Be prepared?
Many years ago I read a short, science fiction story about a small town in America and its obsession with being prepared against sudden catastrophic attack whether it be from aliens, the sub-culture that threatened the fabric of the local community or nuclear bombardment by the countries enemies.
In the story the government encourages each town to compete with it’s neighbours to raise the level of ‘preparedness’ which, in turn, leads to an unprecedented level of hysteria and angst amongst the people themselves.
It turned out that this policy was not so much designed to keep communities safe but more to keep them under control by diverting their attention away from what the government was really up to.
All in all it was a depressing piece of fiction particularly as, at the time, we were all consumed by the ‘communist threat’ and the nuclear arms race.
Sadly I cannot find the story now. I think it appeared in one of those magazine anthologies that were popular at the time but it wasn’t, as far as I recall, written by one of the big sci-fi writers (Azimov, Heinlein or Clarke for example).
Over the years I kept remembering the story as the world was exposed to one perceived ‘threat’ after another. I am reminded of the story again as we witness what is happening with airport security in the United Kingdom.
Just to give you an example of how airport security has changed. In April 1968 I was Crew Purser on a passenger ship. The Suez Canal had closed a year earlier and our ships now sailed to Australia via the Cape of Good Hope thereby preventing a call at Bombay where we would normally make changes to our Indian and Pakistani crews. As a result the company arranged for the relief crew to be flown Bombay to London by Air India whilst the crew being relieved would fly back on the same aircraft. The change over took place at Heathrow and I was in charge of proceedings.
I was delayed with the in-coming group and the out-going men boarded the aircraft before I had a chance to say goodbye to them. Without thinking too much about it I walked into Departures and unchallenged (I was wearing uniform) passed through the gate and boarded the aircraft. I introduced myself to a stewardess and asked if I could speak to the Chief Pantryman (the senior man in the departing crew). No problem. Afterwards I left the aircraft and walked back through Departures (again unchallenged) and back to Arrivals to rejoin my in-coming crew who were waiting to board buses to take them to the ship at Southampton.
The rise of the Palestine Liberation Organisation changed all that. After a number of hijackings including the spectacular multiple hijack of four passenger aircraft to Dawson Field in Jordan during 1970, airport security measures were ramped up.
The remains of a BOAC VC10 airliner after it and 3 other hijacked airliners were blown up at Dawson Field, Jordan in 1970. No passengers or crew were aboard at the time.
No-one minded this. We could all understand the reason for it and whilst the security check was quick and non-intrusive we were all happy to go along with it.
30 years later 9/11 and Al Qaida re-focussed our attention to be followed, over the next 5 years, with several other incidents culminating in the July 7, 2005 attacks in London.
Rather than me trying to repeat it all, you should read this:-
The article raises the suggestion that many of the current security measures are not actually necessary. Is it possible that, just like the sci-fi story, there is some ulterior government motive in implying a danger that isn’t as great as they would have us believe?
Thanks to the lunatic Richard Reid (shoe bomber – failed) we must all now remove our shoes to have them checked for explosives even though the likelihood of successfully detonating such a device is virtually nil. Reid certainly couldn’t do so after several attempts at setting fire to his shoe which served only to alert people to what he was doing.
If it has a metal buckle then your belt has to come off too, leaving you clutching at your pants to keep them up while you shuffle barefoot, like some Guantanamo Bay intern, through a metal detector that has been tuned so high that the fillings in your teeth will set it off. The sharp pointy bit in the buckle is still a sharp pointy bit when they give the belt back so – what is the point? (the pun is unintentional)
Those tiny little ‘Swiss Army’ penknives that just about everyone carries on a key ring are a big ‘no-no’ – nasty, lethal weapons those!
Thanks to the clowns who thought they could assemble a liquid bomb from otherwise innocent looking substances once on board (subsequently scientifically proved to be an impossible task outside a laboratory), factory sealed bottles of water, soft drinks, baby milk, toothpaste, shampoo, shaving cream, after shave, talcum powder – you name it, it’s all considered potentially lethal. And don’t be fooled by the published limits on bottle/package size. Depending on his (or her) frame of mind on the day, the security operative is quite likely to confiscate it regardless of size.
