AvTalk Episode 346: The A340-600 episode

AVT 346 Transcript
EPISODE 346
[EPISODE]
[0:00:07] IP: Hello, and welcome to episode 346 of AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always
with –
[0:00:16] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Hello, Ian. Welcome to the 346th episode, or as we're going to
call it, the A340-600 Spectacular.
[0:00:25] IP: Indeed, indeed, indeed. As we are preparing for this momentous occasion, we
have later in the show, John Walton, who is professionally the Editor-in-Chief of The Up Front, a
in-cabin focused publication about all of the things that are happening inside the aircraft in the
sky. We've got him on today, because John is probably the foremost aficionado, civilian expert
on the A340-600. It's a most interesting airplane and a microcosm of how things got developed
back in the late 90s, early 2000s. We'll talk about that.
[0:01:06] JR: You might even learn a thing or two.
[0:01:08] IP: We might even learn a thing or two. I know I did. We'll talk with John in just a little
bit. But first, we begin in Washington with the Federal Aviation Administration withdrawing its
order mandating cancellations at the Focus 40 airports. I didn't know these particular airports
had a name, but they do in fact have a name.
[0:01:32] JR: Well, now we know and we're going to use it forever.
[0:01:34] IP: Yeah. I knew that there was the Core 30, which are the Core 30 airport. I mean,
these aren't inventive names in the National Space System, but there's an expanded list of 40
airports. The FAA apparently did not choose these. There was a method, a pre-method for
choosing these 40 airports and they're called the Focus 40, so now we know. But all of that is
gone, as the FAA says, everything's back to normal following the end of the government
shutdown. Air traffic controllers can go back to being overworked, but paid. We're back to where
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we were before the shutdown, which is still thousands to few controllers in the U.S., mandatory
over time, and six-day work weeks.
[0:02:18] JR: With certainty that they're going to get paid for at least two months, until maybe
we do this all over again.
[0:02:24] IP: Yeah, not to be too down on things, but January looms as far as another
government shutdown is concerned. Though, there has been a bill introduced by partisan bill, in
fact, to ensure that air traffic controllers and other safety critical FAA employees are paid during
any future government shutdowns. I'm not sure if the government will shut down before that bill
gets passed.
[0:02:48] JR: Yeah. To the person, at least one of you who wrote in after last week's episode
and said, “Do you Americans know that this is a ridiculous way to run things?” Yes, we are well
aware. Unfortunately, Ian and I cannot do anything about this individually, but we are all keenly
aware of how ridiculous this is. But thank you for pointing that out.
[0:03:09] IP: No more flight restrictions in time for Thanksgiving. Airlines have said that they're
ready to ramp back up and have indeed ramped back up to where they were before the
shutdown. Thanksgiving travel, if it is busy, if it is stressful, it will just be the normal amount of
busy and stressful and not a particularly terrible version of busy and stressful. However, let's
stick with the national airspace system for just a moment and talk about some developments
that have come out within the past week.
Jason, we've talked a few times about the forced relocation of certain air traffic controllers from
a Long Island facility to Philadelphia, as a way to improve the airspace flow into New York
airports.
[0:04:02] JR: Oh, yeah. It's gone really poorly. I was going to do this little sarcastic thing, where
I'd lead up and discuss how it's all gone great.
[0:04:12] JR: No, we're beyond that. There's no two ways about it.
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[0:04:15] IP: Yeah, it hasn't gone well, and it's going to perhaps, continue to not go well for a
little longer. The FAA says, “Hey, controllers that we told, we're going to move you, then we're
going to hire a bunch of people, you're going to train them, and then you can go back to Long
Island.” It doesn't sound like that's going to happen.
[0:04:34] JR: Oh, yeah. Because apparently, the FAA is asking some of them to stay longer.
The situation, as I understand, it could get worse at this point, unless the FAA steps in and
forces these controllers to stay, increase the duration of their temporary location down to Philly.
If they leave Philly and go back to Long Island, there's going to be even fewer controllers for the
New York sector in Philly than there are today, which doesn't seem workable to me. I hope there
is some significant financial incentive that they are offering to these controllers.
[0:05:10] IP: There are significant financial incentives being offered in this case to those folks.
That said, the target that they were trying to reach is why they're trying to extend the controller
stay in Philadelphia. They were at 52% of their staffing target when they asked these folks to
move. They're today at 54%.
[0:05:38] JR: Oh, it's only been how long since they moved down there?
[0:05:42] IP: Yes. Been a few years now. It'll be two years in July of 2026. In exchange for
sticking around in Philadelphia longer, they get per diem benefits, extra per diem benefits, a
waiver that allows them to basically, transfer to any air traffic control facility they want to when
they're done with working in Philadelphia.
[0:06:11] JR: There's going to be a lot of people moving from Philly to, let's say, Phoenix,
Jacksonville. Actually, Jacksonville could really use controllers. They're also understaffed. I don't
know. If you want to escape Long Island, because you can go anywhere you want, where would
you go? I only made it as far as Brooklyn. I'm okay with that. I heard we have an entirely new air
traffic control system coming any minute now. Unfortunately, it turns out that that's not true, is it?
[0:06:41] IP: Well, it's not entirely true, because as often happens with big, large, grandiose
announcements, once you start digging into the things, you have to scale back your ambition a
little bit. As it turns out, the announcement that this brand-new air traffic control system will be in
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AVT 346 Transcript
place in just a few years, that won't necessarily include a replacement of the common
automation platform, which is a key component of the air traffic control system. That was
reported last week, first by The Air Current. Today, Wednesday, the 19th of November, FAA
Administrator, Bryan Bedford, confirmed that they will not fully replace that key component. It'll
be new. It'll be better, we hope, but it won't be entirely new the way it was talked about when this
was first brought up.
[0:07:43] JR: Okay. I look forward to them swapping out the five and a quarter floppy drives for
a 256-megabyte flash drive. I don't know, whatever they're doing.
[0:07:54] IP: Zip drives. They’re moving to zip drives.
[0:07:55] JR: Oh, Zip 100. Those aren't known for being terrible. Hey, that's moving in the right
direction. Talk about something entirely different before we talk to John and just all about happy
things and A340-600. Let's go to Dubai, where things are, I would say, unexpectedly spicy.
There is a lot going on, and I did not see it coming.
[0:08:17] IP: There is a glut of orders. Coming from all the airlines you would expect to order
aircraft at the Dubai Air Show, but also some surprise.
[0:08:28] JR: Yeah. It's usually a battle between Airbus dominates, or Boeing dominates, or
some years, nobody dominates and nothing happens. But this year feels even like, punches are
being traded here. I like it.
