Samsonite

"Taxi Driver"

"The Deer Hunter"

"Tuesday, March 8, 2011 Boeing selling spree continues, Hainan orders 38 jets including 32 787s Boeing won an order for 30 787-9, 2 787-8 BBJ and 6 777F in an order announcement that came at the Asian Aerospace 2011 show. These aircraft were ordered by Hong Kong Airlines and are an MoU (subject to being finalized. Hainan Airlines Co. Ltd. ownes Hong Kong Airlines. This is a big day for Boeing widebody offferings as earlier they had announced another MoU with Air China for 5 747-8I...." http://nyc787.blogspot.com/2011/03/boeing-...ues-hainan.html

CCleaner is a great utility for ms-winblows users. I might be wrong, but isn't it possible to set up CCleaner so it doesn't delete your passwords?

You can delete all your cookies, every last one of them and the board software, as MM pointed out, will remember where you were when you last signed off. I have all my browsers set up to accept cookies only for that session and to delete all cookies when the browser is closed. As one site can read the cookies from another site to see where you have been, it is possible with Opera and Firefox (and most likely others) to clear out all cookies, and your cache if you like, while you are online with just a couple of clicks of your mouse. If you are a ms-windows user, CCleaner, as previously mentioned, is an excellent tool for cleaning out cookies and temporary Internet files.

DATE:08/03/11 SOURCE:Air Transport Intelligence news ILFC to take 100 A320neo, scraps A380 deal By David Kaminski-Morrow US lessor International Lease Finance (ILFC) is preparing to order 100 Airbus A320neo aircraft, including the A321 variant, and is cancelling its 10 Airbus A380s. The lessor has also made the first engine selection for the twinjet, picking the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G powerplant for "at least" 60 of the aircraft, says Airbus. ILFC has signed a memorandum of understanding covering the agreement, which comprises 75 A320neos and 25 A321neos. It is the first customer for the latter type. In parallel with this order ILFC will terminate its purchase agreement for 10 A380s. "With 104 widebodies on order and fewer than a dozen single aisles it makes perfect sense to rebalance our order book and position ILFC strategically on the fuel-efficient Neo," says ILFC chief Henri Courpron." http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/...-a380-deal.html Flight Global being, well... Flight Global, completely failed to mention that while the 100 A320 order is a MOU, ILFC placed a firm order for 33 Boeing 737-800s. And, Tuesday in Hong Kong it was announced that, "Boeing adds Air China as third airline customer for 747-8I By Jon Ostrower on March 7, 2011 10:45 PM Hot off the presses from our team at Asian Aerospace 2011 in Hong Kong. Air China has become the third airline operator of the 747-8 Intercontinental joining Lufthansa and Korean Air. The Chinese flag carrier has ordered five of the type, raising the backlog to 38 unfilled aircraft. Boeing has specifically marketed the new jumbo to Asian operators with its "sunrise" colors which will fly on its first aircraft later this spring." http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightbl...a-as-third.html

Nah, just waiting for you to get "back to work," so to speak. Where have you been the last few weeks?

"DATE:03/03/11 SOURCE:Air Transport Intelligence news Dubai's DAE axes 30 more Airbus orders By David Kaminski-Morrow Middle Eastern lessor Dubai Aerospace Enterprise has cancelled another 30 aircraft from its Airbus order book, including 12 A350s. The decision has wiped out Airbus' sales for the first two months of the year, leaving it with a negative net order count for the end of February 2011. DAE's backlog had originally featured 70 A320s and 30 A350s. Last year it slashed seven A350s and 18 A320s from its books. DAE also dropped several orders it had placed with Boeing. Airbus' latest monthly order data, covering the period to the end of February 2011, reveals that DAE has axed another 30 jets. It has cut a dozen A350-900s, reducing its order to just 11, as well as 18 A320s, leaving it with 34 on Airbus' books. Airbus secured orders for eight aircraft in February - four A380s for Skymark Airlines and three A330s for AirAsia X, plus a single private A319 - taking its gross figure to 40 for the year so far. But the DAE cancellation, on top of the removal in January of Flyington Freighters' order for the A330-200F, leaves Airbus with a net deficit of three airframes for 2011. Airbus delivered 73 aircraft in the first two months of the year, including two A380s, 15 A330s and 56 A320-family jets." http://www.flightglobal.com/landingpage/airbus+a330.html

