AvTalk Episode 295: Severe turbulence, more bullets, and hundreds of hamsters

AVT 295 Transcript
EPISODE 295
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello, and welcome to Episode 295 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz, on a Tuesday.
[0:00:19] IP: On a Tuesday.
[0:00:20] JR: Not even because I'm traveling, I'm not traveling until Friday. For once, I don't
know if this has ever happened before. We have moved the recording date of this podcast due
to something you are doing. What are you doing? Why am I so jealous of it?
[0:00:37] IP: So, here's what's happening. By the time the podcast comes out, it will have
happened and we'll talk more about what it was like on the next episode. But I'm traveling to the
lovely city of Norfolk, Virginia tomorrow, so on Wednesday. And on Thursday, I'm going to join
the GE Aerospace 747 Propulsion Lab, which is a highly modified 747-400 that began life with
Japan Airlines and replaced GE’s old 747-100, which was retired in 2017 as the oldest 747 still
active.
So, I'll be on board the 747 with GE engineers while NASA's C-20A or Gulfstream III, flies
behind us pointing LiDAR at our exhaust to study contrail formation and persistence. So, this is
all part of NASA's Codex Experiment which is designed to understand how contrails are formed.
How and why some persist and others dissipate quickly. And what can be done about either
engine technology where aircraft are flying, a combination of the both to reduce contrail
formation and contrail persistence during flight. So, that will be all day Thursday.
If you want to have a look on the blog, we've got a link in the show notes that kind of details
what aircraft are involved and how they are interacting. Then we'll absolutely talk more about
this next week when we do next week's show.
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[0:02:20] JR: Yes. As I said, slightly jealous.
[0:02:22] IP: I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that.
[0:02:26] JR: That's good. That's good. My invitation must have gotten lost in the podcast mail
that we never check.
[0:02:32] IP: I check it all the time. So, that's why I'm going on the trip. No, that’s not why.
[0:02:36] JR: Well, I'm excited to hear all about the exhaust-sniffing 747 and chase aircraft and
all that. There is a lot we still somehow need to learn about contrails because I think there's
some unsettled science about their actual contribution to climate change, whether or not they do
at all or not. I'm sure that's exactly what NASA's looking to figure out.
[0:02:59] IP: Yes. I mean, the evidence is pointing towards, yes, they do contribute to a
warming effect, but how much and how is still being understood, as well as the fact that there's
also science that points towards the fact that there's a cooling effect inverse to the warming
effect sometimes in certain circumstances. It's one of those things where it's not cut and dry.
There are apparently good clouds and bad clouds and figuring out how to deal with all of them
as part of this research.
[0:03:27] JR: Research only a 747 can do, apparently.
[0:03:31] IP: Exactly. Exactly. Well, the other thing about this, and we'll certainly talk more about
this with the GE engineers while I'm there and have some more info on next week's episode.
But the other thing is that this is being used as a baseline for modeling the next generation of
engines, so as far as G is concerned, the RISE engine, which is the open rotor design. So, the
data collected as part of this series of experiments that are happening this week is going to form
a baseline of data so that CFM can build upon that data with the RISE program. That'll be very
interesting to see how that works out.
[0:04:08] JR: Yes. There was actually, some news put out by GE this morning about the RISE
program. GE Aerospace, Boeing, and NASA, three names you will be familiar with later this
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week are studying the performance of installed open fan engine design for the future of more
efficient flight. They're not actually slapping one of these on board any aircraft, but apparently
they have been awarded 840,000 supercomputing hours through the Insight program, which is
apparently a highly competitive program that supports the world's most computationally
intensive projects. So that's cool. GE, Boeing, and NASA taking the open fan concepts very
seriously this time. It's not a new concept, but one that has apparently gardened enough interest
for 840 ,000 hours of supercomputing, whatever that means.
[0:04:59] IP: Absolutely. Because of that, we're recording on Tuesday, but thankfully, or in cases
of some of the stories, unthankfully, there's plenty to discuss. Last week, after we hit stop on the
recording, there was a bit more news to go around within the week, so we'll wrap up there,
starting with what happened last week, which is a very unusual event where a bout of severe
turbulence affected an SAS A330, not outside the realm of possibility, but what's interesting here
is the turbulence caused one of the aircraft's engines to shut down.
