I don't know how many of you are into LSA, but I thought I'd take a moment to plug my dad's company. They specialize in short take off and landing (less than 200 ft). I'm not a huge aviation guy, but my dad is really excited about the new model his guys put out this year (the "Vision").
WestJet's 100th Boeing 737, in this case a 800 series. I'm disappointed that they did not go with a special livery to celebrate and instead just slapped the decal on the front of it:
I finally found some time tonight to edit and upload some shots from YYC from this summer and even today. RAF troop charter had Air Berlin visit us today:
As the SAS flight from Alicante to Stavanger prepared for it's take off from the Spanish resort town, there appeared a problem that is usually unknown at those latitudes.
The plane had - due to uncertainty about the SAS's future - full wing tanks with fuel when it landed in Alicante. The low temperature in altitude meant that the fuel was very cold, so that ice had formed on the wings.
The captain requisitioned car with ladder. Since there is no de-icing equipment at the airport in Alicante, The necessary alcohol was removed from the aircraft's own holdings. After the captain had personally de-iced wings by spraying three bottles of whiskey on each wing, the ice finally dissapeared. The plane could take off, 1 hour and 20 minutes late with a nice smell of Whiskey in the cabin ...
According to a passenger on the flight:
- There was a good atmosphere in the plane. We were informed that the whiskey was consumed. So if someone wanted a drink on the trip, they had to make do with gin ...
SAS pilots has now received a clear message by the managment to refuel planes completely. This is to ensure that the aircraft must have enough fuel even for the trip back from the destination, or the subsequent connection in case an emergency situation arises.
Chock-full fuel tanks was by all accounts a contributing factor to the frozen wings at the airport in Alicante.
Translated excerpts from Norwegian ( See article for picture of the captain de icing the wing ) :
According to some tweets from a CBC Calgary reporter Enerjet is trying to raise $80M to be flying as a "ultra low cost" airline by the end of 2013.
The emphasis being that they will shift over to becoming a scheduled airline, and not just a charter operator anymore.
Here are the tweets:
Interesting. I'd love to see an ULCC come to Canada, maybe something in the Allegiant mold, but with bigger cities. It would be nice to have another airline around to keep the bigger guys honest.
I think an opportunity would be to buy a used fleet (the Saudia MD-90s, maybe?) and fly mostly low utilization, and then ramp up capacity during peak holdiday times. My father in law wanted to join us on a cruise leaving from Florida over Christmas, but wasn't happy when he heard it'd be $1000 to get YEG-FLL on our dates.