Having had all these factory sealed items taken then you may visit the ‘Duty Free’ shops run by the airport operators to purchase exactly the same items as replacements but at a cost considerably higher than you paid for the ones ‘confiscated’.
Does that sound like a scam or what?
I have a very nice travel pack of miniature toiletries that was a gift years ago when I was a passenger with Emirates Airlines. It is one of the most useful airline gifts I have ever received and I keep it replenished to take it into the cabin with me every time I travel. Or I used to. Now I’m worried that some ‘oik’ at security will take a fancy to it and ‘confiscate’ it for his own use. So now it goes into my hold baggage where it is of no use whatever as a travel accessory.
And what happens to all the factory sealed stuff that is ‘stolen’ from us? No receipt for these items of personal property is issued and I’ll bet that a lot of it ends up on the shelves of the local ‘open all hours’ or even finds its way around the corner and into shops in the departure lounge.
It’s not just passengers that suffer but aircrew as well. The same people who are charged with the responsibility for getting us safely from point A to B in a 100+ ton aluminium tube filled with combustible fuel and travelling close to the speed of sound are being routinely belittled and humiliated in full view of their passengers.
Some carriers do not provide in-flight meals so flight deck crews take things like soup, yoghurt, sandwiches, pieces of fruit, soft drinks et al to sustain them during their working day which can be 12 hours or more.
Guess what? These items too are now routinely confiscated along with things like eye drops for contact lens wearers and even nail clippers. However, if you freeze the soup it seems, ‘that’s OK then, Guv’.
How insane is that?
As one pilot said in an internet forum on the subject; ‘I don’t need to carry anything air side with me if I decide to commit a terrorist crime. All I have to do is take off, gain a little height and then aim my aircraft at a suitable target like the Houses of Parliament. Job done!’
A story that came out of Southampton airport tells of a pilot who had his nail clippers confiscated so he told the security ‘goon’ that there was an axe in the aircraft. ‘Oh’, said the goon, ‘you’re not allowed to have that – it’s a dangerous weapon’. The pilot went out to the aircraft, took the axe and handed it to the security man. He then wrote ‘emergency fire axe missing’ in the aircraft maintenance log. The aircraft was grounded, the flight cancelled and the pilot went home for the day on full pay. It would be interesting to know what the airport operator’s response to that incident was when confronted by an irate airline.
And in that story lies the crux of the problem – the quality of people that are employed as security personnel at UK airports. These days it’s only the (usually) unemployable who would even consider taking on such a job. Not gifted with any intelligence and ‘jobswerfs’ to a man, they are unable to apply reason to any given situation no matter how obvious the answer might be.
‘I’m only doing my job, Guv.’ and that’s as far as you get with them. Their employers (the airport operators) allow them to to exercise their imagined ‘power’ over their fellow man which they do, indiscriminately and with obvious enjoyment. There are also some serious implications of harassment and sexual abuse that the UK’s PC and ‘elf ‘n’ safety’ culture seems content to turn a blind eye to.
Need further proof? Just look at this: Lethal T-shirt (You may get a random advertisement before the news clip).
I bet they don’t talk about their jobs too loudly in their local pubs though.
President George W Bush has a lot to answer for with his (so-called) ‘War on Terror’ along with the political lapdogs who pander to his particular paranoia.
Thinking back to the sci-fi story, isn’t airport security in the UK one instance of ‘preparedness’ gone very badly wrong?
Fair ’nuff
There is a superb clip on You Tube where the late, great Ray Hanna flying a Spitfire parts the hair of a TV reporter whose name I wish I could remember but can’t.
I play the clip regularly because, whilst it looks dangerous, it wasn’t. It’s just very funny.
I played the clip again a couple of nights ago and it triggered a dim and distant memory of a story that my father used to tell about a Spitfire pilot he knew in Germany just after the end of the Second World War.
My Dad, an army officer, was sent into Germany with the occupation forces in 1945. He was based in Iserlohn where he was initially billeted at the Officers Mess. ‘Z’ Mess in Iserlohn had a reputation for being a tad wild.
There was a Mess party every Friday night that usually ran non-stop through the weekend during which just about anything could happen.
The Spitfire pilot was a Wing Commander who, in civilian life, had been a barrister. For this ‘sin’ he was appointed a war trials judge.
