The Mirror

I've only shed tears twice in my life...At the end of the movie Rudy and when I watched the Space Shuttle Launch.... In the early 80's I went to the top flight school in the world in Melbourne Florida. The Air force recruited heavily out of that school. They'd always throw us keg parties in the middle of Patrick Air Force base..There was a little patch of open space right in the middle of the field and I remember parked not more than 50 yards away from the party was America's latest and greatest jet fighters at the time, F-15's (?)...I don't remember which one's but I do remember they had soldiers with long guns stationed at the the front, the rear and on each wing tip.. All night..In the dark... Anyway, long story short, we also were invited to see shuttle launches close up, just about as close up as you can get..., I think the awesome power of those rocket engines got me all emotional.

Funny Story- While in college I went to a party, the guy who drove me there left with a girl, I stayed too long and couldn't get a ride back so I started walking... I was walking across a field on a pitch black night and suddenly I hear a tremendous noise and it became as bright as a sunny day, even whiter and brighter! I fell to my knees and probably whimpered "oh god!', and I don't even believe in god.. Was it a nuclear weapon, a UFO, an asteroid strike, where did it come from!? Who knew! I sure didn't... I probably had my hands over my eyes as the tremendous noise and light went up into space...I started running drunk and stumbling across that field in terror. I'd run 10 feet and trip over a tumbleweed, I'd get back up to me feet only to stick my foot in a gopher hole and fall down again, i'd gather myself back up and fall over small bush or something..It was like a bad dream, I just couldn't get out of that field and back to civilization. I finally made it out and walked the rest of the way home... The next day I heard on the news that they did 2am test missile launch from a submarine right off shore-


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scrubbedexpat091

Air Canada is threatening to cancel some of its remaining 737MAX and A220 orders:

"“Without government industry support and as travel restrictions are extended, we will look at other opportunities to further reduce costs and capital including further route suspensions and possible cancellations of Boeing and Airbus aircraft on order, including the Airbus A220, the former Bombardier CSeries manufacturered at Mirabel, Quebec.”

The threat to cancel some A220 is likely a ploy to pressure the Canadian government to provide assistance, thus far Canada has chosen not to assist the countries airlines as other countries have done with their airlines.

caretaker

The public may have had too much of Air Canada getting government bailouts. Over the years Air Canada, the railways, and the CBC have been in the headlines getting free taxpayers' money too often for people not to remember.

markonline1

Taking a leaf out of jsmiths book, thought I’d post a couple of pics from my Heathrow days (haven’t got many as I didn’t get an iPhone till later in my time there).

I’m a big rugby fan so always cool to see this come in....

T5 when BA ruled the roost. With the reduction in traffic, it appears to becoming a one world terminal.

Talking of BA, here they are moving AB. They had no idea what to do with it so kept moving it, which was always sad to see. Originally it had a place on the old crosswind runway. When that got redeveloped it sat in the back of their maintenance base. Here it is getting moved to its current location. Look out the right window if your landing on the Left runway coming in from over London, and you’ll see it.

The first passenger 787 into LHR, diverted from MAN


I was near the end of my training when the first ever 380 came in. I ended up doing the runway inspection before it landed. It was chaos that day with just about every badge holder showing up to get a view of it come in. Here it is displaying over my house in Farnborough


A press shot of me doing my thing as T5 opened. That pic was use on LHR’s Facebook home page for years LOL


Look closely and you’ll see a swan in the back of our ops vehicle. They used to land on the wet runways thinking it was river. They’d be too tired to take off again, so ops would be suspended until we’d removed it. Weren’t allowed to shoot them (obviously) so we had to take them to swan rescue on the perimeter road. Vicious things, especially when an ops guy in a high viz vest tries to bundle it into the back of a Discovery.


Queen of the skies under tow


Fresh faced. The first 787 that was still doing proving flights into major airports. It was cool to go on board and talk to the engineers and pilots.



Might post some shots from my current place later. We get far cooler stuff come in here!

caretaker

Thanks for posting those! I like the under tow one best.

The Mirror

You can call them bailouts, but airlines, railroads, interstate highways, air and water ports are important parts of the infrastructure that allow commerce to exist and thrive... It's an investment in the countries economic growth and national security.

We gotta have them...Do you want to nationalize the airlines and railroads or bail them out occasionally ?

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The Mirror

I took these...





My personal friend, Von on the way to the Super Bowl

scrubbedexpat091

Canadian government doesn't see aviation quite like that.

I don't care if Air Canada receives funds, it's the Canadian government the airlines have to convince, and so far the government has shown little to no interest in providing funds to the airline industry.

The threat of cancelling the A220 is because its built in Quebec, and Quebec well is that sibling who throws a fit and gets their way, which is what Air Canada is doing, make a threat to cancel an order that will affect Quebec, and hoping Quebec will pressure the feds to provide funds, also helps Air Canada is based in Quebec, they will get funds eventually, just seems the CEO wants the funds sooner rather than later.

Of any airline in Canada, Air Canada wont be allowed to fail.

The Mirror

Maybe we should take this conversation into the Airline Finances thread?

scrubbedexpat091

This AA retro theme is my favorite. It's the America West Airlines livery, that particular aircraft was also the last one originally delivered in America West colors, it was delivery shortly after the merger with US Airways was completed.

I don't have any photos of them but the Reno Air retro is also one of my favorites. Reno Air was the first airline I ever worked with and first airline related job back in Feb 1998, I was working for AMR Ground Services which at that time was a wholly owned subsidiary of AMR which was the parent company of American Airlines.








The above one is old, probably around 2001/2002, I was a lead so would have been in the time frame, and end of 2002 I was in Chicago doing customer service. Crazy in a way having 5 ramp + 1 lead which was the norm for us, (A320/A319, 737, CRJ-200 & 757 are the aircraft we saw) and flash forward to my last ramp job, and it was lead + 2 for a total of 3 people on same size aircraft.

civilservant

I can't give you karma again so soon, but those are some sweet photos there

The Mirror

She's cute, but she's going to get hurt, so is the guy second from the right and the old timer


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markonline1

Thanks. And thanks to alerting me to Karma exists, I can’t seem to see the karma button anymore. I’ve received some, interesting comments recently LOL.

scrubbedexpat091

Not really sure what your getting at.

The 2nd from the right never got hurt beyond some minor bruises and scrapes and the woman in the picture is still working on the ramp, and at the time this photo was taken had 10-12 years under her belt.


America West was the one and only company and jobs, I can truly say I enjoyed, probably why I spent 5 years there despite the low pay, we were at the time the lowest paying airline in the US that wasn't a regional, ramp made between $6.94/hr and $8.94/hr when I was hired in 1998, we went union in 1999, and the pay went to I think $8/hr something to start and topped out around $16 or $17 in the first contract, somewhere along those lines anyhow, can't recall the exact pay in the first contract.

zzrmark

...And the old timer?