Is it me or does the name / logo on that air plane need adjusting given that its friday afternoon.

A N A |||||

Yes I know its silly .. but so am I

What a tool.

Laser focused.........what a twat.

That is all.

Admittedly it's been a while, but I've plastic (Airfix) planes on about an hour before. What's keeping them?? :-)

You know.. the one where the A380 team are dancing on all the press releases where Boing said how shit A380 schedules were and how great theirs were.

Serves the useless monkeys right! Poetic justice :)

when you don't have a multi-government socialist cartel that can force all subsidiary industries (parts and materiel suppliers), as well as support (entire airports and their loading gates) using the combined weight of taxpayer money and legislative fiat to overcome obstacles to developing new aircraft.

Boeing couldn't innovate with the Sonic Cruiser because its configuration didn't fit existing loading gates, and airports didn't want to spend the tax money needed to adapt. Airbus wants to build their superjumbo that didn't fit existing loading gates, EU government forced the change to make a market for the aircraft.

Of course, I admit to being jealous-having a government that is fanatically protectivist towards it's own industries to the detriment of all foreign economies if necessary, versus our government that sells our industries down the river to support foreign business interests. We'll destroy our industries for "green" causes, subsidize an illegal working underclass to drive down legitimate wages while allowing a corrupt neighbor to bleed off angry population, we'll give off "most favored trade" status to subsidize foreign slave labor, go to the effort of creating special immigration and tax codes to short change locally trained expertise for cheap foreign outsourcing, and allow our education system to be castrated by political correctness, a policy of indoctrination and medication over education, and out of control teachers' unions. To add insult to injury, our "government" comes up with this "bail out" b*llocks to try to support-not repair-the damage they caused in the first place!

... out of a cannon in to the sun for the following:-

"However, Pat Shanahan, 787 program vice president, assured: "We're laser focused on what needs to be done to prepare for first flight. We will overcome this set of circumstances as we have others in the past, and we understand clearly what needs to be done moving forward."

laser focused AND moving forward in the same short blurb...

Why do people still insist on using these horrific buzzword phrases?

Learn to use the English language properly

</rant>

build the BelGeddes Airliner #4, maybe spruce it up with some modern engine concepts, even in its original design it was far more comfy and fuel efficient than 727s and 747's are today.

It was designed to *sleep 600 comfortably* as in staterooms, tennis courts, restaurants .. the whole red carpet cruise ship treatment ... in an airplane. Complete with a crew of around 155, lifeboats and even 2 small aircraft to go for help. What's more it was designed to carry over 600,000 pounds of cargo (about 273,000kg) .. more than 4 times what a 747 can manage. I'd think Fed-EX and UPS would be drooling at the thought.

As long as you don't mind a nice 48hour cruise across the Atlantic. Oh, and with a service ceiling of 10,000 feet and pressurized cabins you won't get swollen ankles.

http://haha.nu/misc/the-bel-geddes-airliner-4/

http://home.att.net/~dannysoar/BelGeddes.htm

Pat Shanahan, 787 program vice president, assured: "We're laser focused on what needs to be done to prepare for first flight. We will overcome this set of circumstances as we have others in the past, and we understand clearly what needs to be done moving forward."

I vote "laser focused" as the most annoying new saying for 2008!

Or by spelling the word 'materiel', I suppose he could even be French?

Trygve , what is this about the EU bullying Quantas, Emerates, and Singapore airlines into buying the Airbus, and forcing airports to upgrade.

I thought that Airbus had worked hard on showing the airlines the virtues of the 380, but as I am tucked away in remote New Zealand maybe I don't know what you know

Perhaps you can elaborate on this cloak and dagger stuff.