I flew on a BA Boeing 707 in early 1982 LHR-LCA. I think its Regn was G-AXXY 🙂 Yup, checked my log book and it was ‘XY.

You have!:D
It doesn’t matter if Alaska Air is owned by satan mimself, past problems have no legal standing in the argument by Alaska vs Virgin.

See posts 3 and 5 and I never claimed they did!!! My responses were to do with Alaska (which is part of the thread) itself and its past history, which like it or not is there. That has no connection with the Virgin issue and I never claimed that it it did. It was an observation on an airline mentioned in the thread. I wasn’t aware that we were in court ;).

Thanks GA, that article refers to the same situation as covered in the excellent NatGeo documentary Air Crash Investigation dedicated to the crash that blew open this can of worms. Ship 741 if you have access to National Geographic channel this episode is repeated fairly frequently and is well worth seeing. I was left feeling that someone should have hanged for that, and I dare say that the families of those who lost their lives thought so too

For the vast Russian areas of the east airtravel is the only way. Ever been on roads of the North? When the USSR imploded a lot of outlying areas where left marooned. Not only in Russia, also in the other ex-SSRs.

Absolutely right. Aeroflot existed purely as a means to an end as far as the Soviet Union was concerned. On the one hand, as you rightly say air travel was the only means of crossing vast areas of the country and those operations were a remit laid down by Moscow at that time. When you think that some Aeroflot “scheduled services” and ambulance/rescue duties were operated by many types of aircraft and helicopters some with floats and others with skis! often in appalling weather. You can just see BA doing that kind of thing can’t you. The domestic services mainly catered for Soviet citizens who also had a cheaper fares structure that operated alongside that charged for foreign passengers. The international services were mainly useful for maintaining links with the “satellite” countries along with “solidarity” flights to those states well disposed towards the USSR. They also delivered much needed foreign currency into the Soviet system for obvious uses. Aeroflots links with the Soviet Air Force is well known and as in the west, would become subordinate to its control and objectives, the same circumstances in fact that were applicable to my favourite airline Interflug. Its good that the winged Hammer and Sickle flies on….but for how much longer? 🙁

I should imagine that would be a great experience…i believe Russian pilots tend to take a very steep approach when landing

They certainly did Steve, at least on the Soviet types anyway.

Schorsch, Aeroflot was most certainly the largest airline in the world by aircraft count. However as the entity was created to serve the needs of a command economy and to play its part in the objectives of the Soviet Govt, any other comparison with “Western” airline is meaningless. As its duties also included operating social obligation routes as well as a huge domestic and international network, not to mention the civil airports as well, I should imagine that there was many a “Wladimir” that was pleased that Aeroflot was there 🙂

A350XWB competes with B787-9.
The B787-8 has no real Airbus competitor in the A350 line, and yes, the A330-200 is the direct counterpart.

Schorsch

Well I’m certainly wiser than when I got up this morning :rolleyes:

I suppose you have to ask yourself why UK and US ‘foreign policy’ is so despised by some of the nations you have listed ? It’s not a war against terror it’s a war against people we’ve turned over at various points throughout history. The empires strike back… (apparently) :rolleyes:

I was going to post on this Ren but having read yours I’ve nothing to add. Very well put sir.

If you use Freeview television, a new Russian news channel has been added on channel 85. Their evening news service is currently featuring a MAKS slot at about 6.30pm.

Very interesting new Russian aircraft and helicopters are featured, plus factory visits etc. The only downside is an English presenter. You’ll see what I mean if you tune in. On the other hand, some of the female presenters are very presentable…

Bri 🙂

Russia Today/RT…also available on Sky Channel 512. This channel often carries documentaries on different aspects of Russian/Soviet aviation. They recently screened a very good programme on the “Caspian Sea Monster” Ekranoplane, and others on the lives and works of both Ilyushin and Tupolev.