The typo has just been discovered as the reason why the United Arab Emirates A340-541 Airbus had problems taking off, with a report claiming:

"During the reduced thrust takeoff, the aircraft's tail made contact with the runway surface, but the aircraft did not begin to climb. The captain commanded and selected take-off and go-around engine thrust and the aircraft commenced a climb. After jettisoning fuel to reduce the landing weight, the flight crew returned the aircraft to Melbourne for landing."

Apparently, the plane's first officer recorded the weight into the flight system as 262.9 tons, when in actual fact it was 362.9 ton. Quite a difference, you'll agree. While there were no injuries to the 257 passengers, 14 cabin crew and four flight crew, two of the crew resigned afterwards, presumably from the shame of watching the tail of the aircraft bounce against the runway three times. [ATSB report via Ieee Spectrum]

These won't come for another 15 years, but they represent a significant change in philosophy from current models, including that Sonic Cruiser model that looks—in technical terms—absofrikkinlutely damn cool. [Airliners via Flight Global]

Apparently, it may be Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud's new specially retro-fitted A380. As you may remember, the arabian Prince shone his genie lamp and bought an Airbus A380—the biggest passenger plane in the world—for his personal use.

British company Design Q is now making the plans for its interior, three floors with every luxurious detail you can imagine, including a lift that goes all the way down to the runway's tarmac and extends a red carpet so guests can get into the flying palace. I can already imagine a stunning hostess saying "Welcome, Mr Bond."

In addition to all of the above, the full marble Turkish bath in the spa, and twenty first class seats/beds for the extra guests, the plane will be full of high tech gadgets. The boardroom, for example, will have a hologram projector and a giant touchscreen perspex table, while each suite will include a virtual prayer mat proyector, always pointing in Mecca's direction.

Whoever bought it, I hope he invites us for a trip. And with "us" I mean "me." I can sleep on the couch, Mr Prince Sir you. [Daily Mail]

The VIP Saloon is a design from Lufthansa Technik, the decorating and customization arm of the German airline. It's about as over-the-top as you can get, and I can't even fathom the ballpark price for what this would be, but it's certainly more than anyone I know can afford. And despite the recession, you know there's at least one Saudi prince out there who's going to hop on board. Enjoy it, you dick.

In any case, what really hits home the scope of this is the layout of both levels. Just check this shit out:

[New Launches]

Update: Sacha, a reader expert in the matter, has wrote to me saying this is not a simulation of a bird striking into a turbo fan, but a simulation of a blade coming loose, which may happen as a result of fatigue or a crack.

...is not a bird test, it's what's called a "blade out" test. Explosive charges are placed on a blade to simulate a blade coming loose — this could happen as a result of fatigue, an unchecked, unseen crack in an engine blade. What you're seeing is essentially "diamond cutting diamond" — and that's why they do the test. Turbo fan blades are extremely strong, and at that speed, they'll chain reaction and destroy each other. You can't really prevent that. But what we don't want is a flying fan blade to hit the fuselage, enter the wing (where fuel is kept), or otherwise leave the engine cowling in any way. That's what this test is for — you want to contain the explosion.

I can hear your confusion: "B-b-b-but, the engine didn't blow up!" — that's because it's not supposed to. We do testing for bird strikes, the engines are built to handle it. They're even designed to continue running, up until a certain size and number of bird ingestions, and beyond that, shut down safely. But they're *never*, ever fragile or brittle enough to be seriously damaged by a hollow-boned soft-bodied bird.

Probably what happened in the US Airways Airbus' engines before its Hudsonlanding.

Actually, here a bird hits the engine in slow motion:

Allegedly, a lot of birds is what caused the US Airways flight to waterland on the Hudson.

The project—called Future High-Altitude High-Speed Transport 20XX (the XX standing for who-the-heck-knows-when-this-is-going-to-happen) has an initial investment $9.68 million to work on the concepts.

The suborbital plane will be based on the glide-and-landing Phoenix, an aircraft that was designed by DLR aerospace and aeronautics giant EADS, manufacturers of the Airbus fleet. But while this one will be very similar to SpaceShipTwo, the SpaceLiner is completely different (and weird). There will be a first stage, a large booster, with the actual vehicle on top carrying 50 passengers.

