It is better to travel well than to arrive. Buddha

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Archive for 2011

Planes – the Movie

They don’t know it yet, but our next door neighbour’s kids are going to the movies. What a shame we have to wait till 2013!

China Pilots

‘The Times’ Friday 2nd December P47

According to ICAO Asia will be short of 9000 pilots per year in the next decade.There is enough capacity to train 5000 per year but the industry will need 14000, hence the shortfall. In total ICAO predicts that Asia will need 229,676 pilots over the next 20 years-a significant increase from the total of 50,344 in 2010.

Chinaairlines

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To Fly -To Serve

The latest add campaign (initially) had us shuffling in our seats slightly, the voiceover is a little… I loved the historical reconstructions, the biplanes and the references to the ascent of the transport links, the routes  that span the globe serving all humanity. In fact, I think its fair to say that the majority of the narrative could refer to all of those who have gone before us, everywhere on the planet. Every airline, every country – I see this as a celebration of  commercial flight.

Balloonatics – ascending with grace

British Airways is running a new add campaign where the pilot is the focus of attention. It is a low pressure and light hearted look at what our people get up to in their spare time. Based around the achievers and the unusual it peeps into some interesting corners.

Few aerial spectacles halt toil with the leaf rake like balloons. They creep up silently then roar sending collie dogs scatty. Apparently they think the moon is about to land.

Sal Khan – khanacademy.com

It occurred to me that if you have kids who are challenged by maths, this might be an opportunity for them to shine rather than struggle. As I write this Khan Academy is being featured on BBC Click. Spooky!

Sal Khan has a unique approach to education and elearning. His Ted talk is another example of someone with a mission backed by a formidable intellect. He shows us at a stroke how elearning intertwined with a powerful LMS can bring unparalleled access to an education to anyone with the most basic of e-tools. Better than that, he opens the door on transforming education by making every moment of a teachers time count where it is needed most.

Just look at the spread of subject matter available and the tools employed!

Exceptional!

ETPS LogoI heard some time ago about a colleague who had done something rather impressive, then I read the detail in a GAPAN (Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators) citation. Impressive doesn’t seem to fit the description.

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Publishing-never the same again?

This is a little off field but I feel the need to pass on wisdom from a blog my wife keeps putting in front of me. Leo Babouta’s Zen Habits has a way of dragging you in. Self improvement books keep one end of my desk up, they seldom get read after a first browsing. Leo’s blog is different which is why it does so well in the ratings.

The latest post, On the Future of Books, has been written by his friend Seth Goldin, a very successful writer of 13 books all of which became best sellers, an achievement which speaks for itself. His reflections on the direction publishing is taking in this wired world are well worth reading if you enjoy shaping words and gaging opinions. There is also a podcast supporting the post – the rest I leave it to him.

 

Major Keen’s map

Arthur is still very much with us. Flying open cockpit aircraft always bought new skills and techniques such as pasting a chart to a piece of thin marine plywood. All that to save a blurred flash as your chart gets whipped away by the slipstream during aerobatics.
Some of Arthur’s aero’s would may have been inspired by sheer exuberance, but the majority probably came from just trying to stay alive. Here is the remnants of his effort after a bullet smashed it during combat.

The Story of the ‘hole’.

map_board1.JPG148.jpg

See The Memorial Flight to look at a very fine SE5a restoration.

Perhaps the best WW1 aircraft restoration website on the web.

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This is Awesome – Space Flying…

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Time lapse sequences of photographs taken with a special low-light 4K-camera
by the crew of expedition 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from
August to October, 2011. All credit goes to them.

iPad – the EFB wonderhorse?

Most of the flying world now seems to be convinced that this revolutionary device is now sitting in poll position to take most if not all of the honours in the handheld EFB race. Developers like Globalnavsource are producing well developed, FAA verified systems to perform the tasks that were seen to be the territory of larger, server driven versions. Well, the argument (if there ever was one) seems to point towards the popularity of the iPad.

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