GateHold
Oct 25, 11, 7:31 pm
Now up in my ASK THE PILOT column:
OF AIRPLANES AND SKYSCRAPERS
an excerpt:
"...You might remember my comparison between jetliners and skyscrapers, borrowing from the architecture critic Paul Goldberger. 'Most architects who design skyscrapers focus on two aesthetic problems,' wrote Goldberger in an issue of The New Yorker a few years back. "How to meet the ground and how to meet the sky...' It's much the same with airplane designers, and if we think of a jetliner as a horizontal skyscraper, its beauty is gained or lost mainly through the sculpting of the nose and tail.
The Boeing 787 fails in the tail, and the whole plane suffers from it. Though not to the extent that the A380 is ruined by its nose. Or 'head,' maybe, is the better term: there is something grotesquely anthropomorphic about the front of the A380. It's like a plane that's missing a chromosome. Amazing that the same people who brought us Concorde were responsible for such a monster.
Concorde wasn't just a great * looking * plane, but that name, too: Concorde. The main idea, presumably, was to convey solidarity in the Anglo-French partnership that designed and built the thing. But it goes beyond that. There's something wonderfully evocative about the sound of that word: Concorde. It says sleek, fast, stylish -- a little bit haughty and probably out of your league.
That's something I miss: commercial planes that were named rather than numbered. Aside from Concorde we had the Comet, Trident, Mercure and Vanguard. Other planes were given nicknames in conjunction with numbers, like the L-1011 TriStar. The 787 falls in this category, though I'm not especially fond of the 'Dreamliner' designation. The imagery there is a little too wobbly and ethereal. People don't want their planes flailing around or nodding off. Dreamliner was in contention with three other possibilities: Global Cruiser, Stratoclimber, and eLiner. Global Cruiser sounds like a yacht, or a really big SUV. Stratoclimber sounds like an action hero. And eLiner is almost too awful to contemplate. Sort of like 'iPlane.'
The 747, for its part, remains a beauty all around: elegant prow, sexy tail, and the palindromic poetry of that name: seven-forty-seven..."
The FULL article is here:
http://life.salon.com/2011/10/25/what_makes_a_great_looking_jetliner/singleton/
PLUS, REGIONALS THEN AND NOW
An excerpt:
"Today the term regional airline refers to any of the numerous, mercenary code-share outfits stripped of their individual identities. You know them by their Express or Connection suffixes. In the old days the regional moniker referred to any of a number of small but wholly independent carriers. They were described as regional because, as many of their names implied, they focused operations in a particular part of the country.
A number of these companies eventually joined forces. Allegheny, for instance, changed its name to USAir, then took over PSA and Piedmont to become a fully fledged major. In fact when you trace the lineage of America's majors, you see that nearly all of them were formed through consolidations of smaller carriers. Once upon a time, * all * airlines were regionals.
Northwest Airlines is today part of Delta, but itself was pieced together from no fewer than four regionals. in 1986 Northwest merged with Republic Airlines. Republic, for its part, was the recent amalgamation of Hughes Airwest (Phoenix), Southern Airways (Atlanta), and North Central Airlines (Minneapolis). What a lunatic mix of compass points that was. We imagine the old Northwest "NW" compass logo spinning helplessly in circles, looking for its one true home...."
The FULL article is here:
http://life.salon.com/2011/10/25/what_makes_a_great_looking_jetliner/singleton/
Recently in ASK THE PILOT:
AIRLINES REAL AND IMAGINED: A MEMOIR
"...My formative obsessions were very different from those of most people who grow up to become pilots. I grew up obsessed with route maps and airline timetables. I memorized the logos and liveries of airlines from around the world, and at age twelve I could sketch out most of them freehand. Most people who become pilots could not care less about those things. In fact most pilots know very little about airlines themselves. They're simply not into airlines. They're into FLYING..."
The FULL article is here:
http://life.salon.com/2011/10/19/my_peculiar_route_to_pilothood/singleton/
And remember, the BLOG button on www.askthepilot.com always takes you to the most current installment of ASK THE PILOT
Am I right about the A380? Or am I right?
