There are a lot of very well produced aviation audio podcasts out there, but I couldn’t find an aviation themed webshow, so I figured I’d produce one.

Here are the links to the articles that I talk about in the show:

* Klingon takes over the cockpit of a US Air Force jet For the record, it does not appear that anyone got a picture of the Klingon in the plane.

Call (916) 643-3192 for the next Open Cockpit Day.

* Iran to mass produce the IRAN-140 plane

* United adds flights to Denver from Dallas Love Field

* Karlene Pettit’s blog post about landing an A330

* Video Spotlight: A330 Landing

Please let me know what you think of the new format, either in the comments or by emailing me using the contact form. Any feedback is appreciated!

I’m thinking about airing the show on Sundays at 9 PM US Central Standard Time, but I may broadcast in a different time slot. Of course, the recording will be available for later viewing.

This is episode 3.

In this episode, I talk about:

1. Thrill of flying the SR-71
2. A400M, A380 and A330-200F to headline Farnborough for Airbus
3. AA loses guns

I also very briefly mention the barefoot bandit and his capture.

Other resources in this episode are:

• SR-71 Manual
• SR-71 Flight Manual site
• Blackbird Stories

Produced in association with 42Media Solutions

Air Oman A330

This is a reprint of an Airbus Press Release:

Oman Air has introduced onboard mobile telephone and wireless Internet on the A330, offering customers both services for the first time in the airline industry.

Following the 1 March world debut of this combination on Oman Air’s new A330-300 flying the Muscat-London Heathrow route, the service will be rolled out across the carrier’s entire A330 fleet on long-haul flights to Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, Bangkok, Maldives and Colombo.

This capability also makes Oman Air the first operator to use Airbus’ ALNA v2 platform over Inmarsat’s SwiftBroadband (SBB) aeronautical service, which can support data rates of up to 432 kbps per channel. It is provided by OnAir, a company owned by Airbus and its business partner, SITA – which is the leading information technology solutions provider for the air transport sector.

With Oman Air’s OnAir service, passengers can receive and make calls, check voicemail, send and receive text and multimedia messages and access e-mails and websites – staying in touch during their flight as they would normally do on the ground.

“The potential is huge, and the only limit is our imagination,” said Pierre Drouet-Fleurizelle, head of Airbus’ connectivity programme. “With a ‘connected aircraft,’ additional opportunities also are possible, from telemedicine to cockpit services such as the Electronic Flight Bag, graphical weather maps, and much more.”

Temel Kotil, Turkish Airlines CEO, said that since it was a development aircraft, it made it “cheaper.”

The aircraft is being re-engined with Rolls-Royce Trent 700s.

Kotil says Turkish plans to operate its A330-200F on cargo services to China and other parts of Asia. Turkish Airlines current fleet is four A310-300Fs.

(Flightglobal)

Airbus A330-200F

Photo by: María Pastora y Pedro

Boeing 737

Photo Credit: BriYYZ

Number Type

Boeing received orders for 75 new B737s and 25 of its new B787. However, they also received the following cancellations:

Boeing’s net orders year to date stand at 83.

Airbus delivered 122 aircraft in Q1 of 2010, more than twice the number of orders that it took. Here’s the breakdown of deliveries for Airbus:

Airbus A320

Photo Credit: Andy_Mitchell_UK

Qantas, Emirates and Air France received one A380 each. Korean Airlines won’t get their A380 until sometime next year.

Airbus’ orders have not been as strong as Boeing’s, but it hasn’t been as affected by cancellations either. The orders break down like this:

* Includes 2 of the freighter variant

I’d be interested in getting more information like this for both Embraer and Bombardier. I might have to spend some time looking that up, just to see how all of the players compare with each other.