[0:05:41] JR: That's not good.
[0:05:42] IP: Not good, no.
[0:05:43] JR: Not something I have heard of happening in recent times, especially not over in
the North Atlantic yet. Severe turbulence I feel like you see in Southeast Asia or over
the Pacific, or for the North Atlantic tracks, turbulence severe enough to shut down an engine
which they were able to relight and get all the way back to – where they’d go, Copenhagen?
[0:06:03] IP: Yes. They divert it back to Copenhagen.
[0:06:04] JR: That's pretty severe or just a really tired engine that said, “I've had enough. I don't
want to do this anymore.”
[0:06:11] IP: This is it. I'm done. Well, in any case, yes, the engine stopped in flight off the
eastern coast of Greenland after the severe turbulence. The pilots were able to restart the
engine, diverted back. Based on the flight path, it looked like they were considering going to
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Reykjavik and then decided, “No, we're just going to go all the way back to Copenhagen.” We
should mention that no one on board was seriously injured. That's an important point here.
SAS noted that following the severe turbulence that the aircraft experienced, the aircraft was
required to undergo a detailed inspection to ensure that it was safe to fly again.
The aircraft was en route from Stockholm to Miami, neither of which housed the requisite
maintenance facilities, so they decided to divert to Copenhagen so that they could get the folks
on a new flight the following day as well as investigate and inspect the aircraft. So, that's a long
wait. It took them about 10 hours to go from Stockholm to Copenhagen via the Labrador Sea.
Not great, but glad to hear that nobody was injured and that they were able to get the engine re-
lit.
[0:07:21] JR: Yes. We’ll look forward to reading the report and finding out exactly why the
engine decided to call it quits. At least they were able to, again, relight it. But there are many
interested parties who I'm sure would love to know why that happened, whether it was a fuel
issue or anything that they're so complex, and there's going to be lots of eyes on exactly why
that engine failed. Could be oil-based, could be any number of hundreds of things, and they're
going to want to figure out exactly why. So, it doesn't happen again.
[0:07:51] IP: Yes. The aircraft, which is LN-RKS remains on the ground as of today the 19th of
November, so it's been on the ground for five days now in Copenhagen. So hopefully, they're
just taking their time with the detailed inspection. Today, there was news before we hit record,
Jason.
[0:08:12] JR: And even on the day before we normally record, this was very considerate of
Cargojet today.
[0:08:19] IP: So, a Cargojet 767 operating for Amazon Prime Air in the wee hours of the
morning in Vancouver suffered an issue with its flaps and let the air traffic control tower and all
of the emergency vehicles know we're going to be coming in hot. They landed very fast and
because of that could not stop before the end of the runway. They ended up about a third of a
mile beyond the paved portion of the runway area, near almost, well, there's a road that runs to
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the east of the runway before you get to the ring road of the entire airport. So, they stopped
about there. And we'll put a link in the show notes to the data that we have, as well as some
satellite imagery that shows where the aircraft ended up.
But the nose gear collapsed after the aircraft departed the runway. The photos that I'm looking
at show the aircraft in need of a good bath.
[0:09:21] JR: They're going to need a shovel.
[0:09:22] IP: But also, probably, a couple shovels, very deep in the mud. So yes.
[0:09:27] JR: Yes, once they dig the aircraft out and get a couple, I don't know, oxen to drag it
back onto the runway. It doesn't really look all that damaged, if at all, so yay for runway safety
areas, am I right?
[0:09:41] IP: Yes. We'll have to see what the nose gear looks like once they pull it out, but –
[0:09:46] JR: It's a little grassy.
[0:09:47] IP: It's a little grassy. There were three crew members on board, none of whom were
injured. The air traffic control audio indicates that everyone was very well prepared for what was
about to happen. As they were going off the runway, they're just kind of like, “Yes, we're going
off the runway.” Just letting everybody know.
