The Dash 8 would appear to be a collapsed nose gear while the CRJ would appear to be a belly landing. I must say well done to CRJ pilot – i believe it takes alot of skill to sucessfully complete a belly landing with the minimal amount of damage as seen to CRJ!

Strike was delayed by 24hrs now from 29th to 30th Jan.

Anyone who thinks SAS have not been in london for a long long time is niave or young.

1. Direct measurement of weight

Putting a scale directly into the landing gear (new planes) or by the gate (works with all planes) would eliminate a lot of hassles with estimating passenger and cargo weight. No longer will passengers be bumped because the plane MIGHT be overweight. And no longer will a plane take off dangerously overloaded because the estimations failed.

Pilots are very accurate at predicting weights without scales as they know how much everything weighs and hence will put as many people on as possible that calculations permit.

2. Powered wheels

Putting an electric motor in each wheel that is powered by the APU would save much fuel while taxing and maybe less ground crew for stuff like backing up without thrust reversers and shouldn’t weigh that much more

Agree with PMN

3. Mixed engines

I see people say that engine A is better for takeoffs and climbing while engine B is more efficient for cruising. On for instance a 4 engine jet would there ever be a circumstance where it would make sense to mix A and B? Say have 1 ‘climbing’ engine and 3 ‘cruising’ engines?

Presumably the ‘climbing’ engine would have to be throttled back or shut down during cruise to see any gain.

I really doubt this could be retrofitted to existing aircraft as I imagine there are too many dependencies on the assumption that all the engines are the same. But a new plane designed with this in mind . . .

I imagine drag would be a huge issue with this idea. If it was feasable i would imagine it would already be in service.

4. Covered gates

something like an awning but obviously with no support poles sticking in the ground (would have to be totally supported from the terminal side)

It seems a lot of time and money is wasted with deicing that could be avoided if the plane was protected while sitting at the gate

Also i heard groundcrews can’t work when there is lightning in the area and this would allow them to continue without delay

Are there any issues with extra lighting expense or possible fume accumulation (even though it is open all around)?

I cant see a structure which can only be attached at one end spaning out to cover the likes of an A380 or B747. The costs of bringing this in would be astronomical given that such storms are not an everyday occurance. Maybe if they were happening once a week or more it would be a good idea?

Elgan, if your moving from England then you need to move somewhere warm!!!! 😀

Elgan lives in England? 😮 😮 😮

get rid of half the ministerial cars

Now theres a stupid idea.

a) this would enable people to murder any politican they wished as people are most vunerable during transport and their bullet proof cars protect them

b) this would then use a large amount of budget as you need to replace them and make substanical payouts to not only their family but everyone else’s who was in the car

c) more money would be needed to change within their respective offices (home office, mod etc) to facilitate a higher turnover of staff

d) more infrastructure costs to facilitate not using transport

and lets not get into using green fuels for these cars. You simply cant. They are 3 times heavier than normal cars and have to have wider tyres to help spread the load. They only work on Diesel.

LOL Were can i book a ticket!!! (i note from a promo video i saw you get as much mushy peas as you can eat? 😀

Anyway some self moderation to get this back on track!!!

In all seriousness I do think airport fire fighters are fully competent in dealing with any aviation problem thrown their way. But i also would say that on the issue of the landing gear, surely all that can be checked from the ground is that it is down and locked?