Snow Week Reading
This has been a shortened week due to the winter storm that hit the Middle Georgia area Sunday night. Days spent snowed in, or in this case iced in, are best spent catching up on reading, so here are a few articles, videos and other miscellaneous items for your middle of the week enjoyment.
Chinese J-20 Black Silk
The internet and news have been abuzz recently about the supposed sightings of a new Chinese military aircraft. As is the usual with such things, details are very scarce and pictures are suitably blurry. Check out the videos and commentary posted over at The Dew Line for more.
F-35B Milestone
It is not secret that the F-35 program has hit a few bumps along the development road. Despite that, it is still a remarkable aircraft with what seems like enormous potential. The F-35B is the Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) version of the aircraft and reached a milestone a few days ago by completing its first vertical landing. This all comes just after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced recently that this version of the F-35 will be put on probation and possibly cancelled. Regardless, watching the prototype F-35B manipulate its various doors and nozzles to land and re-configure back to its “clean” shape is simply amazing.
Christmas Delivery
What do you do if you are an airline (Spanair in this case) looking for some good PR and a way to make a Christmas Eve flight end on a little happier note than usual? You wrap presents and send them out to passengers waiting to claim their bags on the luggage carousel of course. One thought I had about this since I try to avoid checking a bag if I can keep from it when flying; what about the ones who didn’t check a bag and therefore didn’t visit the carousel after the flight? Enjoy the video; it will give you the warm fuzzies.
Charlotte Museum Hopes to get Airbus
Three days from now, Saturday, January the 15th, will mark two years to the day that U.S. Airways Flight 1549 was forced to ditch into the Hudson River. The Charlotte Observer is reporting that the Airbus A320 aircraft used on that flight, and later recovered from the river, will have a permanent home at the Carolinas Aviation Museum. If this all works out as planned (you can read the story here) it is very exciting news for aviation enthusiasts and historians. One constant struggle that aviation museums have is the ability to identify and then preserve historic airframes. In the future hopefully more museums and historians will take on this more pro-active approach of identifying historic aircraft before they are retired or lost to time.
Marathon
Last but certainly not least, some news about a Museum of Aviation event. This Saturday, January the 15th, the Museum of Aviation 15th Annual Marathon, Half-Marathon & 5K Run/Walk will be held. This is a great event for local and regional runners, with the unique chance to run on an active military installation. The most unusual and special thing about this year’s run, however, is that it will be shadowed by a similar event in Afghanistan. So far there are 272 runners signed up to run in Kandahar, Afghanistan. We are expecting over 1,000 runners and walkers here at the Museum so it should be a great event and a fun time. For registration information call (478) 923-6600 or click here.