[0:10:04] JR: I mean, the data shows that at the end of the pavement, not even at the end of
the runway, at the end of the pavement, they were still going 109 knots, and they slowed pretty
substantially quickly from 109 to 0 in a third of a mile with apparently very little mechanical force,
so that was all just grass and dirt and probably stuff –
[0:10:28] IP: Good old dirt friction.
[0:10:28] JR: – in the ground. Yes, just friction and gravity stopping this airplane. But there was
plenty of room and seemingly not a lot of or any equipment along the way. Or maybe it didn't.
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We can't tell because it's gone now. But man, they used all of the runway and then a whole lot
more. I wonder if there was even e-mass at the end of this runway. Would it have been enough
to keep it from going beyond that?
[0:10:52] IP: Hmm, good question.
[0:10:53] JR: I don't know.
[0:10:54] IP: That’s a good question.
[0:10:56] JR: They didn't need it there because there's a lot of runway safety area.
[0:10:59] IP: Yes. Our regular listener, Canadian Plane Person, points out that this very aircraft
on this very route, the last time it operated the route two days ago, also ended up stuck in the
mud, albeit not as far stuck. It was trying to make the turn into the cargo ramp area and either
slid or took the turn a bit too shallow and ended up with the right main landing gear stuck in the
mud. So, not a good week for this particular airplane.
[0:11:34] JR: It really wants to be an ATV when it grows up.
[0:11:36] IP: The 767 just loves to go off-roading.
[0:11:38] JR: Sheesh. Well, you don't see much more off-roading by an aircraft that intends to
be an actual airplane and not an ATV than this. This was a lot of dirt.
[0:11:50] IP: It's a 767 though, so they will, I'm sure, tow it out, fix it up, and send it back out.
[0:11:55] JR: Somebody call Delta, they'll handle it.
[0:11:59] IP: They'll fix it. They'll fix it. Speaking of repairing aircraft, this one might not be as big
of a repair, but it's certainly an unusual one given that the title of last week's podcast is, “Please
Stop Shooting At The Airplanes.” People did not take our advice. They didn't listen.
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A Southwest 737-8 MAX was struck by a bullet while preparing to depart Dallas for Indianapolis
late last week. The aircraft was lining up for the runway and was struck by a bullet on the right
side of the aircraft below the flight deck. So, no one was injured except the plane, and we're
going to say it again, “Don't shoot at the planes.”
[0:12:42] JR: Yes, especially concerning since Haiti is not exactly a stable country right now. It's
not exactly a war zone, but it's probably one step shy of it. Texas, the last time I checked, is not
actively involved in any wars. So, an aircraft being struck by a bullet seems pretty unlikely, but
also probably very intentional and not good. I haven't read or listened to any of that air traffic
control audio, but I do want to know, how did they know they were struck by a bullet when they
were taxiing up to the runway? How did that even happen?
[0:13:12] IP: I don't think they knew it was a bullet necessarily, or maybe they did. Maybe they
heard what they heard, and yes, I don't know. That part is still unclear to me. But if anybody has
any more information on that, if anyone's gotten through all of the air traffic control audio, by all
means, e-mail us at podcast@fr24.com.
Jason, this is a bit of an odd one. A TAP Air Portugal A321neo operating from Lisbon to Ponta
Delgada.
[0:13:41] JR: Seems normal so far.
[0:13:42] IP: Yes, we're good so far. Had to stay grounded for a while.
[0:13:48] JR: It seems normal so far. Again, it’s TAP.
[0:13:50] IP: And then was ferried back to Lisbon and has not flown a passenger flight since the
13th of November.
[0:13:57] JR: But why?
[0:14:00] IP: Hamsters.
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[0:14:00] JR: Can you elaborate?
[0:14:02] IP: A 132 hamsters to be precise that got out of their cages, storage area boxes,
things inside the cargo hold of the A321 that led to a hamster hunt, I guess, is what you would
call it. There's video floating around out there of a hamster running around the A321 cargo hold.