Rolls Strikes Again. At first I was going to say, maintenance, but the aircraft is too new. This problem would appear to be linked, if not the cause of, the engine failure this last November. "DATE:01/03/11 SOURCE:Air Transport Intelligence news ATSB investigates second Qantas A380 engine incident By Ghim-Lay Yeo The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is investigating a second incident involving the engine oil quantity on a Qantas Airways Airbus A380, which had one of its engines reduced to idle thrust on a flight on 24 February. This follows a similar incident on 15 February, which also involved another Qantas A380. In the most recent incident, the aircraft, registration VH-OQG, was operating from Singapore to London Heathrow when its number three Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine's oil quantity decreased while cruising near Ashgabat in Turkmenistan. "The crew reduced its thrust to flight idle," says the ATSB, which has commenced investigations into the incident. The aircraft involved in the incident was built in December 2010, according to Flightglobal's ACAS database. This is the second such incident involving engine oil quantity on Qantas' A380s, which are all powered by Trent 900s. On 15 February, the crew of a Qantas A380, registration VH-OQC, reduced the number four engine to idle after observing a gradual decrease in oil quantity. The aircraft was also operating on a Singapore-London Heathrow flight. The ATSB had said that subsequent inspections into the earlier incident showed that the fitting of the engine's external high pressure / intermediate pressure oil line "had less than the required torque". The Trent 900's HP/IP bearing module has been linked to last November's uncontained engine failure on a Qantas A380, which has yet to return to service. In a report on that incident released last December, the ATSB says a manufacturing defect led to cracking within a stub pipe that feeds oil to the HP/IP structure, resulting in oil leakage and an engine failure." http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/...e-incident.html

Freelancer...

You can disagree all you want, but that won't change my experiences. Even now, as a "senior citizen" I can remember when, as a child, the waitress at the soda foundation putting the metal container (used on the mixing machine) with the "excess" on the counter next to my glass. Ditto, years later (many years later ) when I would take my children out for a burger and a shake.

Just the opposite. I can't remember a time when the "excess" wasn't given to the paying customer.

Nothing new about it. It has been going on for years. As much as I like the Residence Garden, getting back there at night became such a hassle I'm hesitant to stay there again.

Given how long it takes airbust to build an A380, you have a very good point.

"Qantas's damaged A380 to return to service this year By Will Horton The Qantas Airbus A380 aircraft damaged last November during an uncontained Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine failure will return to service this year. "We'll be in the air by the end of the year with that aircraft," says Qantas CEO Alan Joyce. He cautions, however, that "it could take as long as September until it is fully repaired." The aircraft has been parked at Singapore's Changi airport since the November incident. Joyce says the cost to repair VH-OQA, the first A380 delivered to Qantas, will exceed A$100m (US$99.8m). Insurance and contractual agreements with Rolls-Royce will cover the repairs. Qantas says A380 disruptions had a $55m cost impact in the first half of its financial year ended 31 December. The carrier estimates a further $25m impact in the second half of the year. The November incident took out one of the aircraft's two hydraulic systems and extensively damaged the port wing. The aircraft landed safely, and the passengers and crew suffered no injuries. The A380 fleet was grounded for three weeks after the incident. Although services to Singapore and London resumed in late November, services to Los Angeles did not resume until last month. Qantas has taken an injunction against Rolls-Royce in Australia, but chief financial officer Gareth Evans says Qantas prefers to reach a commercial settlement. "We'll take the time necessary to do that," he says." http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/...-this-year.html Hmmm... Ten months and $100 Million to repair it, plus $80 Million in "disruption costs"? Isn't that just about what Qantas paid for the plane new? Qantas has been known to spend outrageous amounts of money to repair an aircraft so they can claim they have never had a hull loss. Remember the 747-400 that went off the runway at Don Muang (old BKK)? It was a write off, but Qantas spent about the same amount of money, IIRC, to put it back in service.