The mental stress of being a Trials Judge must have been enormous. Quite apart from dealing with racketeers and black-marketers, he would, fairly regularly, don the black cap in order to hand down the ultimate sentence on a criminal of a different standing.
All of this took its toll and Tubby (that was his nickname) would hit the bottle hard during the weekend merriment that was taking place in ‘Z’ Mess. As the evening progressed he would slide slowly under the table and assume a foetal position clutching his glass.
His great drinking buddy was a Canadian (nicknamed ‘Moose’) who would keep an eye on him and make sure he stayed safe and sound. Tubby was quite small whilst Moose was a giant of a man. At regular intervals he would reach under the table and, one handed, lift Tubby up from under it by the front of his uniform tunic, still in his foetal crouch, to fill his glass before gently lowering him back under the table again.
Tubby’s only response would be to murmur ‘Fair ‘nuff – fair ‘nuff”.
Being a serving RAF pilot, Tubby was required to fly an aeroplane once a month in order to retain his ‘flying’ pay. Because he was tied up with legal matters during the week, the only days he could fly were Saturday and Sunday.
Shortly after my Dad arrived in Iserlohn, Moose invited him to accompany them to a nearby airfield where Tubby was to take his monthly flight check. This was scheduled for Sunday morning. The mess party that had started on Friday night had been a good one and had extended through Saturday night as well.
Early on Sunday morning Moose and my Dad recovered Tubby from his usual place under a table. He could hardly walk and had to be helped to my Dad’s Humber 4 x 4 staff car occasionally murmuring, “Fair ‘nuff”.
A Spitfire was waiting with its engine ticking over when they arrived at the airfield. Moose guided Tubby to the aircraft, assisted him with his parachute, and helped him into the cockpit. The canopy was slid shut and every one stood back and held their breath.
I suppose that, if you can survive six years of all out war, going head to head with fighter pilots who were as good as and (sometimes) better than you, it says a lot about the instinctive way a born pilot reacts when he finds himself in his natural environment.
The Spitfire taxied to the runway and took off. My Dad’s account of what followed would occasionally leave him at a loss for words when it came to describing what Tubby did with that aeroplane.
My Dad wasn’t a pilot so he didn’t have the right names for the manoeuvres he witnessed but from what he told me it seemed that Tubby began his ’show’ by executing a vertical climb immediately after lift off culminating in a roll off the top (or Immelmann turn) leading to a very low pass over the assembled witnesses, some of whom dropped prone as the aircraft passed over them. That’s why the You Tube clip reminded me of the story.
What followed was a classic demonstration of a man in total control of a flying machine. It was a brilliant display of just what a Spitfire in the right hands was capable of. 30 minutes later the final act was a high speed inverted pass at low level downwind along the runway, so low that my Dad swore that there were only inches between the propeller tips and the concrete. Just beyond the runway threshold, Tubby pushed into an inverted 3/4 loop that left the Spitfire perfectly positioned for a gentle landing right on the numbers.
Painting by Barry A F Clark
The aircraft taxied in, the engine stopped and Tubby could be seen unlocking the canopy and cracking it open. Then – nothing.
Moose walked out to the aircraft, climbed onto the wing and slid the canopy open. He lifted Tubby out of the cockpit and helped him back to my Dad’s car.
Then they drove back to ‘Z” Mess to continue the party.
Next morning, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, Tubby went back to being a Judge. Amazingly, he was able to shrug off the excesses of the weekend as if nothing had happened.
As to whether he could remember flying an aeroplane and putting on an amazing display of flying skills the previous day - who knows?
London Airports expansion
We are at a time when airlines are downsizing and mothballing aircraft in order to cut costs, the cost of aviation fuel has reached a record high, is set to go higher and threatening to close down many smaller airlines altogether. Add to that the increase in food prices and the cost of living and the reduced availability of credit which will, inevitably, translate into less people who can afford to travel by air.
In the midst of all this the UK’s elected ‘leaders’ seem determined to move ahead with a ridiculous project costing billions of pounds of taxpayers money that not only destroys whole townships and the environment surrounding them but wrecks the lives of tens of thousands of citizens.
What planet do these people come from?
There is simply no need to expand Gatwick, Stansted or Heathrow. Just better utilise the airports that already surround London.