[0:14:28] JR: I have so many questions, primarily like why were they being transported? Why
were there so many of them? How did we know they got loose? Did any make a break for
freedom? Or mainly, I want to know why this was happening in the first place. Was there like a
severe hamster shortage at the destination and they had to –
[0:14:47] IP: Maybe there was like a pet store or something or maybe some guy really likes
hamsters in Ponta Delgada
[0:14:53] JR: Okay. There I asked the fate of the hamsters or –
[0:14:58] IP: No, you do not. You do not dare ask the fate of the hamsters.
[0:15:01] JR: Okay. They are all happy.
[0:15:03] IP: They are very happy. The aircraft was ferried, so this happened on the 13th of
November. The aircraft was ferried back to Lisbon on the 17th. It has not yet flown, though it is
scheduled to fly on the 20th, which is Wednesday. So, by the time the podcast comes out,
there's a possibility that the hamster plane could be back in the air.
[0:15:24] JR: If it doesn't have a hamster decal somewhere on the aircraft, I'll be very
disappointed with that.
[0:15:28] IP: You need like a little tick mark for the number of hamsters that –
[0:15:29] JR: Remember the hamsters.
[0:15:31] IP: Remember the hamsters. Jason, do you know what time it is now?
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[0:15:36] JR: Bankruptcy time.
[0:15:36] IP: It's bankruptcy time. But we've been talking about Spirit Airlines for the past few
weeks. I felt like we needed to have a bit of an intro into the topic this week. So, here's what I've
got for you. You ready?
[0:15:50] JR: Okay. Oh, that was the very catchy jingle for Spirit Airlines. Back when it was a
normal airline, before they really invented the ultra-low-cost carrier, before Spirit went through a
long period of actively hating passengers and actively making the travel experience miserable,
which then 11eventually morphed into maybe let's be less miserable and then all the normal
airlines figuring out, “Hey, we know how to beat them.”
[0:16:21] IP: “We can make our passengers miserable too.”
[0:16:25] JR: We can all be miserable and they could do it better than Spirit and Spirit has kind
of been a zombie airline ever since the JetBlue, I don't even want to call it a merger. The
JetBlue buyout forced buyout was struck down by the US courts, they really didn't have a future
as it was today. And this week, at like 4:52 AM or something on Monday, it was announced that
Spirit Airlines has formally begun bankruptcy procedures.
[0:16:54] IP: So, this is a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It's a restructuring using a framework that they
agreed upon with their bondholders ahead of time. So, what they're looking for is what they're
calling a streamlined bankruptcy, looking to emerge from the bankruptcy process by the end of
the first quarter of next year. Shareholders have been wiped out, bondholders now basically
control the airline, and they're going back to what they did before they were an ultra-low-cost
carrier. It sounds like.
[0:17:32] JR: Yes. If you look through some of the bankruptcy material and I think Seth Miller at
PaxEx.Aero spotted this first at least that I saw, they're kind of trying to morph into a premium-
ish airline again. The plan at least has it in several of their fair bundles, it will actually include
free Wi-Fi, and there's something about there with in-seat power, which is something you can't
take for granted even on mainline airlines like United's aircraft or certainly not Frontier, even on
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their new aircraft. Though Allegiant did take USB power on its new 73 MAX 8- 2200 whatever
that, the super high capacity one is, that they finally took delivery of recently.
But there really isn't a place for an ultra, ultra-low-cost carrier or at least so many of them in the
US that seems to be locked up by Frontier and Allegiant to a greater extent. So, whether or not
Spirit will be able to convince the flying public that they don't suck anymore, that they don't hate
you, that maybe it'll be fine. I'm not convinced. I really do think that Spirit might need an entire
new brand identity because the Spirit name is pretty tarnished.
[0:18:48] IP: I'm just saying they could go back to the tagline.
[0:18:52] JR: I mean, as nice as the tagline is, I think the name of the airline is so tarnished. I
don't think there's any saving it, honestly.
[0:19:01] IP: Okay. Interesting.
[0:19:02] JR: Yes. I mean, I personally enjoy flying Spirit. The modern version of Spirit, which I
guess is the outgoing version of Spirit. I think as long as you know what you're getting into,
which most people don't, unfortunately, it's a fine experience. I enjoy it. But most people don't
know what they're getting into, and they're surprised by fees, bag fees, and the very low-end
seats, and they have no idea the big front seat is a thing, so it's not a good experience for them.