"United temporarily grounds 96 757s for checks; service disruption appears minimal By: Aaron Karp United Airlines temporarily grounded its fleet of 96 Boeing 757s on Tuesday for emergency checks on air data computer systems, but said the fleet was nearly back to normal by Wednesday afternoon. The carrier said 15 flights were canceled on Tuesday owing to the checks but none on Wednesday. The checks were spurred by an internal discovery that UA hadn't conducted all of the operational checks on the equipment mandated by a 2004 FAA Airworthiness Directive. The checks took about 60-90 min. per aircraft and all air data computers were found to be "fully functional," UA said, adding that the checks caused "very minimal impact on operations." The grounding was voluntary on UA's part, FAA said. Continental Airlines' 757s were not affected." http://atwonline.com/news/other-headlines/

"The Hunt For Red October."

"DATE:10/02/11 SOURCE:Flight International Clark: 777-300ER responsible for sparse 747-8I sales By Brendan Sobie Emirates president Tim Clark believes the success of the Boeing 777-300ER is behind the lack of success so far for the 747-8I, which has only secured 28 orders from two airline customers since its launch in 2006. "What Boeing is up against is not the A380, it is their own machine - the 777-300ER," Clark says. "The ER has proven to be one of the most popular aircraft ever produced, which is why we bought 100 of them. Even American is buying them. Not many but ,when they start flying it, they will realise how good it is." Emirates Boeing 777-300ER © BaoLou/AirTeamImages.com Clark points out that Emirates carries 420 passengers on its 777-300ERs in a two-class configuration. He believes the 747-8I will only be able to carry slightly more passengers. "Now look at the economics. We can get the ER to operate 17.5h with that kind of payload. It's cheap to operate. The engines are hugely fuel efficient," he says. "You've an amazing capability." He also thinks the 747-8I will be "a fuel-efficient machine" as it has new wings and a new propulsion system. However, Emirates has absolutely no interest in the aircraft and Clark does not see how many carriers can justify acquiring the 747-8I given the operating economics of the 777-300ER. "I hope they get it out the door because there are so many difficulties at the moment now with the manufacturing fraternity - with the 787, the 747-8, the A380 trying to get that out the door four or five years ago and then the A400M programme. So they have all been up against it," Clark says." http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/...7-8i-sales.html

They are working on it, plus airbus is, or will be, building some a320s in China. Just yesterday this was the subject of conversation with a Chinese friend who said quality control, or the lack thereof, will be the major issue.

