of course, some people have a genuine fear of heights that overrides that.

WRT engines, only GE have produced all new engines in the last 30 or so years…..with the absolutely state of the art GeNX.

Well…..parts of the GEnx ARE derived from the GE90. I guess like the Trent series features parts common to the original RB.211 series?

Their heavy 3 spool design

The weight of the 3 spool Trent 800 is significantly lighter than its comparative 2 spool PW and GE engines on the 777.

For the last 20-30 years, PW and RR have been doing re-hashes and upgrades (like the Trent in RR’s case) while GE was setting the standard.

But in the case of the Trent series, why would you invest in re-inventing the wheel every time an aircraft manufacturer wanted a new engine for a new airframe?! That would be absurd! Of course they are going to adapt similar technology to suit different requirements.

GE did exactly the same thing with the CF6 E1 upgrade for the A330. Then for the A380 they didn’t want to invest in a whole new engine so they formed an alliance, where as RR were able to save on development costs for a whole new engine type and adapt a proven model to suit. The result, an engine with the majority market share based on customer numbers.

For the A340-500/600 and A350, GE don’t even offer an engine type. Why are they not setting the standard there?

If this happened in a lot of other countries around the World, the other respective countries would no doubt be complaining about the cost to the tax payer for scrambling an air force jet. But in the States….I can’t help but think this decision would be praised and rewarded. “Brave US Air Force pilot risks life to ensure the freedom and safety of terror flight.” etc (note: personal opinion)

They also set off if you touch/lean against them. Is he brushing against it as he goes through?

It is very nice indeed. I look forward to seeing that at work instead of the dated/bland current livery.