[0:08:41] IP: I like it, too. I like it, too. Let's get into it. We've broken things down by the airline
orders, because they've just been so across the board. I think it's more helpful to put them into
airline. One of the most interesting collection of orders, I think, this week was from Emirates, the
home airline for the Dubai Air Show. Not only did they order some things, they also are driving
some future order activity, perhaps.
[0:09:14] JR: Into existence.
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[0:09:15] IP: Yes. Doing their very best. Let's talk about what actually exists right now, and then
we'll go from there. They added eight A350-900s to their order book. So, 73 in total. 65 more
777-9s.
[0:09:33] JR: Yup. That seven was just an errant seven from when you spilled your drink on
your keyboard. It's actually 65.
[0:09:40] IP: Triple 65 777-9s.
[0:09:42] JR: Which is a lot. Emirates has more than 300 Boeing wide bodies on order,
including the 777X, 787, and 777 freighter. That is a lot of airplanes. But you know what?
Boeing, apparently, has leverage for potentially ordering these aircraft, has willed into existence
the potential of a feasibility study of a stretch of the still yet to be certified 777X, which could
potentially in the future be dubbed the 777-10.
[0:10:14] IP: I mean, in a two-class configuration, it would seat about 450 passengers.
[0:10:20] JR: Which sounds like a lot. I guess, compared to a A380 like, hmm. Yeah.
[0:10:26] IP: It's a little less than 100 fewer than the A380. But it also, I guess, burns less fuel
would be one of the things that would make it more attractive. Also, they need to replace these
eventually.
[0:10:41] JR: Yes, it's been talked about before, apparently, as far back as 2016, where
according to Flight Global, the 777X-10 was apparently “pretty straightforward.” I think that's the
old Boeing talking in 2016, because I don't think the new Boeing in 2025 would say anything is
pretty straightforward. I guess, if it really is, just making a couple of the seconds a little bit longer
and adding a couple rows of seats, not the end of the world. But it really just shows that some
airlines, like Emirates, just have an outsized influence on the future of air framers. It's incredible
that they could just will into existence an airplane that does not exist right now.
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[0:11:19] IP: Yeah. We'll see if it makes sense. I mean, the key thing here is going to be, does
the airframe need rework beyond just stretching it? And do modification need to be made to the
GE9X engines in order to power that aircraft?
[0:11:36] JR: Yeah. That'd be interesting.
[0:11:37] IP: That's why we get our feasibility study.
[0:11:39] JR: Yeah, which they fully support. It's funny, the Boeing press release doesn't
mention anything about this, but the Emirates press release says, “We fully support Boeing's
feasibility study to develop the 777-10 and have options to convert our latest 777-9 order to the
777-10, or the 777-8.” Yeah, Emirates is really throwing around their weight and not only saying
like, “Hey, you're going to do this study.” But hey, maybe we're going to convert our current
orders to this if you do it.
[0:12:07] IP: Well, we'll see what happens.
[0:12:08] JR: We’ll see.
[0:12:11] IP: Yeah. Let's stick in the neighborhood and go to younger, smaller cousin, flydubai,
where they have –
[0:12:17] JR: Do this in reverse order. Start with the surprising news.
[0:12:21] IP: Okay, I will start with the surprising news. For the first time, flydubai has ordered
Airbus aircraft. They signed a memorandum of understanding for 150 A321neos. This is a pretty
big shift from having an all-Boeing fleet, considering they just bought a ton of 737 MAX, bought
the 787 for the first time. In this air show, also signed a memorandum of understanding for 75
737 MAX, plus 75 options. A ton of aircraft. But flydubai is looking at 737-10, or the lack thereof,
really, saying, well, there's an aircraft that does the job we needed to do, so we'll buy 150 of
those.
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[0:13:07] JR: It doesn't now. It doesn't right now. This came in, and I said, talk about the Airbus
order first, because this actually was a two-part announcement, and the Airbus order came out a
day before, at least a day before, not two days before, the Boeing order. This was industry
shaking that flydubai would break from Boeing only.
[0:13:31] IP: I wouldn't say, as surprising as, say, Southwest, or Ryanair.
[0:13:35] JR: No, but it's a massive shift. People were really, really looking at this and saying,
“Wow, the flydubai must really, really be unhappy with Boeing,” and it is. But then, a day later,
they ordered an equivalent amount of Boeing aircraft.
[0:13:53] IP: Keeping everybody happy.
[0:13:55] JR: They stayed relevant in the news for two days, rather than one. That was
probably the goal. That was probably the goal. But what else happened? There was a lot of
other stuff.
[0:14:04] IP: Yeah.
[0:14:05] JR: Stay in the region.
[0:14:05] IP: Wrapping up flydubai news, they selected the GENX for their 787-9s, which they
ordered at last year's show. Sticking around the region as well, Gulf Air firmed its 787 order,
while increasing the firm order from 12 to 15. That is an additional three aircraft that they're
absolutely going to take. Etihad is interesting in that they're adding A330neos. They signed an
order with Airbus directly for six A330neos. They'll take an additional nine on lease from Avalon.
But they're not done. They also signed for seven more A350-1000s and three A350 freighters.
Now, the A350-1000 is really interesting to me, the order here, because Emirates has resisted
the A350-1000. They say, especially Sir Tim Clark has said, “I'm underwhelmed by the Trent
XWB-97.”
[0:15:05] JR: Didn't he call them defective?
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[0:15:07] IP: Yeah. He doesn't like them. Rolls has done a really, a whole lot of work to basically
convince Sir Tim Clark, please order the A350-1000. That said, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are not
that far from each other.
[0:15:23] JR: No. Some might even say, they should share one single airport.
[0:15:28] IP: I don't understand that argument. Obviously, you have a real-world use case.
Qatar also has the A350-1000, which, again, not that far away. Is Dubai that much dustier? Is
the sand that much grittier in Dubai versus Abu Dhabi and Doha? I don't know. Or is there
something else going on here, which –
[0:15:55] JR: There's always something else going on.
[0:15:56] IP: There's always something else going on. Staying in the Gulf, we have Riyadh Air
picking the Leap 1A for its A321neos and the GENX for its 787s. A pretty big show for GE
Aerospace/CFM/Sinemka, and all of the joint venture partners for all of these engines. A pretty
big Dubai Air Show for all of them.
[0:16:30] JR: But we're not done.
[0:16:31] IP: We're not done. We're going to leave Middle East Airlines and we're going to talk
about, let's say, Silk Way West, Jason. They've ordered another pair of A350 freighters, bringing
their total, doubling their order to four.
[0:16:44] JR: Hey, that's nice. I really just associate them with 747-8Fs. I don't know why, but
their livery is going to look nice with an A350.
[0:16:52] IP: Yes, yes. Yes, it will.
[0:16:55] JR: Let's go to Ethiopian, though.
