Gulf Air introduces sky nannies
Captain Speaking: "OK...all aboard then?"
Nigel Yessir: "I think so your highness. We've got the sky marshal, sky medic, sky masseuse, cabin attendants, sky shrink and sky nannies."
Speaking: "And passengers?"
Yessir: "Just one. He managed to grab the last seat at the back somewhere."
Hot air
Budgie News: "So what about this HART thingy?"
Megafighters: "It stands for Hornet Autonomous Real-time Targeting. But it's not just a Super Hornet thing, it's really a JDAM thing. If they put it on another aircraft I suppose it would be called something else."
Budgie: "Let's hope they don't put it on the F-16 then."
Star gazing
Thanks to Nephew Paolo Ulivi for pointing out the "believe it or not" contact details for a forthcoming AAS/AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting in Hawaii in 2004 as published in our esteemed organ last month. "For further details please contact the American Astrological Society". Who could have predicted a publishing error like that?
Concorde yarns
Amid the mourning (sorry, celebration) of Concorde's retirement, the stories just keep coming out. Former supersonic ace Jock Lowe recalls missing the red carpet when he landed at Barbados carrying the Queen and Prince Philip. The reason? Apparently, overcome with civic pride, the airport manager at the last minute donned the fluorescent marshaller's jacket having decided that the important job would be done by no-one but himself. To Jock's surprise, the marshaller's crossed-hands-above-the-head signal, warning him to come to a stop, seemed to take much longer than expected. After some frantic "brake now" gestures from the ground, the crew braked and realised they had overshot the carpet by a few metres. It seems the manager had been "enjoying the good life" in Barbados for some years, and the jacket was too tight to allow him to raise his arms over his head.
Strangely enough, after Alpha Golf landed proudly at her final resting place at Seattle's Museum of Flight following an (unofficial) record breaking 3h 55min 12s flight from New York, the confusingly fenced off ramp entrance caused the aircraft to overshoot the museum area after landing. After a serious air traffic delay, a broken tow bar and mis-adjusted air stairs, the engines were finally shut down almost an hour after touchdown!
Best crew quote from G-BOAG (when asked for most memorable event of the Mach 2.02 transcontinental passage): "Passing a JAL 'blunter' [Boeing 747] 30,000ft below us going backwards at 700mph."
Meanwhile, Birdseed Airways is holding an auction of Concorde memorabilia on 1 December, to be conducted in London by fine art auctioneers Bonhams, at Olympia Exhibition Centre, in Kensington. Items will include a machmeter, a nosecone and Concorde flightdeck and passenger seats. Profits from the auction will go to charity, with a key beneficiary being Get Kids Going!, a charity that gives disabled children and young people the opportunity to participate in sport.
Birdseed says the last-ever Concorde flight will take place on 26 November, when G-BOAF will be ferried from London Heathrow to its birthplace, Filton, near Bristol. It will undertake a short supersonic flight around the Bay of Biscay.
Source: Flight International
