Aviation NEWS!

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Image by Virgin Australia

The expected change of the re-branding of low cost carrier VIRGIN BLUE to VIRGIN AUSTRALIA continues as of today two further aircrafts have taken the new color scheme of the company's change. A B737-800 and the A330-200 seen on this image released by Virgin Australia. Equipped luxuriously with leather seating and a contemporary interior design, high quality in-flight products and gourmet menus.
Virgin takes another step into a unique flight experience!


/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

On April 29th, 2011, this TU-154 with registration RA-85563 was said to have been taking a maiden flight from Moscow to Chkalovsky. Someone shot this incident, upon approach to Chkalovsky airfield due to is bizarre flight pattern. Apparently the aircraft suffered from in-flight oscillations probably due to its longer time of storage. All of the above speculations remain unconfirmed. Hopefully the flight was without passengers... this must have been a horror flight to be boarded on!!

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Image of Boeing Media


On April 26th 2011, The second Boeing (NYSE:BA) 747-8 Intercontinental, RC021, made a successful test flight carrying the Lufthansa primary colors (without company logo, text and registration) with test registration N6067U. This completes the two-airplane test fleet for this type of Boeing's aircraft.

Piloted by Captains Keith Otsuka and Ron Johnson, with Ralf Chaffin as system operator and Greg Lichneckert as flight analyst, they took off at 9.26 a.m. Pacific time from Paine Field.

Completed a 2h:25m. flight reaching 28.000ft and airspeed of 275 knots.

Image of Lufthansa media

RC21 will be used primarily for testing all the interior systems such as cabin air-conditioning and venting, smoke detections etc. Boeing is also to check fuel consumption, function and reliability. The test phase will cover aprox. 600 hours of test flights.
Lufthansa is speculating to have the "dash eight" B747 in service sometime in the first months of 2010 with registration D-ABYE (Yaknee, Echo).
Watch sneak peak video on youtube here!