[0:16:56] IP: Six A350-900s, adding to a fleet of 22 already, and they ordered 11, or optioned 11
more 737-8 MAX. Those are available options from their 2023 Dubai Air Show order.
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[0:17:15] JR: Now, I can't remember who exactly owns what part, or what percentage of Air
Europa right now, but whoever does own Air Europa, they will now be the proud holder of a
memorandum of understanding for 40 A350-900s, which is a pretty sizable order for Air Europa.
[0:17:33] IP: It's a sizable order, and –
[0:17:35] JR: That’s pretty big.
[0:17:36] IP: It's a pretty big defection away from the 787.
[0:17:38] JR: It is. But remember, Air Europa came from the roots of being an A330 operator
before it moved to the 787. Really, it's back to Airbus for Air Europa. But we're still not done.
What did Air Senegal do?
[0:17:52] IP: But wait, there's more. Air Senegal placed an unfirmed order for nine 737 MAX 8,
which is the airline's large, if firmed, would be the airline's largest single order ever. The
interesting thing here is this would put Air Senegal with, from Dakar, range to fly to secondary
European airports, which is what they're targeting. They would be able to avoid all of the
congestion and fees at major airports and bring people down to Senegal. That's an interesting
play there. We'll see if they firm that order soon.
[0:18:31] JR: There's one more. There's one more. I didn't even know that this airline existed,
but if you need to go to Libya, you might do so in the future on a Baroque Air, A320neo, who
signed an order for 10.
[0:18:46] IP: They sure did.
[0:18:47] JR: Don't know what kind of 320neo family aircraft. Maybe they'll be weird and take
an A319neo. We don't know. That'd be cool. A little airline ordering 10 320neo family aircraft,
that's pretty cool.
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[0:19:02] IP: Yeah. To round out the Dubai Air Show news, this was a bit on the sidelines, but
it's still good news. Embraer says, it expects the geared turbofan groundings to be done by the
end of 2026 for the E2s. Yes. This is just the Pratt & Whitney 1900. The version of the geared
turbofan engine that powers just the E2s. Embraer seems to be quite confident that Pratt &
Whitney has gotten it right. They've ramped up MRO space, which is really cut down on the time
that the engine is spending off the wing. They seem to be very pleased with all of the new
engines that are coming out of the factory.
[0:19:53] JR: I hope they're right.
[0:19:55] IP: I hope they're right, too. Now we just need to expand that to –
[0:19:58] JR: Everyone else.
[0:20:00] IP: - to the 1100 and the 1500. People can stop cannibalizing A321neos and A220s.
[0:20:07] JR: Okay. Let's put everything we just talked about, future things and fancy airplanes
and really high-tech engines and forget all that. Let's talk about the A340-600, decidedly not a
next-generation aircraft. John Walton, who we've talked to a number of times on this podcast
and we've alluded to the fact that he is a huge fan of the A340-600. We are going to do a deep
dive onto the history of the aircraft, its lore, what purpose it served, what purpose it still serves
today, and I don't know, just talk to a good friend of ours.
[0:20:45] IP: There you go. Stay with us. We will be right back with John Walton.
[CONVERSATION WITH JOHN WALTON]
[0:20:55] IP: Welcome back. We are now joined by John Walton, as promised. By day, John is
the Editor-In-Chief of the leading passenger experience news, The Up Front, at the
upfront.media. By night, or by other parts of the day, perhaps, John is the world's most learned
human being when it comes to the A340-600, an aficionado.
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[0:21:24] JR: Yeah, John. Welcome back. This has been a running, not very good joke on this
show, where ha, ha, it's the 320 episode. We'll talk about the 320, but now it's the 346th episode.
We're legitimizing this joke by having you, the world's greatest A340, I don't want to call you a
historian, but maybe?
[0:21:46] JW: Maybe aficionado, historian, maven, I would also take, absolutely.
[0:21:50] IP: Ooh. That’s a good one.
[0:21:51] JW: It is 100% my #faveplane, and has been since it started flying. There's something
about it, some of the proportions, the widebody, four massive engines, when it's almost absurdly
long to a point that we won't see again, unless Emirates plan for the 777-10 becomes a reality.
[0:22:13] JR: Which maybe we talked about right before this segment.
[0:22:15] IP: Exactly. We just finished that conversation.
[0:22:17] JR: We haven't recorded that yet. Yeah, sure.
[0:22:20] JW: From a passenger point of view, it's great to fly in, because it's got that A340 and
A330 and A310 and A300 242-seat layout in economy. I spent a lot of the early to mid-2000s
living in London and Hammersmith, looking south towards those usual Heathrow arrival tracks,
and just watching these enormous beasts, elegantly descending, floating back to Earth. That's
where I fell in love with them. Then, ever since, I have just been collecting more and more and
more in them. I think I counted that I have 25 models in my house. 25 unique models in my
house, across the various operators that did and didn't exist. I have a Coca-Cola livery one.
[0:23:00] JR: Sure. Who doesn't?
[0:23:01] JW: For some reason. Hey, Pepsi had a Concorde, Coca-Cola had an A340-600.
[0:23:07] JR: It feels like a reversal of the usual Pepsi knocking off Coke things, but that's an
interesting twist. Let's give a tight history of what the heck is the A340, especially the A340-600.
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What is it based off of? What did it come from? Most importantly, what problem was it trying to
solve?
[0:23:24] JW: Yeah. Okay. In historical terms, there's four things about the A340 are important
to note. One is it was a really easy development from the existing A340 and thus, again, the
330, 310, 300, then the original Airbus widebody, right? The second thing is it was a set of
replacement aircraft for the early 747s, plus being competitor to the 777-200 and 300, the non-
ER versions. Airbus's defense against the 777, which for the airlines that bought it actually
worked. Number three is ETOPS, which we'll come on to. Number four is that it was a high-
capacity option for Airbus, between the first A340, which we would now call a small to medium
size widebody, and the A380, long before the A350 was in the picture. Even as the original A350
that eventually became the A330neo.
[0:24:13] JR: John, how long was the A340-600 Airbus's highest capacity option for?
[0:24:21] JW: Yeah. Really, between its introduction into service in 2002, or the way to when the
A380 arrived, somewhat five, six years later. Fundamentally, it was also the aircraft in the middle
of the Airbus family. If you didn't need to go for the A380, like a lot of airlines didn't, and to an
extent, or still don't, the A340-600 was your replacement for your early 747s, right? Your
747-100s, 200s, which were, if you remember, not actually retired by a lot of airlines, until the
very late 1990s, and in some cases, early 2000s, right?