Think about Heathrow and look at this picture. (Note: To increase the size of the picture right click on it and select View Image)
Image courtesy of Google Earth
This is Northolt Airport which is just 5.7 miles north of Heathrow with a 1,684 metre (5,500 feet) 46 metre wide asphalt runway. It is easily accessible. The A40 road runs along its southern fence and the Central Line (part of the London Underground network) passes close to its eastern fence.
Why not make Northolt part of London Heathrow and use it for movements by B737, A320 and MD80 (and smaller) aircraft currently using Heathrow itself? Let Heathrow then concentrate on B777/A330/MD11 (and larger) aircraft movements. We are talking about up to 200 movements a day that could be taken away from Heathrow to ease the congestion.
Northolt will require a terminal building and multi-story car parking (there is plenty of space on the south side as you can see from the picture) and an underground link to the Piccadilly Line that will allow speedy transfer of passengers from Northolt to the various terminals at Heathrow.
That’s going to cost a whole lot less than the present suggestion and will probably remove any necessity for an expansion at Heathrow forever.
Look at this picture.
Image courtesy of Google Earth
This is a map of the biggest airports that ring London today. They’re all active and they’ve been there for years and most of them are totally under-utilised.
In the same way that I have suggested for Heathrow, Gatwick could hive off smaller traffic to Biggin Hill whilst Luton and Stansted could spread their operations by adding Benson (to the west) and Southend (to the East) thereby creating an arc of four airports north of London.
And look at Farnborough just to the south west of Heathrow. It has a 2,380 metre runway - long enough for the biggest aircraft. This airport is ideally situated for passengers coming up from the West Country.
What London DOES need is fast, comfortable rail links between all these inner airports. That is where the taxpayers money should be spent.
I have left London City Airport out of this because its primary purpose is to support the City of London business houses that need fast access into the European capitals. It is not a long-haul, tourist travel facility.
Finally, look at what is available regionally.
- East – Manston
- South – Bournemouth and Southampton
- West – Exeter, Bristol and Newquay
- South Wales – Cardiff
- The Midlands – Birmingham.
- The North – Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds/Bradford.
- Scotland – Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There is more than enough existing airport capacity to cover the nation’s needs for the foreseeable future.
There is certainly no need to expand anything.
Pandora’s box
In 1949 when I was 6 years old we moved to Australia. We lived first in Melbourne and later in Hobart, Tasmania where, because my Dad worked with the Government Housing Department, we were given a brand new house on the estate at Warrane (or ‘the Warren’ as it was known locally).
When we first moved in we had electricity but the roads weren’t finished and we had a fair hike to get to the nearest bus stop. Most significantly there was no mains sewage. That didn’t arrive until a couple of years later.
In the back garden of each house was a combination outside toilet and garden shed. The ‘facilities’ consisted of a wooden bench with a hole in it under which was a 20 gallon metal can partially filled with creosote to keep the smell down and to discourage the flies. The cans were replaced through a flap at the back of the building. In Australian parlance this was ‘the Dunny’.
The local council provided a weekly sewage collection service using trucks that looked not unlike a brewers dray but carrying something a lot less savoury than barrels of ale!
These were ‘Dunny Carts’ and the stalwarts who manned them were universally known as ‘the Dunny Men’.
There was a song around at the time called ‘The Butchers Boy’
Mama dear come over here
And see who’s looking in my window
It’s the butcher boy and oh
He’s got a bundle in his hand
(Written by Paolo Citorello and sung by Rudy Vallee)
I hasten to add that the song goes on to better explain what the ‘bundle in his hand’ actually was - something to do with sausages I believe.
Of course it was parodied to
Mama dear beware beware
Just look who’s passing by the window
It’s the Dunny Man and
He’s got a Dunny Can up on his back
At the first sight and sound of the Dunny Cart careering round the corner and into your street festooned with strings of flying toilet paper and accompanied by it’s own personal swarm of flies, doors and windows banged shut, children were dragged unceremoniously into the house and the area went silent as the populace collectively held its breath.
God help you if you were actually on the Dunny when these guys arrived. No quarter was given.