The SpaceLiner will launch vertically and take 90 minutes to fly from any city in Europe to Australia, and will be reusable 150 times, needing its engines replaces every 25 flights.

Sounds crazy? I don't care. I want a ride. [Flighglobal]

This digitl reenactment drives home just how quickly the events transpired, and how quickly the crew managed to respond. Another point raised by this video, though not as much as I would have liked: while the success of this landing largely came down do raw flight skill, piloting a jet like this is as much akin to running a computer terminal as it is to flying a fighter jet.

If the simulator camera had pulled back a little more, the sheer complexity of the Airbus A320's control panels would have been apparent. It was an acute sense of space and fantastic piloting abilities that brought the passengers down safely, yes, but also a magisterial command of the plane's many subsystems, including the vital fuselage sealing mechanism (apparently not). To drive home just how flawless this landing was, the BBC also includes footage of what can happen when a plane is landed on water incorrectly (Hint: death). [BBC via Neatorama]

I actually get pissed off in TV shows and movies (Jerry Friggin' Maguire comes to mind) when people in coach eavesdrop on people in first class, or vice versa, because airplane engine white noise is just too thick for that to realistically happen. But now, apparently, it's all coming horrifically true: Pilots say that when they are on breaks, they can hear "every crying baby, snoring passenger and flushing toilet," says Wired's Autopia blog.

According to a publication called Flightglobal, the Dubai-based Emirates Air is begging Airbus for some kind of solution to the problem that would not, of course, weigh things down. Emirates SVP Capt. Ed Davidson says that pilots are complaining: "On our other aircraft, the engines drown out the cabin noise. [On the A380] the pilots sleep with earplugs, but the cabin noise goes straight through them."

Wired also quotes Airbus nemesis Boeing on the subject:

In stories about the A380 passenger experience, we read that even seated by a window, you could hear conversations on the other side of the airplane, or even several rows away. In some reports, when passengers mentioned that this might be a bit disconcerting, they were told that one might have to “get used to” eavesdropping on an airplane...

Man, they didn't even get to bodily functions and I'm already sorta kinda feeling sorry for all those billionaire oil barons who fly the Emirates' skies. Small saving grace: When flying Singapore Airlines's A380s, at least they won't have to put up with assorted clumsy attempts at joining the Mile High Club. [Wired]

• Two Roll Royce Trent-like engines, capable of developing up to 95,000 lbf.
• 55,000 feet altitude ceiling.
• 505 knots cruise speed at 47,000 feet
• 208-foot long body (which in combination with the wings gives it that stylized look).
• 10,400 nautical miles range.
• 256 passengers in an all-sleeper, double-deck configuration (if only all inter-continental places were all-sleepers).

The Stratos is not made by Boeing or EADS. It has been designed by a group of former British aerospace engineers. According to them, this plane will be much more efficient and environmentally-savvy than the current fleet. However, it's just a design for now, even if they say it could get int into service in 2028. [Flight Global]

The Air Data Inertial Reference System, which supplies position and attitude information to the plane's electronic instrumentation system, starting producing bogus data due to an internal error, not external interference. As funny as the ideas of an A330-controlling iPhone app or an Autopilot-B-Gone are, the general consensus of experts that spoke on this issue is that commercial jets are unlikely to be affected at all by personal electronics, let alone driven into the ground. [ABC AU via Slashdot]

This wouldn't be the first time Qantas has blamed passengers' gadgets for an in-flight mishap; in July, a Bluetooth mouse was said to have resulted in a Qantas jet's autopilot being thrown off course. Passengers on Tuesday's ill-fated altitude drop will now be questioned regarding what electronics they may have been using at the time of the incident.

The issue of whether everyday personal electronics can actually cause any significant problems on board an airliner is clouded, to say the least. On one hand, it's hard to see how such common devices that meet FCC and UL interference standards can affect airliners that are designed to be able to withstand lightning strikes—critical components on a commercial jet are shielded to prevent any kind of interference getting through. On the other side, claims of the insulation degrading in older jets making them more susceptible to interference make sense. Then of course there is the perfectly rational "why chance it" argument.