British Airways didn't retire its 100th fleet, the 747-100s until 1999, entering into service in 1974,
right? I didn't go to school for math, but that's 25 years. Similarly, the 200s were into service into
the 2000s. Having that ability to deliver very similar aircraft in terms of passenger size and also
importantly, cargo capacity, because the length of the aircraft and the way that they configured
the cargo hold was really important for Airbus. And actually, not a massive development effort
either, right? Today, we might think of it as almost being a A340neo in terms of development.
[0:25:41] JR: Oh, interesting. Because yeah, the 340, 200, 300, as we know, very, very different
power on those aircraft, or lack of power, I guess. The 500, 600 is a completely different ball
game. But it's interesting talking about cargo, and this is something that will come full circle with
in a little bit, but it's even something that the A380 is not well known for cargo capacity. Actually,
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has pretty sad cargo capacity. I do wonder how many airlines that factored into in keeping the
A340-600 being delivered when some airlines would have gone with the A380, but its lack of
cargo capacity compared to the 346 was just a showstopper.
[0:26:21] JW: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you look at who bought the 340-600, right? Lufthansa
bought 24, Virgin Atlantic bought 19, Iberia bought 18, everyone else is in the single digits,
right? Those three, to start with for sure, have massive cargo requirements, right? Elsewhere
down there, you got South African Airways, again, big cargo carriages in Africa, Etihad, Thai,
Chinese, and Qatar, right? All these airlines will have and indeed make the most of the frankly,
enormous amount of cargo capacity that’s available, even just under the – in the cargo area,
without even talking about the new main deck cargo in the post-COVID cargo commercial that
have been done.
[0:27:03] JR: We alluded to this a little bit, but let's talk about who the operators were for the
A340-600, because it's wide range. There's Lufthansa at the top, because, of course, I just
learned at this very moment that they actually had eight 200s at one point. Did not know that.
They are by far the most prolific A340-600 operator. They had 24 and still have a lot of those still
in service today. Virgin Atlantic, as you mentioned, but there are some interesting ones out
there. Outside of Virgin Atlantic, who is your favorite use case of the A340-600?
[0:27:41] JW: The use case. I mean, I once flew at this gorgeous daytime flight from Sydney to
Abu Dhabi, and it was actually for the unveiling of the Etihad A380 back in –
[0:27:51] JR: Well, that's ironic.
[0:27:53] JW: Right? Back 2012 or something. Just this stunning late westbound afternoon
flight over Australia, the wide red land out of the window. It's just really beautiful. Doing that and
being able to see those enormous engines out the window as well was just – That was really
something. It was really something. There really is just something about the proportions of those
engines. It's Da Vinci's master ratio, whatever it's called, right? That shell thing. There's
something about it. They’re just fantastic.
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Also, in terms of why a lot of airlines took it is this, again, early 747 replacements, a competitor
to the early versions of the 777. In many ways, the Airbus defender against those aircraft, and it
did work, right? If you think about it, Lufthansa didn't order the 777. Virgin Atlantic did not order
the 777. Iberia didn't order the 777. South African didn't order the 777. That's down to a number
of things, including commonality, right? Commonality with early A340s. Certainly, the flight deck
commonality for sure. Not so with the engines, right, the original CFM 56 hairdryers. No
commonality at all. They're barely engines. Those big, old trends, right?
In terms of what passengers could expect, the seats that you can put on the aircraft, right?
That's always been one of the valuable things about that common Airbus first-generation
widebody cross-section, all the way from the 300, the 310, 330, 340, second-generation, third-
generation of those aircraft, is that you can take a row of eight seats off the 340, or the business
class seats off a 340, put it on a 330. If you wanted to, you could probably put it on a 310. I don't
know if the seat tracks work the same. From an airline operations point of view, even knowing
what we do now about ETOPS, which we'll come on to later, and the changing price of aviation
fuel, even knowing that, there are operational benefits to having a single type of aircraft for flight
crew, for maintenance, for cabin crew, and also, for Atlantic Virgin, which operated alongside
each other for a long time, the early 340s, I said, they're 300s and they're 600s.
Music has changed gauge seasonally, or across the week without having to change their entire
crew section, right? Whereas, if you were operating the 777, you couldn't rock the same pilots
on there. Offering a 340, the 600, or 300, absolutely, you actually could.
[0:30:18] JR: Right, right. Before we get to ETOPS, a serious conversation, another jokey
question, but not really. What was your favorite special livery on an A340-600, and why was it
Etihad Special Formula 1 livery?
[0:30:34] JW: It was 1000% was not. My favorite livery on there is the famous font door.
[0:30:39] JR: Oh. Was that an Airbus house livery?
[0:30:41] JW: That was the Airbus house livery. Yeah, the original –
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[0:30:44] JR: I'm not sure if that one was special, or “special.”
[0:30:47] JW: It sure was something. In case you haven't seen it, and I hope that we’ll be able
to –
[0:30:52] IP: We will find an image that does this justice and put a link in the show notes.
[0:30:58] JW: This was probably at some air show, or Toulouse, or something, right, where
Airbus was shopping around the aircraft. It was one of the prototypal testbed aircraft. They'd
written some marketing guff across the aircraft, right? Obviously, they hadn't done it with
somebody either with a us level of sense of humor, or what. Because on the right-hand side of
the aircraft, it was written longer, larger, farther, faster, right? Except that door four, the one
immediately behind the wing on the right-hand side –
[0:31:28] JR: It was so good.
[0:31:29] JW: - contained the HER of father, and it opened forwards. You must have seen
longer, larger, fat.
[0:31:39] JR: I mean, yeah, you're right. This is better than Etihad’s Formula 1 A346 livery. You
are not wrong.
[0:31:48] IP: I have to say, the Formula 1 is, I think, my favorite intentional livery.
[0:31:52] JR: Let's go.
[0:31:56] JW: The Coca-Cola model one that I have is also pretty great. My favorite part of that
is that they just put Coke on it. Not even Coca-Cola. They're like, there's not a lack of future
large to put some writing on here, people.
[0:32:08] JR: It has got to be what, the world's longest billboard, perhaps, at this point.
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[0:32:13] JW: Yeah. Well, second long. Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the only aircraft
commercial aircraft longer than it is the 747-8.
[0:32:19] JR: Right now, yeah.
[0:32:20] JW: Not even by a very little bit. Until Tim Clark gets his request from Boeing, or
doing, get more 777Xs.
[0:32:28] JR: Let's go back to ETOPS and Virgin Atlantic's famous dig at, well, anyone that
wasn't Virgin Atlantic, but give us some of the background there and why this mattered in that
era.