But it's important for us to say right now that nothing about Spirit Airlines as it is today changes.
They are still operating all of their routes. Employees are still working for them, that they're still
getting paid, they still have all of their airplanes that they haven't already announced are getting
rid of. So, this shouldn't dissuade you from booking or flying Spirit because that that's only going
to make things worse, actually. So, if you find a good Spirit deal and you know what you're
getting into, take it and run with it, because going to be fine. Spirit's not disappearing. They're
just going through bankruptcy procedures to figure out who they want to be when they grow up
again and maybe actually be profitable one day, not today, maybe tomorrow.
[0:20:14] IP: Maybe tomorrow. We’ll keep an eye on what Spirit gets up to and how they
emerge from the bankruptcy process and what kind of airline they decide to be. They've been
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chasing Frontier, which has been the low-cost-carrying itself, and this is part of the reason that
Spirit’s now in a bankruptcy process. But if they can out-frontier Frontier, then I guess it's worth
a shot.
[0:20:43] JR: Yes. If they want to go after that market. If Spirit intends to become a more
premium airline, they're not really competing directly with Frontier. Maybe Frontier has to pick up
its experience a little bit and do things like Wi-Fi and power on board. I don't know. The
important thing is that there really aren't any airlines in the U.S. that actively hate its own
passengers, which I think is an improvement.
[0:21:07] IP: So, what you're saying is, there's an opening for us to start an airline?
[0:21:10] JR: Ah, undisclosed airlines. It'd make a nice entry to the market. We've got a hell of a
fleet.
[0:21:17] IP: So, here's my idea. We get enough money together to order one airplane. We're
never actually going to take delivery of the airplane. I just want to screw up the announcements.
[0:21:28] JR: Okay. So, Baltia?
[0:21:29] IP: We'll call our airline Undisclosed Airlines.
[0:21:33] JR: Oh, I see. So, when I look at the reports of who's ordered what, it will actually be
an airline named Undisclosed Airlines.
[0:21:38] IP: Called Undisclosed Airlines. This is my goal.
[0:21:41] JR: You'll upset a lot of people at Airbus and Boeing like that.
[0:21:45] IP: Yes. I suppose we would have to try and buy one of each. Oh well. Let's head to
Los Angeles where a new report by the Australian Transportation Safety Board highlights the
importance of tool control. The tool in question was a 1.5-meter-long nylon tool used to turn the
engine's intermediate pressure compressor during borescope inspections. One of those
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borescope inspections was being carried out in early December of 2023. That tool was then left
inside one of Qantas' A380’s engines. It then went for a lovely ride for 34 cycles over the course
of a month until it came back to Los Angeles for more maintenance and they said, “Oh, hey,
here's the tool.”
[0:22:41] JR: Oh, that's where I put that.
[0:22:44] IP: The title of the ATSB report is, “Tool Left in A380 Engine After Maintenance
Inspection Highlights Importance of Tool Control.” Importance, indeed.
[0:22:53] JR: Man, it is what it says it is, huh?
[0:22:56] IP: Wow. The aircraft had flown 34 cycles totaling 294 hours with the tool in the
engine. “Although the tool was found to have been deformed by high-energy airflow, there was
no damage observed to the engine itself.” So, that's lucky.
[0:23:14] JR: It's always in the last place you look.
[0:23:16] IP: In this case, it was in the first place they should have looked.
[0:23:20] JR: Yes. Man, what a ride for that poor little part. How many cycles was it, 34?
[0:23:26] IP: Thirty-four cycles, 294 hours.
[0:23:30] JR: Man, award that piece of nylon some frequent fire status on Qantas because
that's a lot of cycles, a lot of flights.
[0:23:36] IP: Yes, a lot of flights. So, the tool itself was – it never came in contact with any of the
moving parts of the engine. It was sucked up against the guide veins, thankfully, I guess,
because it bent the tool and basically formed the tool to the guide veins that sit behind the fan.
