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Why were they parked in the USA? During Covid a number of asian airlines parked their planes in Australian deserts.
There are still a variety of planes parked at the airport in Alice Springs (central Australia). Maybe it's a size thing with using Victorville over Alice?
(I regret not getting a photo from the air)
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IANAP, but a lot of the root cause analysis around the 737 max crashes was that they were sufficiently different and so should have required re-certification of pilots before being allowed to fly them. Due to the costs involved, Boeing made the ultimately fatal mistake of minimising these changes to airlines so that pilots didnt know what they were flying (insofar as some of the subsystems).
IMO this is a bad take. MCAS was a fine system, the different aero charicteristics were fine. The only problem is that Boeing cheaped out and made MCAS depend on a single sensor for critical decision making. If they just had 3 sensors like any other saftey critical system none of these problems would have happened.
I just got back from a road trip where I visited this boneyard (among other things) in the Mojave Desert.[0][1][2] The airport/planes are all fenced in, but you can still go up to the fence and see them up close. Pretty wild to see so many planes in one place. [0] https://www.dropbox.com/s/wjkmpacv7yvpur5/PXL_20230411_00382... [1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/2pgdlmn7z9ej0rc/PXL_20230411_00433... [2] https://www.dropbox…
[0] - https://theloadstar.com/cost-cutting-fedex-express-to-retire...
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IANAP, but a lot of the root cause analysis around the 737 max crashes was that they were sufficiently different and so should have required re-certification of pilots before being allowed to fly them. Due to the costs involved, Boeing made the ultimately fatal mistake of minimising these changes to airlines so that pilots didnt know what they were flying (insofar as some of the subsystems).
There were also optional safety systems that lower cost carriers in the undeveloped/developing world didn’t buy, which would have prevented most of the incidents.
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i totally agree re: the smoothest flying experience. the takeoff is so long and smooth you almost don't realize that you're up in the air. it was sad to learn that airlines were trying to get rid of it.
The landing surprised me too. Super soft compared to smaller planes. I once landed in Johannesburg on a A380 Air France from Paris and the airport was in thick fog. You could not even tell we touched the ground. The captain made the announcement after landing that it was his very first time letting the plane land in itself... you could tell the excitement in his voice :)
A rough landing is actually considered a safe landing when the conditions are not ideal. A smooth landing means flying the plane close to stall speed. So close that it gently touches down with barely any vertical speed left. You don't do that when there's any risk of wind shear causing very sudden and extreme drops in air speed of tens of knots. If that happens you drop below stall speed and basically the plane drops out of the sky. If that happens low enough, you crash and die. It's extremely unsafe to do anything else than plonking it down decisively under such conditions. That means a larger vertical and horizontal speed and eliminating airspeed via the shock absorbers instead of floating over the runway. That's what shock absorbers are for. As long as the plane doesn't bounce off again, it's all good. Bouncing is dangerous though because now you are slow and stalling.
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No, this is a common complaint. The size is too big to lean on and too small to do anything useful with. I've flown First on AF and it's no better up there.
Why would you need to lean against the wall in 1st class?
Having escaped Australia during the middle of the pandemic, I'd like to correct this article: Australia's only long-haul carrier during the pandemic was United. Thanks United for getting me out of Australia!
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Boeing, Airbus, and Rolls-Royce are going to be in for a rude awakening if/when the Chinese aircraft industry ever gets their shit together, and/or if batteries ever become light/dense enough to support electric passenger flight. That said, watching the Comac C919 shitshow (14 years and still not in revenue service, and this is for a 737/A320 clone), I'm not holding my breath. The twin-aisle C929 is still a decade aw…
The C919 and C929 both fly with western avionics and jet engines, so they aren’t really that far off from airbus and Boeing, and don’t really bring anything new to the table beyond more competition from China in putting everything together.
I agree that the C919/929 pose no threat as is, but the Chinese are clearly playing the long game here and their massive domestic market coupled with government arm-twisting lets them scale: the C919 has already racked up over 1000 orders.
Why were they parked in the USA? During Covid a number of asian airlines parked their planes in Australian deserts.
I heard an anecdote that Alice Springs was full before QANTAS made a decision. Singapore Airlines stored several A380s at Alice Springs: https://simpleflying.com/singapore-airlines-alice-springs-a3...
I was a member of the gliding club flying at the airstrip north of town and a member told me that they were up when one of the A380s came in. They got a call from the tower that their danger zone in the airport's class C airspace was revoked and they had to vacate. This was a bit strange not only because they usually had no trouble routing around it, but also, which airliners were flying at the moment? When it turned out to be an A380 following a different approach with far greater separation requirements it made a lot more sense.