[0:32:41] JW: Yeah, sure. Okay. You've got to head back to the 80s to really start the thing
about ETOPS, right? When you started getting the first twin engine wide bodies. The 767, the
A300, and really, the A310 in terms of the range that we're looking at here. And ETOPS, which
stands for either engines turning, or passenger swimming, or Extended Range Twin Engine
Operations, various things that sound sort of like that over its time. Basically means that there
are government restrictions, regulatory restrictions on how far a twin engine aircraft can fly from
a diversion airport, open diversion airport to date, that is able to access before you have to say,
actually you can only be within 120 minutes of that flight if one engine goes out, so you're
running on one engine, and so on.
That originally started at ETOPS 120. That would be two hours of flying on one engine. Then
that developed into 180. That's three hours. That originally required one full year of problem-free
operations of ETOPS 120. You had to basically run that first. The first ETOPS 180 aircraft was
the original 777 in 1995 when it entered into service. Boeing managed to persuade the FAA to
do an ETOPS 180 entry into service in ’95, but not the JAA, which was the European precursor
to EASA, who insisted on going back to this ETOPS 120 for one year, then you can graduate to
ETOPS 180.
Then for many years, for over a decade at that point, ETOPS 180 was a maximum you could
get, which for quite a lot of routes, particularly transpacific routes, some southern Atlantic routes,
that created problems, right? Because there's only a certain amount of diversion airports you
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can go to, which were a site like, the Great Circle Mapper at gcmap.com and play around with
the ETOPS clicky buttons. You'll see if you put a route in, about exactly where the ETOPS dead
zones are, right?
Then ETOPS 180 plus only started being available in 2007, which of course, was six years after
the first flight of the A340-600. Airbus, basically, was in there saying, “Look, we've got an aircraft
that can ignore ETOPS, because it's got four engines, that will replace your 747, will have
cockpit commonality with your existing A340s and A330s, so you don't need to order this 777.”
Yeah, and also, it's only a great stopgap, because you'll also have cockpit commonality with the
A380 that we're building. Yeah, that was there, that was there, the thing in. As we move on
there, that high-capacity option between the smaller A340s and then the A330-300 and the A380
before the A350 was in the picture, which is absolutely really important for Airbus. People say,
yeah, we do have a high-capacity widebody when they were setting aircraft.
[0:35:37] JR: Was Virgin Atlantic's whole four engines for long-haul slogan, was that done by
the time they got to the 346, or was that still a thing that they were very much reminding
passengers of, “Hey, we've got four engines. This is a purpose-built long-haul aircraft.” Or was it
really sorted at that point?
[0:35:55] JW: I wouldn't bet on it. I'm pretty sure that I've seen those four engines for long haul
stickers, or decals on the 600. Yeah. No, they were still going on with that #four engines for long
haul slogan that they were using well into the operation the A340-600. Well, it was nonsense to
be honest, certainly for any route that BA was competing with Virgin on, right? I mean, the North
Atlantic does not need ETOPS.
[0:36:23] JR: But it was still a point of pride that really the A340-600 short of the A380 was the
last bastion of four engines is a necessary requirement for flights of this stage length. It was still,
I guess, to them nothing more than a marketing point, but an impactful one, I think.
[0:36:40] JW: I don't know how many people were really impacted by it.
[0:36:43] JR: Well, it worked on you.
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[0:36:44] JW: I guess. I mean, that wasn't why I love the aircraft, but it's certainly an ongoing
joke between all of our pals, right? Yeah, we remember it.
[0:36:57] IP: Let's talk about the, I don't want to say, downfall, because that's not what
happened here.
[0:37:02] JR: Graceful exit from the market.
[0:37:04] IP: Yeah. I mean, it's still sticking on, if you want an interesting statistic right now,
there are an equal number of passenger aircraft operating for Lufthansa, as there are cargo
aircraft operating for European cargo, which is an interesting dynamic. Then the rest are those
oddball passenger carriers, like Conviasa, Mahan Air, and there is an Azerbaijan government,
one still sticking around, as well as a couple random Alpha Star, based out of Saudi Arabia, and
Universal Sky Carrier also has one that has flown –
[0:37:46] JR: It's definitely the aircraft, I wouldn't say of last resort, but the aircraft of, “Hey, we
got this aircraft lying around. You want to do something with it?” And airlines do something with
it.
[0:37:57] JW: The European cargo one is a really interesting operation. But I'll talk about the
Iranian and Venezuelan sanctions busting aircraft. Those are some really interesting stories
about how those aircraft ended up in those places.
[0:38:09] JR: Oh, we've talked about that a number of times, and it keeps happening.
[0:38:13] JW: Yeah, exactly. Again, the reason why they choose those aircraft is because they
have existing commonality with other aircraft that they fly.
[0:38:21] JR: Just a couple decades later.
[0:38:23] JW: Yeah. But to be honest, if you've got someone who's already – if you've got a pilot
who can already fly Airbus, fly by wire of an A300 and A330, right? Because I want to say,
Airbus delivered a small handful of modern A330s to Iran Air.
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[0:38:40] JR: They did?
[0:38:41] JW: In that brief period when the sanctions were lifted. If you're looking at cockpit
commonality, you're looking at parts commonality, that's the aircraft swims your way into your
country, I guess. The European cargo is a really interesting operation, right? It sounds really
weird for British people to say, oh, yeah, the massive cargo operation, which is like saying, oh,
yeah, the enormous cargo operation at Coral Gables, Florida.
[0:39:05] JR: Of entirely widebody four-engine aircraft.
[0:39:08] JW: Yeah, yeah. If you take a look at the Google Maps, or the satellite image of
Bournemouth Airport, I'm not calling it international airport. I am sorry. There's just three
A340-600S just sitting there at the top of the now closed north runway, which was probably only
used for DC3S back in the day. Entirely preposterous that these enormous aircrafts based in
Bournemouth. what happened was as aircraft, as the major operators, right? In this case, Virgin
Atlantic and Iberia started retiring their A340s as they took some newer aircraft, particularly the
A350, in both cases, the A350, That was accelerated by COVID, plus the then need for the
preighter, right? The cargo combi passenger, passengerless passenger aircraft with a bunch of
boxes plunked into the seats, or what seats were pulled off into these empty seat tracks
strapped down upper deck.
That's where European cargo really jumped into this market, right, was that preighter market.
Preighter with a P, not freighter with an F, during the height of lockdown, where PPE was in high
demand and so on and so forth. Afterwards, European cargo secured the conversion rates to
basically turn that into a proper upper cargo door freighter. The amount of cargo that you can
now stick in A340-600s, which has a very high maximum takeoff weight, which is really useful, is
enormous, right? It's, I want to say, it's more than a 747F, because it's longer. Maybe not an 8F,
but it's a huge amount of cargo you put in an aircraft.