This Wiki page delves into the issue in more detail, and Patrick from Ask the Pilot, one of my favorite online columns, gave the issue a characteristically sober and level-headed look earlier this year (verdict: interference technically possible but highly unlikely). So why Qantas would be making a push for this line of reasoning is kind of a mystery.

[UPDATE: Nick from Giz OZ has let us know that this story may be in fact a result of a misunderstanding—apparently a reporter got the jet's onboard computers (for navigation, etc) mixed up with the computers of actual passengers in his original report. The NTSB is still not ruling out interference from passenger gadgets, though.]

What about you guys? Do you heed the warnings to turn off everything, or fly in the face of danger with iPod blaring away during takeoff. Must admit I've been guilty of the latter, occasionally.

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[NZ Herald via Slashdot, Photo: Daquella Manera/Flickr]

This amazing system can also show you a view forward from the nose, and straight down beneath the plane. I'm pretty sure if you're trapped in a center-aisle seat it may well make up for your lack of window view. And it's a great chance to freak out (just a little bit) your nervous-flyer partners or parents... well, if your Mom is like mine, anyway. [Irintech via New Launches]

The Emirates A380 model has been placed at the Heathrow Airport roundabout previously known as the Concorde Roundabout—because it had a replica of that plane. It's not made of Lego bricks, but given the fact that it is bigger than my apartment, I won't mind living in one. [Emirates]

That extra 1,000 pounds of water (25% more than usual) means the aircraft will have to carry more fuel, which may weigh heavy on your environmental conscience. Or maybe lying in your massage bed in the private first class room, with remote-control doors and mini bar will make you forget your woes. [Mail on Sunday]

With that amount of bricks, and knowing how long my Falcon is taking, I'm not surprised that it took 600 hours for the entire team of professional Legoland model builders to assemble this beast. [Giz's Lego Trip]

According to the always entertaining Richard Quest, the delays have been caused precisely by the new technologies and manufacturing strategies that Boeing is using for the 787. Mainly, the biggest problem seems to be with the carbon fiber modules being manufactured all through the world, which then have to be brought and put together at Boeing's Everett factory in Washington, using their gigantic cargo Dreamlifter.

But as Quest points out, there will have to be major changes to this process because, at the end of the day, "the reality is that they have discovered they can't do it" in this way. One of these immediate and most serious changes, will likely require a redesign of the 787's wingbox.

As a result of these troubles, Boeing has ended with "new revised schedules" and an "extraordinary embarrassment" comparable to the humiliation that EADS had as a result of the multiple delays on the Airbus A380.

The even-worse thing is that, while it's understandable that companies like Boeing and EADS may have setbacks in the construction of these giant next-generation machines, the problem doesn't end in the technological embarrassment: Boeing will have to pay compensation to the airlines who have already bought 850 Dreamliners—which is "far more than any other aircraft at this stage"—and were expecting them on time.

Nightmareliner indeed. [CNN]

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If you even before you come in a cocktail bar, you can then in a real airplane ambience in the first-class seats and swing are just out of the daily routine.

You will be doers of style stewardesses served and get in front of it flies in the holiday.

For Hawaiian (or just what you like) Music you start you to relax.

The clouds are flying only way to the windows of passing (obviously, this requires the intake of extra substances, J.) ... to realize with a Endlosposter, which has two roles held.

If you read the whole thing to make huge hits you, you have installed a hydraulic plate below and let the whole story with a little froze every half hour off and land.

The entire course will be displayed on the Angurtdisplays.

Sun offers an opportunity to all cases not so quickly, so without prejudice to!

Enjoy offer!

Needless to say, we've already placed our bid. [eBay —thanks Johannes]

You see, in order to offer every first-class passenger a shower, the airline will have to add one metric tonne of water to its payload, dragging a carbon cost of around 50,000 lbs. per trip.

All part of the luxury experience, right? No one has seen photos of the upcoming A380 first-class cabin, but it is allegedly something on par with the "seven star" Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, and that it makes Singapore Airlines' front end—with double beds and dining "environments"—look like a dog's backend.

Sure, an in-air shower might negatively impact the earth in catastrophic and irreversible ways, but think about it this way: the only people who will make use of it come from oil wealth, so they probably wouldn't give a shit to begin with! [Times UK via Luxurylaunches]