That's what, I guess, saved the engine from actually being damaged. So, good on high energy
airflow.
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[0:24:08] JR: Yes. The report goes into, as always, it's a combination of things and it says
person two, the support engineer and person four, they were unfamiliar with the task and the
requirement of person one to leave the task early because they were assigned the task. They
had to go do something else and then person two was re-tasked to support an engineer and
other duties. And person one, their advice to leave the tools on task without return reissue of
tooling to the next shift is not great. So, a lot of people here all ended up distracted doing other
things, not familiar with the task. I guess at the end, there was no accountability or ownership,
they say, for the tool. Not great. But that's why you always see aircraft manufacturing facilities.
You see the tool holding board for a lack of a better term where it has an outline of all the tools
at exact placements of where everything is supposed to be and or something is not supposed to
be, not where it's supposed to be. You're going to notice and know what's going home until they
find that whatever didn't happen here, unfortunately.
[0:25:14] IP: No. It did not happen in this case, but thankfully, there was no damage to the
engine, no damage to the aircraft, and they got their tool back. We're saying tool here, but really,
it looks like it's a four-foot-long nylon strap.
[0:25:32] JR: Yes, not what you want in an engine.
[0:25:33] IP: No, certainly not. But I guess hopefully lesson learned. Speaking of lessons
learned, Virgin Atlantic has learned a lesson the hard way. The UK AAIB report into the collision
between a Virgin 787 and a British Airways A350 at Heathrow a few months ago is out. The
report points to the fact that the 787 was being pushed back without wing walkers. Wing walkers
in this case would have provided the necessary sight lines and the, “Hey, stop. You're going to
hit something,” arm-waving, necessary for the 787 to not back itself into, or be pushed back into
the BA A350, which was then sidelined for months. Though the fringe benefit of this incident was
that we got to see the BelugaXL come to Heathrow, carrying new parts for the BA A350.
[0:26:33] JR: Yes, I'm not mad, actually. I'm not impacted at all by this, so just getting the
BelugaXL in Heathrow.
[0:26:40] IP: I'm not bothered. I got to see the BelugaXL.
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[0:26:42] JR: It's a win for me personally. Not so much for Virgin.
[0:26:44] IP: Yes. You personally benefited. That's true.
[0:26:46] JR: Yes. I enjoyed seeing it. If I was a fleet planner or whatever at BA or the insurance
company for Virgin, I'd probably not have that same opinion.
[0:26:56] IP: We talked about Allegiant a few minutes ago, but let's talk about them again in the
context of how many new roads?
[0:27:03] JR: A lot. A lot. Allegiant kind of went nuts today and announced – I don't know if this
is, they smell blood in the water with Spirit going to bankruptcy or whatever. But Allegiant
announced 44 new routes and even three new cities on top of that. Colorado Springs Gulf
Shores/Orange Beach, and then Columbia, South Carolina which is an interesting one, which I
would have figured Allegiant would have been serving already, but apparently not.
But if you look at the map, which we'll put in the show notes, there are their lines everywhere
across the U.S. Interestingly, none still outside of the U.S. Still only a U.S. carrier for the
moment, but there's a lot of lines, a lot of interesting things like New York City to Flint, Michigan?
Flint, Michigan to Portland, Oregon? I don't know why I'm picking on Flint, but I just find that
really interesting.
[0:28:02] IP: I mean, I don't understand it, but I'm sure they've run the numbers and we'll see
what’s next. Although with Allegiant, there's like any low cost or ultra-low-cost carrier. There's, I
don't think necessarily call it the risk, but the chance that this is a spaghetti at the wall and see
what sticks root announcement.
[0:28:25] JR: Yes. Some of these routes are going to be one aircraft operating a route once
every other Saturday or something. There's not much risk in doing some of these routes, but
some of these cities are just, not what I would have expected, but it's fun to see. We'll see what
they keep.