The cans were designed with lids for sanitation and the protection of those handling them but the lids were seldom used. It took too much time to fit them and the men were on piece work. The more cans they dealt with the more they earned hence the flying paper and a certain amount of spillage.
After the Dunny Cart had departed and after a decent interval to let the air clear, doors and windows were cautiously re-opened and life returned to normal.
The depot for the sewage operation was by the river in North Hobart where the waste was loaded into a specially designed barge that took it out into the Derwent River estuary to be dumped. The barge made the trip two or three times a day accompanied by a huge flock of seagulls as it made its way down river.
Warrane was on the other side of the river from Hobart city. There was a regular ferry service from Bellerive but if you went by bus or car it was across a floating bridge with a lifting span on the city side to allow ships to pass through. The sewage barge was a regular disrupter of bridge traffic.
A ship passes through the lifting span of Hobarts floating bridge
In the foreground work has begun on the replacement bridge
If you were unfortunate enough to be caught when a vessel needed to go through the bridge then you were in for a 20 minute or so wait as the span was lifted, the ship passed through and the span lowered again. My school was on the Hobart side but the excuse that ‘the bridge was up’ if kids were late for school was seldom accepted.
‘Yer should’ve left home earlier’ (thump).
However, if you just said ‘the Pandora’ then you got a sympathetic nod and no further questions asked.
Why? Guess what the sewage barge was named?
A real Pandora’s Box!
Some memorable flights
My first (ever) flight was in an Ansett (Australia) DC3 from Hobart to Melbourne via Launceston in January 1953. My father had been crew on a yacht in the Sydney Hobart Race and we’d gone over to Hobart to spend Christmas and to meet him when he got there. They were late finishers and because he was late back at work in Melbourne we took a plane rather than the train from Hobart to Launceston (about 120 miles and it took a whole day) and then the overnight ferry ‘Taroona’ from Beauty Point, 30 miles from Launceston, across Bass Strait to Melbourne.
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The ferry ‘Taroona’ leaving Melbourne |
The forward end of an Ansett DC3 cabin. Compare that to today! |
The ‘Taroona’ would roll on a wet towel and we’d had a very rough crossing on the way over from Melbourne. This may also have influenced my parents decision to fly back instead.
To say that I was gob-smacked by my first flight would be an understatement. I was 10 years old and I can remember to this day every detail of that flight right down to a rivet popping out of the overhead air trunking and landing in my mother’s lap. The trip was made all the more memorable when my kid sister sprayed the forward end of the cabin with projectile vomit just as we landed at Essendon - Melbourne Aerodrome (they weren’t called airports then). The stewardess was not impressed!
My next flight was 10 years later and whilst I was at sea. During the ships’ call at Sydney I had the opportunity to drive to Wagga Wagga stopping in Canberra for lunch and seeing some really impressive scenery along the way. The return was with Airlines of New South Wales in a Fokker F27 Friendship. The most memorable part of that flight was arriving over Sydney Harbour. Many years later I was able to revisit the memory in a Piper Cherokee from Bankstown Airfield. The intervening years had not diminished the experience in any way.
Sydney harbour - breathtaking! (photo courtesy Airliners.net)
I next flew in 1973 on Playboy Club business with BEA to Belfast, out in a Trident and back in a Britannia. The most memorable part of that trip, apart from escorting the Bunny of the Year, was spending a night at the Maze Prison as a guest of the British Army.
In 1976 I moved to live and work in Saudi Arabia arriving on a BA VC10 and I seem to have spent a considerable portion of my life sitting in aeroplanes ever since.
The first of many memorable flights was my first return on Christmas leave from Dhahran along with 180 or so other wine, women and song starved oilmen fresh from several months in the desert. In those days aircraft were lined up nose to tail in two rows across the front of the terminal. Our aircraft was in the outside line waiting to depart when another aircraft from the inside line tried to cut between us and the aircraft parked in front. There wasn’t room and a collision was narrowly averted.
A call was put out for the only pushback vehicle at Dhahran but it’s regular driver had taken it home! It was three hours before the offending aircraft could be pushed back and we could be on our way.