OF AIRPLANES AND SKYSCRAPERS
an excerpt:
"...You might remember my comparison between jetliners and skyscrapers, borrowing from the architecture critic Paul Goldberger. 'Most architects who design skyscrapers focus on two aesthetic problems,' wrote Goldberger in an issue of The New Yorker a few years back. "How to meet the ground and how to meet the sky...' It's much the same with airplane designers, and if we think of a jetliner as a horizontal skyscraper, its beauty is gained or lost mainly through the sculpting of the nose and tail.
The Boeing 787 fails in the tail, and the whole plane suffers from it. Though not to the extent that the A380 is ruined by its nose. Or 'head,' maybe, is the better term: there is something grotesquely anthropomorphic about the front of the A380. It's like a plane that's missing a chromosome. Amazing that the same people who brought us Concorde were responsible for such a monster.
Concorde wasn't just a great * looking * plane, but that name, too: Concorde. The main idea, presumably, was to convey solidarity in the Anglo-French partnership that designed and built the thing. But it goes beyond that. There's something wonderfully evocative about the sound of that word: Concorde. It says sleek, fast, stylish -- a little bit haughty and probably out of your league.
That's something I miss: commercial planes that were named rather than numbered. Aside from Concorde we had the Comet, Trident, Mercure and Vanguard. Other planes were given nicknames in conjunction with numbers, like the L-1011 TriStar. The 787 falls in this category, though I'm not especially fond of the 'Dreamliner' designation. The imagery there is a little too wobbly and ethereal. People don't want their planes flailing around or nodding off. Dreamliner was in contention with three other possibilities: Global Cruiser, Stratoclimber, and eLiner. Global Cruiser sounds like a yacht, or a really big SUV. Stratoclimber sounds like an action hero. And eLiner is almost too awful to contemplate. Sort of like 'iPlane.'
The 747, for its part, remains a beauty all around: elegant prow, sexy tail, and the palindromic poetry of that name: seven-forty-seven..."
The FULL article is here:
http://life.salon.com/2011/10/25/what_makes_a_great_looking_jetliner/singleton/
PLUS, REGIONALS THEN AND NOW
An excerpt:
"Today the term regional airline refers to any of the numerous, mercenary code-share outfits stripped of their individual identities. You know them by their Express or Connection suffixes. In the old days the regional moniker referred to any of a number of small but wholly independent carriers. They were described as regional because, as many of their names implied, they focused operations in a particular part of the country.
A number of these companies eventually joined forces. Allegheny, for instance, changed its name to USAir, then took over PSA and Piedmont to become a fully fledged major. In fact when you trace the lineage of America's majors, you see that nearly all of them were formed through consolidations of smaller carriers. Once upon a time, * all * airlines were regionals.
Northwest Airlines is today part of Delta, but itself was pieced together from no fewer than four regionals. in 1986 Northwest merged with Republic Airlines. Republic, for its part, was the recent amalgamation of Hughes Airwest (Phoenix), Southern Airways (Atlanta), and North Central Airlines (Minneapolis). What a lunatic mix of compass points that was. We imagine the old Northwest "NW" compass logo spinning helplessly in circles, looking for its one true home...."
The FULL article is here:
http://life.salon.com/2011/10/25/what_makes_a_great_looking_jetliner/singleton/
Recently in ASK THE PILOT:
AIRLINES REAL AND IMAGINED: A MEMOIR
"...My formative obsessions were very different from those of most people who grow up to become pilots. I grew up obsessed with route maps and airline timetables. I memorized the logos and liveries of airlines from around the world, and at age twelve I could sketch out most of them freehand. Most people who become pilots could not care less about those things. In fact most pilots know very little about airlines themselves. They're simply not into airlines. They're into FLYING..."
The FULL article is here:
http://life.salon.com/2011/10/19/my_peculiar_route_to_pilothood/singleton/
And remember, the BLOG button on www.askthepilot.com always takes you to the most current installment of ASK THE PILOT
Am I right about the A380? Or am I right?