Great time-lapse video of London Heathrow landings

London Heathrow's congestion problem are well known...here is an amazing time-lapse video that @jplanas posted on his twitter stream that makes it easier to visualize Heathrow's airport frantic activity!

Aviation videos (III): landing at small island airports

One of things I am wondering is how Felix Baumgartner managed to land at exactly the right spot from so high up...because landing can really be an art, be it because of adverse weather conditions or because the the airport is in a "challenging" location...and some of the most challenging airports are located in small islands, where it can often be difficult to find enough flat land to be able to build a runway. Have a look at these islands airports to see what I mean...!

Madeira
In this video you will see several aircraft landing in cross-winds at Madeira airport, a landing streep embedded between a steep hill and the sea. I found particularly interesting the landing of Air Berlin aircraft from minute 9 of the video!



Vagar, Faroe Islands
The interesting here is the shape of the runway, that is not exactly flat, but adapts to the curvature of the terrain (this airport, built by the British during WWII is possibly worth a blog post of its own!)


Saba, Netherlands Antilles
If Madeira's airport looks challenging, what to say of Saba's!

Another amazing BBC video documentary: "How to build a Jumbo Engine"

The BBC is such a great source of aviation documentaries!

After having posted videos about a British Airways Boeing 747 refitting and the history of early British commercial aviation, I have just discovered this other great piece about how Rolls-Royce makes its Trent engines.

On this video you will be able to see not only most of the engine-making process at Rolls-Royce Derby factory (and understand the complexity and sophistication of a jet engine and why there are so few companies in the World able to make them!) but also the workings of the engine's manufacturer supply chain and the massive importance it has for the UK's industrial economy.

 Enjoy!

Jet! When Britain Ruled the Skies: a great BBC documentary about the start of the commercial jet era

I hope you will enjoy this documentary as much as I did. "Jet! When Britian Ruled the Skies", recently aired on the BBC, tells the story of post-war commercial aviation in Britain and the development of the first jet airliners. An era that was full of hope and promise for the British aviation industry...Absolutely recommended!

(Note: the BBC iPlayer is not available in all countries outside the UK, but luckily, someone has already uploaded it on Youtube so you can enjoy it wherever you are)

Some aviation video recommendations for the summer

It's been a while since I last published a video-post, so I thought that it would be a good time to put together some aviation-related footage to enjoy during the summer holidays.

First of all it's a BBC documentary that I found really fascinating: it shows the whole revision and refitting of a British Airways' Boeing 747, from the time it arrives at BA's maintenance facilities in Cardiff to the time it leaves to get back to service.



Also of interest is this footage of LAN's first Boeing 787 taking off for the first time from Boeing's Paine Field, near Seattle, WA, that Marcelo De Biasi just posted on Twitter.



It is going to be a season of "firsts" for the 787 as Boeing rolls out Dreamliners out of the production line to hand them over to the first airlines that pruchased the type.

Also recently we were able to see via live streaming the unveiling of United's first Boeing 787.



And in case you wondered how a Boeing 787 looks in the inside, do not miss this cool video of Flightglobal's editors Mike Targett and Graham Dunn touring Qatar Airways's Dreamliner at the latest edition of the Farnborough Air Show.

 

More on Vueling...and a couple of cool aircraft paint-shop videos

And yet another Vueling-related story...placing this blog at risk of becoming too Vueling-centric, but, shortly after publishing the latest story about the in-flight concert that took place on one of their aircraft,  I got a note from Vueling letting me know about the following video. It shows the aftermath of one of their other recent marketing campaigns, the Vueling Air Gallery, celebrating Vueling's 50 millionth passenger.

In the video you will see how an airbus A320 is painted with the Instagram photos submitted by people that participated in this contest.



For those of you with an interest in the topic, there are quite a few good time-lapse videos of aircraft paint-jobs on youtube, for example this one of a Northwest Boeing 747 becoming a Delta aircraft. Enjoy!

Aviation Videos (II): attempting to land in windy Bilbao

Cross-wind landings are always spectacular to watch, and there is a good collection of them on Youtube, but those seen yesterday at Bilbao airport (BIO), while it was being hit by a gale brought about by storm "Petra" are really impressive!



By the way, one of the planes you can see in the video that managed to land was a Boeing 717 in Volotea's inaugural service from Venice Marco Polo...quite a memorable start!

An Interflug Tupolev at Schiphol airport!

Looks like a museum of European aviation

The flag carrier of the former Eastern Germany is no stranger to this blog and while "retro" is now in fashion in aviation, it is not everyday that you get to see a model airplane of one of its Tupolev TU-154M, and it could be anywhere else but at my favourite shop at Amsterdam Schiphol airport (by the way, a must for any aviation enthusiast traveling through the Dutch airport!)

By the way, did you noticed that below the Interflug model of TU-154M there is a...Malev aircraft model!...coincidence?

Well, the two airlines have in common that they used to be flag carriers of Eastern block countries and that both no longer exist...Malev was modernised after the fall of Berlin Wall and managed to survive as the flag carrier of Hungary until its demise last January. Interflug did not survive the system and the state that created it and went down with the Wall...

For those interested in the history of Interflug, there was also an East German TV series, Treffpunkt Flughafen, produced in the mid-eighties, that was based on the stories of the crew of an Interflug IL-62 aircraft as it toured such iconic spots of Cold War geopolitics as Vietnam, Cuba or Angola...

Interflug and the East German state are now gone for good, but you can still see some fragments of Treffpunkt Flughafen on Youtube:

Aviation videos (I): do not get too close to a jet engine!

In addition to the text articles I publish in this blog regularly I would like to regularly share with you spme aviation-related videos that I come across. Here is today's video! I am sure that most of you are already familiar with plane-spotters beach next to Sint Maarten airport in the Caribbean...see what can happen if you place yourself next to the blast of a jet engine...! (btw, there is  also really great footage towards the end of the video of an incoming Boeing 747!)

To Fly to Serve: British Airways' great retro commercial

Those of you that live in the UK and have been to cinema recently would have probably watched it, as it has been on the air for a few weeks already...I finally had the chance to watch BA's commercial "To Fly to Serve" a few days ago and quite liked it, so I thought about sharing it here for all readers to enjoy!

By the way, I am not sure what the first two aircraft shown in the video are...any clues? (the second one looks like a Dragon Rapide, but not sure)

Cool KLM commercial

As promised in a previous post, here is another imaginative airline commercial, this time from KLM. It is remarkable how KLM seems to be one of the airlines that best understand the power of new media when it comes to marketing and have not hesitated to experiment: we have seen it in situations of crisis as well as on a more pleasant context. Keep it on!



(h/t @brandedskies)

Airline adverts on Youtube

If Ryanair made the headlines recently with its educative hand-luggage packing videos on Youtube...other airlines are also using the popular video-sharing service to successfully launch new promotional campaigns. In this video Virgin Atlantic positions itself miles away from Ryanair, making a display of exuberance that evokes the long-gone glamour of air travel.



PS: in a coming post you will see a totally different but also very creative video by Dutch airline KLM!