We couldn’t be disembarked – there was no room inside the terminal so, in order to quell a rising tide of dissent, the crew took the brave decision to close the doors, shut the blinds and open the bar. The result, three hours later as we took off, was a Tristar full of happily inebriated oilmen. The party continued flat out until we reached Athens where we had to stop to pick up more fuel (and more beer - we were in danger of drinking the plane dry) then on to Heathrow where it continued in the bar at Terminal 1 whilst we all waited for our connecting flights.
If the Saudi’s had found out we could all have spent Christmas in jail.
Other memorable flights in no particular order:-
- Arriving and departing the Maldives (the short runway) – flight deck jump seat Air Lanka B737
- My first seaplane flight, again in the Maldives (see picture below)
- The snow covered Alps on a crystal clear moonlit winters night – flight deck visit Air France (Airbus A310 I think)
- Flying low level along a desert runway to scare sleeping camels off it so we could land – Saudi Aramco Fokker F27 1976
- Hong Kong Kai Tak – sadly not the ‘chequer board’ approach to runway 13 that I’d hoped for but the almost as impressive approach to 31 – Cathay Pacific B747 jump seat.
- Legging it across the tarmac between connecting flights as artillery shells started dropping on the airport boundary – Middle East Airlines Beirut 1979
- A Hajj flight to Jeddah in an ancient Saudi B707 in 1977 – open sided luggage racks - it was that old
- Arriving in Baghdad from Amman in 1980 as one of only 12 passengers on a B747 – seemed odd at the time
- Trying to get out of Baghdad to go back to Amman and realizing why there were only 12 passengers on the 747 coming in – 5,000+ in the departure lounge with only 1,500 aircraft seats available that night (Iran Iraq war)
The Afghan highlands. Not quite as good as the moonlit Alps but still impressive
Sun Express Twin Otter on floats - Maldives
But my most memorable flight of all has to be my first solo when I was learning to fly - December 12, 1977 .
Over the years since, the magic, the excitement and the pleasure of flying with the airlines has faded. The ‘pack ‘em in - screw as much as you can outa them’ business model has done that for me. Indeed, I view my next trip to London with so much trepidation that I’ve decided to fork out for Premium Economy.
The best bits, as always, will be take-off and landing when the pilot in me listens to every sound, feels every movement and knows exactly what is happening.
But now, thanks to American inspired ‘terrism’ paranoia, airline Captains are no longer allowed to invite passengers onto their flight decks thereby giving up a major aspect of their authority to lesser people (i.e. politicians and sundry erks) to the detriment of enthusiasts like me.
And that’s really sad.
A flight of fancy
I have long been a fan of airships.
The ones we remember most are the German Graf Zeppelin and the ill-fated Hindenberg. Britain built the R100 and then the R101 which crashed and burned in France on her maiden voyage. America had the Akron, Macon, Shenandoah and Los Angeles among many others. The Norwegians and the Italians were also into airship technology.
The Americans held the upper hand as far as airship development was concerned because they controlled the worlds (then) only supply of helium gas leaving the rest of the world forced to use hydrogen. Whilst helium wasn’t quite as good a lifting agent as hydrogen it was a zillion times safer. Look what happened to the Hindenberg and the R101.
There are some excellent websites with photographs of the passenger experience aboard the great airships. Try www.nlhs.com/interior.htm or just Google (Images) ‘airship cabin’. Weight was a major factor in airship design but the largest carried around 100 passengers and crew and provided private cabins to sleep in, a dining room, promenade decks, in one case a grand piano and (since everyone smoked in those days) a smoking room despite the fact that they were surrounded by something like 7 million cubic feet of inflammable hydrogen!
The sheer size of the airships was breathtaking. The USS Shenandoah was just under 800 feet long (3 times the length of a Boeing 747) and 130 feet in diameter. She could carry, launch and recover a fighter aircraft.
The idea of lighter than air flight hasn’t gone away. The Good Year blimps carrying up to 12 passengers on sight-seeing trips have been around for years. A company called Aeroscraft in America is planning a gigantic airship where 2/3rds of the lift is achieved by 14 million cubic feet of helium whilst the remaining lift is provided by engine power and forward motion. They are talking about a 500 ton payload. See http://www.aerosml.com/main.htm
The proposed Aeroscraft airship built to carry a 500 ton payload
My own theories are much more modest. I envisage a 150 foot long by 40 foot wide gondola half of which is taken up by 50 small 2 berth cabins for 94 passengers and 6 crew while the other half comprises dining/lounge/bar and promenade areas.
