These two guys were trying to land at Gustaf III of Saint Barthélemy (a.k.a. St. Barth) (and the IATA/ICAO code is SBH/TFFJ) doing some jokes in one of the most difficult approach to an airport EVER!

Or are they Bert & Ernie?

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The recently unveiled Air France A380 that was flying from New York Kennedy Airport (KJFK) to Paris (LFPG) was forced to land back to New York, just 90 minutes after it took off. It is said that a minor computer problem could make that happens.

“It was Friday 30th at night. After 90 minutes of normal flight, the airplane was obliged to go back to the departure airport, New York Kennedy. The airplane is brand new, and it’s breaking in. The minor computer trouble caused some lost of accuracy on navigation parameters” an Air France spokesman said.

Air France A380

The Air France A380, the largest double-decker ever, lift his flight a week ago (Friday 20th) from Paris Roissy-Charles de Gaulle to New York – J.F. Kennedy with more than 500 passengers onboard.

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The US Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, also known as Blue Angels,  is an aerobatic team from the US Navy. Every year, they perform in more than 70 shows around the States. Their birds, the F/A-18 Hornet, is one of the most emblematic aircraft, maybe much more emblematic than the Boeing 747.

The Blue Angels were born in 1946, and the main aim of this Squadron is to enhance the US Navy recruitment, trying to excite young people to enroll the Navy. And they certainly do.

Some of their tricks are the half-Cuban 8 takeoff, the knife-edge pass, the section high alpha or the Delta formation. If you want more info about them, just go to their official website.

And now, check this video out, with Van Halen as Blue Angels soundtrack. Awesome.

And here you have the Fat Albert (Hercules C-130) with a Jet Assisted Takeoff.

 

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Hey there! Welcome back to CrossingTheSkies. We have been off since January, but we are back on the road again.

Today, I would like to show you an amazing guy, with an amazing car and an amazing skills. He is Ken Block, and he is a professional rally driver. But, in his free time, he usually drives his Subaru WRX STi, and makes the most brilliant stunts ever. If you put all this to Inyokern (IYK/KIYK), a municipal airport in California, you got the best show for sure.

The tv show, Top Gear, put their cameras and his host (Jeremy Clarkson) inside Ken’s car, to cast every move and every jum…well…let’s see the video. A whole lot of adrenaline.

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From CrossingTheSkies staff, we wish you a nice and merry christmas, and a happy new year also! We hope you found this blog beautiful, and we thank you all for visiting it!

We expect a new year (2009) with plenty of new and fresh material, new posts, aviation news, aeronautics and some more.

See you around!

Andrew && Angel

Author: La Roche Spotters

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Since 2001, when Russia opened their airspace borders, some airlines thought that flying across the north pole would be much faster, like a shortcut. As a matter of fact, they got right. You can almost save up to 4 hours of flight, flying through the north pole instead of the regular routes.

These regular routes are the PACOTS (Pacific Organized Track System) going from the U.S. west coast to Japan and Honolulu. These are a set of predefined routes (it works like NAT routes), that start within US airspace (a fix) and they finish within Japan airspace (another fix). Between them, there’s just some waypoints defined with coordinates (there are no navaids to define them). So, an airplane departing from JFK had to go to the west coast and then, get en-route in these tracks.

United Airlines, Continental and other Japanese airlines started operating routes through the north pole. Then, they would save time, fuel and consequently money. But it’s not that easy. We all know that in the north pole it’s kinda cold, so it’s pretty likely that kerosene solidify. Nevertheless you can also descend to a lower altitude and modify your original route.

In addition, because of the earth’s magnetic field shape, the cosmic rays are much intense in that area. Therefore, the radiation exposure seems to be greater than the normal quantity. Some expert says that the total radiation exposure up there could be equal to 3 X-ray taken. Here you can appreciate a cross-polar route from JFK to Beijing (Japan) at Great Circle Mapper.

ATC services are not available, since we have no radar coverage. To sum up, it’s really an amazing adventure flying this kind of routes. Pilots must have good skills, and a big coat!

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