Yeah. Obviously, they were sold off fire sale prices. Yeah. You can always see where the aircraft
came from by whether it's got red engines, or white engines. The red engines being one from
Virgin and the white ones being one from Iberia. Yeah, they're still trucking. I suspect they will
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for quite some time. That's a useful aircraft. It's an established aircraft. I suspect that the final
nell will be, I mean, on the Lufthansa side, it's when the 777X is eventually introduced in, what
was it, 2027?
[0:41:16] JR: Any day now.
[0:41:17] JW: Yeah. For the freighters. I think the rest of it will be – there'll be some point at
which some critical spare part is no longer available. There's a pot full thing about Lufthansa
Technik having brought up every brake pad that they can find. I feel like a brake pad is a thing
you can probably get as a third-party piece of MRO that –
[0:41:36] JR: But that's a good quote.
[0:41:37] JW: Right? It's a great quote. I love the idea that a thing that would end this aircraft
lives is brake pads. I don't think it'll be brake pads. It'll be something else that nobody expects.
Probably, like, I don't know, fuselage wiring frame. Again, when you come at the fact that
actually, this is just a really long A300, or A330, right? The only real difference is in the wing, and
some of the way that the aircraft is put together structurally. Maybe there'll be some issue with
the wing that eventually exceeds maximum cycles.
[0:42:07] JR: Yeah. Lufthansa also did say that that at some point this aircraft was not meant to
live forever and it will hit a maximum number of hours and they just can't overhaul it at that point
anymore. That seems a lot more likely than brake pads.
[0:42:22] JW: Again, I go back to 747-100, which ran for over 25 years, which would mean this
has the capability of going well into 2030s.
[0:42:30] JR: There's one last thing. I don't know if this is the only time this has ever happened.
If the A340-600 has the sole distinction of having an airframe written off due to an accident
before it was ever actually delivered to anyone. A few of you are probably familiar with what I'm
talking about, but there was the incident in 2007 where a yet to be delivered Etihad A340-600
A6EHG, having an engine run-up test in Toulouse and there was an issue where some wheels
weren't chucked, and it went right through a retaining wall and sound barrier, and the front bit
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fell off, which is not great. No one was killed in that crash, fortunately. But yeah, an entire
A340-600 is written off, because of a crash of an aircraft that never left the ground.
[0:43:21] JW: Yeah. I want to say, it's still in the Virgin Atlantic training hall in Crawley. I still think
they use that as their A330 training mock-up part of that aircraft.
[0:43:31] JR: There's history. This aircraft has got history. Some good. Some not so good.
[0:43:35] JW: Again, the picture of that is very much a meme.
[0:43:38] JR: It is indeed.
[0:43:39] JW: Terrible. There's some fairly drastic injuries, as you'd expect, if very long aircraft
mounts wall and nose bit falls off. I guess, make sure the brakes are on properly before starting
engines. Don't really know what to tell you.
[0:43:52] IP: Always, always good advice.
[0:43:54] JW: The one thing we haven't talked about yet is the famous downstairs lavatories on
the Lufthansa A340-600.
[0:44:01] IP: We did not forget that. I have it written down.
[0:44:04] JR: I heard you trying to break in. I heard you. John, what the heck are you talking
about? As if I don't know. Tell me anyway.
[0:44:11] JW: If you didn't have enough seats on your A340-600, it came with the option of
installing a set of lavatories in the cargo area downstairs. Lufthansa was the only one to take
them up on it for the A340-600. Although, Thomas Cook and I think a couple, maybe one other
operator did it for the A330. A real high-passenger, low-cargo operator, right? In the middle of
the economy cabin, on your Lufthansa A340-600, on the right-hand side of the aircraft in the
center section, there are three or four rows of just two seats on the left-hand side of the middle
section. On the right-hand side, there are stairs going downstairs to a place where you will find a
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bunch of lavatories, and that's where Lufthansa has installed the lamps for economy on the
A340-600.
[0:45:00] JR: I feel like, this is a concept that is now so foreign that we will just never see this
again in a commercial aircraft. However, I think it was a few years ago, maybe in 2022, I think it
was Safran had some concept for a lower deck napping room, I think. I don't think I'm making
this up, but I think that was a concept that they had.
[0:45:24] JW: Many airlines have a downstairs crew rest area, or upstairs is given, but quite a
few have the downstairs option, right? Very famously, there’s that seat on Singapore Airlines. I
want to say, there's a missing G seat in the middle. It's a ABC GHG. Anyway, the missing aisle
seat, which is really the trapdoor escape from the downstairs crew rest area.
[0:45:48] IP: You just have a crew member just pop right up there.
[0:45:49] JW: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of airlines have this. Delta, they did, but I don't know
if they still are building their own for the A330neo. The Delta flight products business under
sudden entry. That's one of the things that they were building themselves. Most their own little
crew rest area. The idea with this Safran thing was basically, yeah, that to have some bunks
downstairs that you could sell as in-flight use only for sleeping, whether that would be for, and
the idea was probably that it was going to be for economy, right? The much laid Air New
Zealand Sky Nest, the $400 nap slab.
[0:46:27] IP: Nap slab.
[0:46:27] JR: Nap slab. Okay.
[0:46:29] JW: I love traveling by train.
[0:46:31] JR: John, that's a whole other podcast topic. We do not have time to get into that.
[0:46:35] JW: When the nap slab goes into effect.
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[0:46:37] IP: We will absolutely have you back for that.
[0:46:39] JW: Fantastic.
[0:46:41] IP: Before we let you go, I would be remiss if I didn't mention who you are and what
you're up to these days. You are now the Editor-In-Chief of the –
[0:46:51] JR: He’s that John. He doesn't need introduction.
[0:46:53] IP: Well, he needs an introduction for a very specific reason. John has been gracious
enough to reactivate the 24% discount code for FlightRadar24 AvTalk Podcast listeners. If you
go to theupfront.media/fr24, you can take advantage of that. John Walton, it has been my
absolute pleasure to speak to you about the A340-600 at length. Thank you so much for doing
this, sir.
[0:47:23] JW: My absolute pleasure.
[0:47:23] JR: Thank you, John. We'll have you back when we get to episode 1,346.
[0:47:28] JW: Deal.
[END OF CONVERSATION WITH JOHN WALTON]
[0:47:35] IP: Welcome back. That was just fun. That was just fun.
[0:47:38] JR: That was fun. Every time we talk to John, think, I don't know how many times we
talked to John, but I think it's usually pretty fun. But that was the most fun, because this is
definitely John's thing. If you know someone that knows more about the A340-600 than John
Walton –
[0:47:52] IP: I just want to say, we cut down the interview as well. I mean –
[0:47:55] JR: It can't be true.