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[0:28:47] IP: After coming to peace with Southwest Airlines, getting some of what they want, if
not most of what they want, Elliott Investment Management has set its sights on a new
aerospace target, this time going after Honeywell. They want to see Honeywell split in two,
dividing Honeywell Aerospace and Honeywell Automation. Honeywell is a conglomerate that
manufactures everything from jet engines, to avionics, to black boxes, to things like keypads
and smoke detectors. It's a lot of stuff. It sounds like Elliott basically wants to carve the
aerospace division out, and they're saying that the return on having those as two separate
organizations would be greater than having them as a single entity. Honeywell, for its part, says
we welcome all ideas from all of our investors, and we look forward to working with Elliott to
management when we hear from them.
[0:29:49] JR: If this could result in Honeywell's APUs being more reliable, so I never have to
stew in my own sweat on a 110-degree aircraft, because the APUs are up once again, that'd be
great. I don't think that's Elliot's plan here, but that's what I would like to see out of it.
[0:30:06] IP: That's actually probably the whole reason they're going in. Somebody from Elliot
was on board a plane that had to sit at the gate with no APU and they were like, “All right. That's
it.”
[0:30:14] JR: Who do I blame for this? We know who. We know who.
[0:30:19] IP: Okay. So, here's one that I didn't know was in the in works and so great news, but
I'm confused kind of as to why. The announcement doesn't really go into that. Coulson, the
aircraft firefighting company, is now part 125 certified and can carry passengers on its 737
Fireliner. I'm not exactly sure if that's so they can carry firefighters in or if it's so they can do
evacuations or if it's just so they can use the aircraft for something else when they're not being
used to fight fires. It wasn't really clear why exactly they were doing this and who gets to benefit,
but obviously I now want to fly on board.
[0:31:07] JR: I mean, yes, that's the only thing I can think about is, “Hey, there's going to be
seats on board.” Do we know anyone there?
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[0:31:14] IP: Not yet. But maybe we do. I don't know if you work for Coulson and you're
listening to the podcast. A, thank you. And B, email us at podcast@fr24.com and let us know
how we can come on board your brand new, recently passenger-carrying Fireliners. We'd love
to.
[0:31:31] JR: There's just a video that they posted to their YouTube channel about the
certification process and they had to do all of the certification process things like emergency
evacuation, slide deployments, and basically any other airline you have to, but they don't say
why they're doing this, which is the big question.
[0:31:53] IP: I would love to know why. Is this getting people out, getting people in, just the extra
income? Why are you doing this? I would love to know.
[0:32:01] JR: I don't know, but we want to know.
[0:32:02] IP: Hopefully we can ask them. We do. Jason, last week, as we round out this
episode of AvTalk, I want to address something that happened last week. As a loyal listener
pointed out, we really dropped the ball and missed the opportunity to say that Aerosucre
captured the ILS.
[0:32:24] JR: Oh, no.
[0:32:25] IP: And I'm bummed by that. Too late, because that's a good one.
[0:32:28] JR: Damn. Next time.
[0:32:30] IP: But we ended – yes, with them? Probably. We ended the show with good news
and some well wishes. We hear through the grapevine that Jeffrey Skiles has retired, ending a
long and storied career with American Airlines. For those that don't know, but the name vaguely
rings a bell. Jeffrey Skiles was the first officer on US 1549, which famously landed on the
Hudson after bird strikes to both engines, losing all power. He was one of the crew members
who helped bring that aircraft to a safe conclusion on the river. Congratulations.
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[0:33:17] JR: Yes. Congratulations to him. Apparently, what we read in the grapevine is that he
turned 65 and therefore turned into a pumpkin and isn't allowed to fly anymore. So, he was
flying until literally it was not legal for him to fly anymore. So, congratulations to him on his
retirement. Apparently, he doesn't like publicity and doesn't really like being in the spotlight, but
too bad, happy retirement.
[0:33:44] IP: All Right. I'm going to go pack so that I can get on a plane. Jason –
[0:33:50] JR: I'm just going to continue sitting here for a change.
[0:33:52] IP: – go do other stuff and we'll regroup next week and we'll learn more about GE's
747 Propulsion test lab, NASA's LiDAR equipped Gulfstream III and anything else that happens
between now and next week.
This has been episode 295 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik here, as always with –
[0:34:17] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
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