The lighter side of Flight International.
Back on brand
When Finmeccanica officially became the all-new Leonardo in 2017 (after Italy’s most famous polymath) the assumption was that its legacy brands, such as Alenia, Aermacchi, Agusta, and Selex, would wither and die along with the actual subsidiaries, which were shelved in an organisational revamp.
However, signs are that the aerospace and defence champion may have been reluctant all along to dump some of the nation’s most venerable aviation marques.
First came the return of what Leonardo called the “iconic” Agusta as a sub-brand for the company’s VIP helicopters in 2021.
And at the recent Farnborough air show, a tail sticker proudly identified the light combat version of its famous jet trainer as the Aermacchi M-346FA (pictured). Leonardo insists the Aermacchi brand was never actually abandoned but is occasionally used for its name recognition.
Alenia – previously the umbrella brand for all Finmeccanica’s fixed-wing products – lives on, for the moment, only in the monicker of satellite joint venture Thales Alenia Space.
Name that bomber
Vulcan to the Sky Trust (VTST), the charity committed to preserving the last example of the British Cold War Avro bomber to fly, has completed the first stage of its Names Under the Bomb Bay initiative.
Thousands of supporters’ names have been added tothe underside of the delta-winged type’s bomb doors (pictured) in what VTST chief executive Marc Walters describes as an “overwhelming” response to itsappeal.
A second phase will open the chance for more fans to pay £35 ($44) to be forever linked with the aircraft, which retired from 33 years of Royal Air Force service in 1993 before being restored to flying condition in 2007.
XH558 entertained an estimated 20 million people across the UK during her second flying career before finally shutting down her Rolls-Royce Olympus engines for good in 2015. The aircraft is housed at Doncaster Sheffield airport.
The name’s Wandt
A minor technical fault caused some mirth during a pre-Farnborough air show get-together hosted by the Swedish air force, when the head of its new space division – with the codename Space 001 – tried to highlight an item on a PowerPoint slide using the provided pointer, only to discover that it didn’t function as she expected.
“I’m a space chief and I don’t have a laser,” quipped Colonel Ella Carlsson.
Notably, Swedish astronaut Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Wandt – who earlier this year spent 22 days on the International Space Station – has bagged the rights to be Stockholm’s ‘Space 007’.
Whale of a job
Well done to Silk Way Airlines for successfully relocating two beluga whales from an aquarium in Ukraine to their new home in Spain.
The journey involved moving the animals to Moldova by land – flights into Ukraine being too dangerous. Once aboard, staff from the Azerbaijan-based cargo airline worked with vets and marine animal transport experts to monitor the health and comfort of the cetaceans, which were secured by slings in specialist tanks.
Sadly, the aircraft involved was not an Airbus Beluga – which a unit of the manufacturer does charter for outsize consignments – but a possibly rather more practical Ilyushin Il-76.
Dead line
It might have been a piece of installation art worthy of the Tate Modern, perhaps intended as an expression of existential angst: spotted at Farnborough was a replica red vintage SirGiles Gilbert Scott telephone box… only with a broken door lying on the ground and dangling receiver, as if someone had abandoned the conversation and smashed their way out.
An advertisement on the box urged attendees to visit the UK Government Hub.
We hope this is not a visual metaphor for the challenge facing new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s administration infixing “broken Britain”.
From yuckspeak to tales of yore, send your offcuts to murdo.morrison@flightglobal.com