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[0:47:56] IP: We talked for a long time. We don't usually cut down the interviews, but this one,
we had to shorten up just a bit. All right, let's get going with the rest of the show, because there's
still some more stuff to talk about. Air India is making its return to mainland China in February,
beginning Delhi to Shanghai flights. Then Mumbai to Shanghai is coming later in 2026. This is
all happening at once. Thankfully, the two countries have decided that they're friendly enough
that they can allow direct flights once again. Indigo is on it, and Air India is on it, China
Southern's on it, so we're seeing multiple airlines begin to operate flights between China and
India.
[0:48:46] JR: This is good. Love to see it. Love to see it.
[0:48:49] IP: Next one affects maybe one, or two listeners eventually. But it's important to have
your privacy, Jason.
[0:48:58] JR: It is. Especially on airplanes. I mean, I love private suites.
[0:49:02] IP: Right. I mean, who doesn't? This is United asking the FAA for an exemption to be
able to install mini suites on its A321XLR, which are scheduled to debut next year, mid-year next
year. This would allow United to install doors, basically, though they're not actually doors.
They're moveable walls.
[0:49:26] JR: And little flappy bits that look like doors. I don't think this is unique to United.
JetBlue has had some issue with this also, where for a while, it had to, or might still be doing
this, where it had to lock its suite doors open, because it didn't have enough flight attendants in
the cabin. They only realized that at some point.
[0:49:43] IP: You need to have an extra crew member to make sure that all of the doors on the
suites are locked open during taxi, takeoff, and landing.
[0:49:52] JR: Yeah, this is a thing. We should have Seth Miller on to talk about this. While John
Walton is an expert in the A340-600, I think Seth Miller is an expert in airlines having to do weird
things to install mini suites on their FAA certified.
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[0:50:08] IP: He’s our door guy.
[0:50:09] JR: He's our door guy. That's a much more elegant way to put it. But it's weird. When
you do something as insignificant, you would think as putting a sweep door at business class
seat, there are actually a lot of implications in getting that certified.
[0:50:22] IP: Especially with safe egress in the event of an emergency.
[0:50:25] JR: Yes. Just ask Delta, who has not yet put its A321neos with fancy seats onboard in
service and won't for quite some time, it seems. This stuff is really complicated.
[0:50:36] IP: Yeah. Mesa shareholders have approved the merger with Republic Airways, which
is really good news for Mesa, because they are struggling financially.
[0:50:46] JR: Wait. Have we talked about this before? I don't think I knew what about –
[0:50:50] IP: We had when they first proposed the merger. Earlier this year, shareholders late
last month approved the merger, which is really good for Mesa.
[0:50:59] JR: Oh, episode 315.
[0:51:00] IP: There you go.
[0:51:00] JR: There it is, episode 315. I, for one, welcome our new republic overlords, because
when I fly my cursed route between Dulles and LaGuardia, sometimes I end up on Mesa
aircraft. When I end up on Mesa aircraft, I have a bad time. I have a less bad time at Republic
aircraft, still a bad time. But it would be good if there was just this one regional airline to
consolidate my bad stereo cursed route.
[0:51:26] IP: They will have a fleet of approximately 275 regional jets to provide capacity with.
[0:51:34] JR: That's nice.
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[0:51:35] IP: This one is a bit close to my heart, given all the work that we've done on GPS
jamming and spoofing over the past few years. Fokker Services says, that its anti-jamming
system will be ready at the beginning of 2026, launching with –
[0:51:52] JR: Anti-jamming of what? You should probably clarify.
[0:51:54] IP: GPS jamming.
[0:51:56] JR: Ah, there you go. That's important.
[0:51:57] IP: Yeah. So, no more jam on airplanes.
[0:52:01] JR: Jamming of everything, like the space bowls scene where the radars jammed. I
mean, Ian, you got to be specific.
[0:52:09] IP: I apologize. This will launch on an unnamed airline early next year, they say. We'll
see which airline it comes out. Hopefully, they'll let us know. The system is available for the 737,
737 MAX, the 747-400 and the Dash 8. Sorry if you're operating other aircraft at the moment,
but they do say they're working on making the system available for other aircraft families. That'll
be interesting to see.
[0:52:39] JR: I would love to talk to Fokker about how they're doing that and how this works.
That will be super interesting to learn more, because this is a massive industry, not even just an
industry, kind of a goal problem. This doesn’t just impact aviation.
[0:52:53] IP: Yeah. It does not just impact aviation. It arguably impacts other industries more,
because of the issues that GPS jamming and spoofing creates for them, especially other
shipping industries and things like that. GPS jamming is certainly not great for aviation, but it's
not necessarily directly impacting things, where in some other places, there is a direct impact
and businesses are directly impacted negatively. It'll be really interesting to see how they do this
and they're not the only ones working on this. We're seeing all sorts of avionics companies
working on counter-jamming and new technologies. But it seems like, they're going to be one of
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the first to bring something to market. All right, Jason, we've come to the part of the show where
we scurry through a bunch of very interesting and somewhat weird topics.
[0:53:44] JR: Ah, the speed run.
[0:53:45] IP: Let's do it.
[0:53:46] JR: Okay, let's go with a video KLM posted recently, or KLM Cityhopper, I guess,
posted recently. Behind the scenes video, the acceptance process of its 25th Embraer E195-E2,
which I thought was just really cool, because it's a longer video. Usually, a lot of these are two
and a half minutes long. This was pretty long, detailing everything that the airline has to do to
take delivery of its new airplanes. There were just a really a bunch of cool behind the scenes
thing, like the culture clash between the Dutch and Brazilians. Would you know it that the Dutch
and Brazilians are just culturally very different people, and how they've not just seen past that,
but they bonded and actually become really close.
I thought there was just this one quip at the end that was really cool, where Embraer opened up
a brand new, basically, conference room where you have your ceremonial handing over of the
aircraft and their champagne. You pop the cork and you celebrate. KLM was the first user of this
room. When they popped the cork on a bottle of champagne, it shot through a ceiling tile.
Brand-new room, broke a ceiling tile and the rep for KLM decided to take the ceiling tile, sign it
with his name and put the aircraft registration next to it.
Apparently, that has become tradition for every delivery of an Embraer aircraft. There's some
really cool screenshots of all the personalized notes and drawings and all these things for
basically, every aircraft for years that's been delivered from Embraer. There's some interesting
stuff up there. Not every aircraft is apparently delivered without, let's say, trial and error.
Apparently, there's one aircraft from Republic, N763YX appears multiple times on the ceiling
tiles for apparently, “Kicking their butts, but they kicked it back,” says Troy. Apparently, “The
struggles are real,” says Chad, on the ceiling tiles.
I thought that was just a really, really cool thing to see behind the scenes that ordinarily would
have no idea that some airplanes come from a manufacturer, without any issues whatsoever.