"Originally published February 5, 2011 at 10:00 PM | Page modified February 5, 2011 at 10:01 PM Sunday Buzz A 'prescient' warning to Boeing on 787 trouble Boeing commercial airplanes chief Jim Albaugh had some unusually candid comments about the 787's global outsourcing strategy at a recent Seattle University talk. In a late January appearance at Seattle University, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Jim Albaugh talked about the lessons learned from the disastrous three years of delays on the 787 Dreamliner. One bracing lesson that Albaugh was unusually candid about: the 787's global outsourcing strategy — specifically intended to slash Boeing's costs — backfired completely. "We spent a lot more money in trying to recover than we ever would have spent if we'd tried to keep the key technologies closer to home," Albaugh told his large audience of students and faculty. Boeing was forced to compensate, support or buy out the partners it brought in to share the cost of the new jet's development, and now bears the brunt of additional costs due to the delays. Some Wall Street analysts estimate those added costs at between $12 billion and $18 billion, on top of the $5 billion Boeing originally planned to invest. Interviewed after the Seattle U. talk, Albaugh avoided directly criticizing the decisions of his predecessors. The 787 outsourcing strategy was put place in 2003 by then-Boeing Chairman Harry Stonecipher, who was ousted in 2005, and Commercial Airplanes Chief Alan Mulally, now chief executive at Ford. "It's easy to look in the rear-view mirror and see things that could have been done differently," Albaugh said. "I wasn't sitting in the room and I don't know what they were facing." And yet, at least one senior technical engineer within Boeing predicted the outcome of the extensive outsourcing strategy with remarkable foresight a decade ago. Albaugh and other senior leaders within Boeing may be belatedly paying attention to a paper presented at an internal company symposium in 2001 by John Hart-Smith, a world-renowned airplane structures engineer. Hart-Smith, who had worked for Douglas Aircraft and joined Boeing when it merged in 1997 with McDonnell Douglas, was one of the elite engineers designated within the company as Senior Technical Fellows. His paper was a biting critique of excessive outsourcing, a warning to Boeing not to go down the path that had led Douglas Aircraft to virtual obsolescence by the mid-1990s. The paper laid out the extreme risks of outsourcing core technology and predicted it would bring massive additional costs and require Boeing to buy out partners who could not perform. Albaugh said in the interview that he read the paper six or seven years ago, and conceded that it had "a lot of good points" and was "pretty prescient." In his talk at Seattle U., the first specific lesson Albaugh cited as learned from the 787 debacle seemed to echo Hart-Smith's paper. Albaugh said that part of what had led Boeing astray was the chasing of a financial measure called RONA, for Return on Net Assets. This is essentially a ratio of income to assets and one way to make that ratio bigger is to reduce your assets. The drive to reduce RONA thus spurred a push within Boeing to do less work in-house — hence reducing assets in the form of facilities and employees — and have others do the work. Hart-Smith argued that it was wrong to use that financial measure as a gauge of performance and that outsourcing would only slash profits and hollow out the company. Reached by phone in his native Australia, where at 70 he is now retired, Hart-Smith said he'd heard in recent months on the grapevine from former colleagues that senior executives at Boeing Commercial Airplanes have been reading his paper. "I'm glad they got the message," Hart-Smith said. "It took far too long." After he presented his paper at a company symposium in 2001, he received hundreds of supportive e-mails from engineers and lower-level managers, he said. But a senior executive present at the symposium spent a half-hour after his presentation attacking the paper, and afterward Boeing leadership ignored Hart-Smith. He had hoped to join the 787 program but wasn't permitted to do so. He felt sidelined, he said. In Hart-Smith's analysis, the seeds of Boeing's outsourcing ideas grew out of the McDonnell aircraft business, which focused on military-airplane programs. On the military side of the business, the U.S. government was the major, often the only, customer and it funded development costs in full. "The military approach didn't require you to risk your own money," Hart-Smith said. "That was the McDonnell Douglas mentality." He blamed that attitude for the major outsourcing on the MD-95 and proposed MD-12 programs, the failure of which led to the decline of Douglas' commercial-airplane business in California. The same ideas were transferred to Boeing with the McDonnell Douglas merger and led directly to the 787 outsourcing strategy, he said. Taken to its extreme conclusion, Hart-Smith said mockingly, the strategy of maximizing return on net assets could lead Boeing to outsource everything except a little Boeing decal to slap on the nose of the finished airplane. Though most of the profits would be outsourced to suppliers along with all the work, and all the company's expertise would wither away, the return on investment in a 25-cent decal could be 5,000 percent. Has Boeing belatedly seen the light and embraced Hart-Smith's analysis? Clearly the 787 has brought a serious rethink at the top. "We went too much with outsourcing," Albaugh said in the interview. "Now we need to bring it back to a more prudent level." That likely includes building the horizontal tails of the next version of the Dreamliner, the 787-9, in the Seattle area. And for the next all-new airplane that Boeing will build, Albaugh vows that "we can do things differently and better." "Doing the new airplane the way we did this one is not what we want to do." But the rethink may not be as radical as Hart-Smith would like. In his paper he wrote that while some selective outsourcing is necessary, Boeing should keep most of the work it has traditionally done in-house. Albaugh balked at going that far. "I haven't said keep most of the work in-house," Albaugh said. "I still believe we need to make sure we try to access the best technologies and capabilities that are available around the world." And despite what Hart-Smith has heard on the grapevine, no one from Boeing's leadership has actually called him up to talk about his analysis. Hart-Smith retired from Boeing in 2008. He still presents engineering papers at academic conferences around the world. Yet that startlingly prescient 2001 paper focused on business economics. Where did a structures engineer get that kind of expertise? "It's common sense," Hart-Smith said. — Dominic Gates" http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sund...ndaybuzz06.html

