With the rapid growth at FedEx and UPS I don’t know if they are willing to wait around for the A380 and why should they.

I think that the truth is, many pilots (not all before some of you scream at me) don’t necessarily have an indepth view of the industry. I’ve spoken to a few who couldn’t really talk around fairly basic industry topics, perhaps such as liberalisation (purely as an example). I think some pilots view their role as finished when they leave the cockpit each day, they just turn up, fly the damn thing and go home, leaving others to consider the ramifications of the industry. Essentially they are in an operational role, and with an “ask the pilot” column you’d expect them to be answering operational questions, and even the Air India colourscheme issue is hardly an indepth issue LOL.

There are others however that are very concious of what is going on, and these tend to be the pilots that eventually move into management at later stages in their careers.

I think it’s quite the opposite, at least from my experience, that most pilots are quite aware of the workings of the industry. Publicly the pilots opinion of the industry isn’t as widely sought or appreciated as it’s bound to be bias towards their interests and there for not of consequence to the average Joe. I find that most that ask for a pilots opinion are only doing so out of curiosity of what someone on the inside believes is really happening.

Pilots tend to follow even the most obscure branch of the industry knowing that every little event has a ripple effect that could very well intersect with their own career, company, equipment, pay, retirement, etc.

I hadn’t heard that a 727 landed at Meigs before. Is there any documentation regarding the event?

The aircraft you linked to does in fact seem to have been modified to eliminate the windows. adamdowley is correct, current production 737’s don’t have the windows. Here’s a picture of another Southwest 737 without the windows.

http://www1.airliners.net/open.file/1101388/M/

Hmm… Interesting. Surely if it’s the same aircraft just taken in different frames and overlayed, the moving traffic below should appear in a similar way?

Relative to the movement of the 747 and satellite the traffic on the road is at a standstill. Each frame of the 747 shows traffic not seen in the previous frame as the aircrafts 200-300 mph speed left them in its dust.

Problem? As Bmused55 said, they are under their advertised weight but they still have another 5000 pounds to go to meet their own goal. I wouldn’t really call that much of a problem. A better headline?

Boeing 787 underweight but Boeing officials still aim to eliminate another 5000 lbs.