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Some, apparently are really, really difficult. It was just really wholesome to see that. We'll put a
link to it in the show notes and give it a watch.
[0:56:06] IP: Absolutely. Yeah, it's worth a few moments of your time. Jason, normally when an
airline's late, the most that happens is somebody gets upset. But every once in a while, there's a
bit more –
[0:56:17] JR: Someone gets really upset.
[0:56:19] IP: There’s a bit more consequence to it.
[0:56:21] JR: Yeah. Apparently, we're getting this from skynews.com. Ryanair was so habitually
late on a few routes to the Netherlands, that the airport coordination of Netherlands, AC and L
said, “You know what? No, you're done, Ryanair. We're taking these routes away from you.”
They actually removed two slots from Ryanair, particularly they were consistently late on
Monday evening flights from Sofia, Bulgaria, apparently, and Thursday evening flights from Pisa,
Italy to the point where AC and L said, “No, we're taking these slots back and you can't have it,”
even though it's just the flights were an average of more than an hour late, which I guess, an
average of more than an hour late. That's pretty high.
I mean, I would love if my flight from Dulles was only an average of an hour late. But for Europe,
that's not normal. Yeah, this is a rare, rare move from the administrator of the slots to take away
two slots. We do have rules in the US from the FAA about habitually late flights. There are fines,
but taking away a slot, I don't think is something that really is, it's a last case resort. But hey, it
happens sometimes. Good for them.
[0:57:36] IP: When I fly, I wear a watch, Jason. I wear a watch all the time.
[0:57:39] JR: I have a scratched-up watch.
[0:57:43] IP: What I don't do is wear airline branded and themed A350 watch. Swiss wants to
change that, though I'm not sure at this price point, I'm going to be able to partake. Swiss has
released a limited edition. It is limited to 350 pieces. It is a limited-edition Breitling Navitimer B01
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Chronograph 46 Swiss limited edition. It will be available onboard Swiss long-haul flights from
December 1st, and can also be pre-ordered at swiss.com in the Duty Free shopping section.
[0:58:22] JR: Tell us how much it costs.
[0:58:23] IP: Hold on. I'm going to give the description first, and then we'll talk about how much
it costs. Stainless steel case.
[0:58:30] JR: Oh, you got to tell the users why they want it, before they buy it, of course, of
course.
[0:58:35] IP: It's a Navitimer, so a fantastic watch, but a stainless steel case featuring black
chocolate and beige dial, refined 18 karat rose gold details, accented with burgundy details,
reminiscent of the signature color of Swiss. Has a fluted bezel, an AOPA wing logo at 12.00,
paying tribute to the collection’s aviation heritage. And the central chronograph is adorned with
an airplane that appears to fly across the watch. You can buy one of these for actually, the price
is less than I thought it was going to be in Swiss francs. It's only 8,350 Swiss francs, Duty Free.
[0:59:16] JR: Which comes out to about $10,500 USD, plus VAT, which I'm sure adds quite a
hefty bit to it. But you know what? You don't need to pay a single dime for this, Ian.
[0:59:26] IP: You sure don't.
[0:59:30] JR: If you have 2,338,000 miles and more miles, this could be yours for free.
[0:59:39] IP: Yeah.
[0:59:40] JR: Yup. Yup. I do not recommend spending 2.38 million miles on a watch.
[0:59:48] IP: You should spend it on us. You should buy us tickets on the new Swiss senses.
That's why they're doing all this.
© 2025 AvTalk 29
AVT 346 Transcript
[0:59:57] JR: If this is your thing and you do buy this $10,493 USD watch, plus VAT, of course,
watch, send us some pictures. I'd love to see it.
[1:00:06] IP: Absolutely. Speaking of Swiss's new A350, they've done the inaugural. We have a
video on our YouTube channel of that, which included a go round on the return back to Zurich
from Palma de Mallorca. That was cool. We'll also have Gabe on the inaugural intercontinental
flight, which is coming up in just a few days from Zurich to Boston, to actually try out that new
business class cabin and get a behind the scenes look at how Swiss does their A350 flights.
Stay tuned for that. All right, Jason, there's some weird stuff going on in New York. Tell me what
you got.
[1:00:50] JR: Well, the other day, I heard a very loud helicopter, which is not out of the norm for
New York. We have lots of flat helicopters. This one in particular, I saw actually a reflection of it
in the building across the street and said, huh, what the heck was that? It turned out to be a
Sikorsky S-6, which is a very large aircraft, but also bears a striking resemblance to Marine
One.
[1:01:19] IP: Not an S-6. Sorry, we should clarify.
[1:01:24] JR: 61. Even more so, it bears a striking resemblance to Marine One when you paint
it in Marine One livery.
[1:01:31] IP: Oh, yeah.
[1:01:32] JR: Then when you fly it around Brooklyn, a whole bunch over the course of a bunch
of days over the Brooklyn Bridge and land it actually in the Brooklyn Navy Yard a bunch of
times, people start to ask questions and going, “What is Marine One doing here in Brooklyn?
Why is it hovering over the Brooklyn Bridge? Why is it taking off and landing a whole bunch right
next to the BQE, which is a highway here in Brooklyn and Queens? It's an expressway.” Turns
out, don't actually know what exactly they were filming, but it was doing a lot of landing and
taking off from Steiner Studios, which is a film studio here in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The
aircraft is N904CH, which is actually moved on now through Mount Pocono and is somewhere
in the middle of Michigan.
© 2025 AvTalk 30
AVT 346 Transcript
[1:02:20] IP: They’re based in Michigan. The owner of the helicopter is based in Michigan. They
do heavy helicopter work. They have Chinook's. I think they're the largest civilian operator of the
S-61.
[1:02:32] JR: Yeah. It just came out of Kingston, Jamaica, where I would imagine it was doing
humanitarian work after the hurricane there, and then promptly stopped by West Palm Beach,
Florida for a couple of days on its way up to New York, where I assume it then got its Marine
One livery, because it would be really weird if a helicopter was in Jamaica doing humanitarian
work painted –
[1:02:56] IP: Oh, man.
[1:02:58] JR: - in Marine One livery. That'd be really weird. But if you see a helicopter that looks
exactly like Marine One, it might not actually be Marine One. It might have just been that for
filming, whatever they were doing here in Brooklyn, because why not?
[1:03:11] IP: So, in six months to a year, we'll find out what that was all about.
[1:03:15] JR: And I will watch it.
[1:03:16] IP: But you don't have to wait six months to a year to find out what this is all about,
because we'll be back next week with another episode. Until then, this has been episode 346 of
AvTalk. I am Ian Petchenik, here, as always with –
[1:03:33] JR: Jason Rabinowitz. Thanks for listening.
[END]
© 2025 AvTalk 31