Symantec (Norton's) has improved, but it is still a dog. Within the last six months I've removed it from a system as it, as usual, dragged the system down to its knees. There is much better security software available and some of it is even free. That people pay good money to tie an anchor (Symantec) to their computer is a tribute to the power of advertising. It would be interesting to know what Peter Norton really thinks of the software Symantec has branded with his name. As to the Mac and viruses: The Mac OS is build from about three different OS, all with Unix heritage, but the bulk of it is based on Darwin. Unix by its very design is more secure than any version of ms-windows ever produced, but winblows 7 is, finally, showing some real improvements in security. However, that said, if the Mac were to become the dominate operating system, I'm sure those deviant, twisted little fuckers sitting in their mother's basement living on pizza and sugar water, would turn their attention to OSX. It would be harder for them to do, but they would give it a go. :)

"Boeing Response to Public Reports Regarding the WTO's Final Ruling in DS 353 CHICAGO, Jan. 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing (NYSE: BA) today released the following statement, responding to public reports that the WTO panel deciding European Union claims of U.S. government assistance to Boeing has issued a confidential final ruling rejecting the vast majority of Europe's claims: "Today's reports confirm the interim news from last September that the WTO rejected almost all of Europe's claims against the United States, including the vast majority of its R&D claims – except for some $2.6 billion. This represents a sweeping rejection of the EU's claims. "Nothing in today's reports even begins to compare to the $20 billion in illegal subsidies that the WTO found last June that Airbus/EADS has received (comprised of $15 billion in launch aid, $2.2 billion in equity infusions, $1.7 billion in infrastructure, and roughly $1.5 billion in R&D support). "The WTO's decisions confirm that European launch aid stands alone as a massive illegal subsidy only available to Airbus, which has seriously harmed Boeing, distorted competition in the aerospace industry for decades, and resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of good-paying U.S. jobs. "Today's decision will not require any change in policy or practice, or other remedy that comes close to approaching the billions of dollars of launch aid that must be repaid by Airbus or restructured on proven commercial terms. As a result of the June WTO ruling, EU governments and Airbus/EADS must repay or restructure $4 billion in still outstanding illegal launch aid subsidies Airbus received to develop the A380. They must also remedy the adverse effects of the additional $16 billion in other illegal subsidies Airbus received. "Under the WTO's decisions, Airbus must now compete in the global marketplace without the massive illegal subsidies it has received since its inception and without which, the WTO held, Airbus would be 'a much different, and we believe a much weaker' company than it is today. It will be required to finance airplanes the same way Boeing does – with its own money. Having recently announced it has more than $13 billion dollars of cash on hand, Airbus should have no problem with this new requirement. "Today's ruling underscores our confidence in the WTO processes and dispute-resolution procedures. We applaud the body for its work and continue to look to Airbus/EADS and the EU to recognize that in today's global market, everyone must play by the rules and abide by WTO requirements. Playing by the rules, for Airbus/EADS, means withdrawing the still-outstanding A380 prohibited launch aid subsidy and financing the A350 on commercial terms. Airbus should confirm its intention to comply with the WTO's decisions." Editor's Note: More information about the WTO cases can be found at www.boeing.com/WTO." http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1603

Thelma Ritter.

I booted over to ms-windows and downloaded and install it and it is very impressive. It does take some getting use to as far as how to access the bookmarks, etc. However, I can't honestly say it is any faster than Opera 11.01, and, imho, Opera has a better looking interface.

Dupe. please delete.