A rigid frame gas envelope would be around 400 foot long with an oval cross section 60 foot high by 120 foot wide. The envelope would contain no machinery or moving parts leaving it capable of being quickly detached from the gondola for easy maintenance. The envelope would contain a number of oval, doughnut shaped ballonet’s filled with helium with a separate air bag running through the central core of the ‘doughnuts’ where air will be heated to increase or decrease lift as required.
Construction of the envelope frame and the gondola would use light weight carbon fiber composites.
Power would be provided by two light weight, high speed diesel generators using bio-fuel and driving 4 independently gimbaled ducted electric fans attached to the sides of the gondola to provide a combination of lift and thrust, steering and trim.
The rigid frame construction of the envelope will allow operating speeds up to 150 knots at 12,000 feet with the shape of the envelope providing additional lift.
150 knots means London to Sydney non-stop in 48 hours or so or London to New York in around 18 hours and for a fraction of the cost and environmental damage that a jetliner creates. It takes 20+ hours to get to Sydney using an airliner today. Add at least 24 hours for rest and recuperation. An airship taking the same time in total but offering proper sleep, relaxation and space to move about during the flight must surely be a viable alternative particularly when it comes to cost and passenger comfort.
A flight of fancy? I wonder?
Lucky man!
I have a friend who visits his daughter in Australia every couple of years or so. In the past that journey has been by air and with the least expensive ticket he could find. Inevitably that meant a three or four sector flight each way with no opportunity to break the journey en route and thereby make the experience more palatable.
He’s retired and increasingly he finds that the flights to and from Australia leave him ‘wrecked’ for several days when he steps off the plane at each end of the trip.
So, for his latest visit to Australia, he chose to go by sea. Not in an ocean liner (because there are none) but as one of 12 passengers on a container ship leaving Tilbury (London) and reaching Sydney 35 days later.
From the e-Mail I received after he arrived it seems he’s been blown away by the experience. The ship called at Hamburg, Rotterdam and La Spezia with time for brief visits ashore then the Suez Canal which, for a first timer, is an experience not to be missed. 12 days at sea to reach Fremantle after transiting Suez might seem a bit daunting but when you have the run of a large ship with a swimming pool, a comfortable cabin, sun, fresh air and three meals a day what’s to really complain about?
The sort of accommodation you get.
He’s arrived fit, relaxed, sun-tanned and ready to go – no jet-lag, no DVT, no aches and pains – just one very happy traveller.
I don’t know what it cost but he probably paid around 80 Euros a day or (in total) about the same as ‘premium’ economy class on an airline.
I accept that there are many for whom a journey time of 35 days is totally out of the question. It’s only retirees and those who do not have jobs to go back to who can afford the time.
But given the choice I know which I would choose!
The beginning of the end?
(This is the third and last part of a look back at the beginnings of the airline age. You should read ‘Whatever happened to “the passenger’s always right”?’ and ‘ Ships out! Planes in’ first)
I believe the rot set in with the introduction of jet airliners beginning with the British built Comet and the American Boeing 707 in the mid 1950’s. This opened the door to mass air travel at much less cost and taking up much less time.
In the 1960’s we had inexpensive holiday packages to Spain and other Mediterranean hotspots. Suddenly, anybody with a week’s holiday and £ 25 to spare could jet off to the sun.
The 1970’s saw an explosion in international air travel brought about by the introduction of wide bodied airliners and a proliferation of airlines as each nation set up its own flag carrier.
As seat availability increased and fuel oil remained cheap then fares came down and the whole thing became exponential. Cheaper fares created a greater demand for seats. The greater the demand for seats, the less comfort for passengers as the airlines strove to pack as many as they could into their aircraft.
The latest chapter in the saga unfolded in the late 1990’s with the introduction of low cost/no frills airlines.
A journey in an aeroplane today has become (arguably) one of the most awful experiences that one might experience in a lifetime. The whole experience from beginning to end has become a nightmare.
Passengers passing through airports are routinely belittled, humiliated and degraded by airport security staff with little or no conception of customer relations or service who are responding, doglike to government induced terrorism paranoia .
London Heathrow security queue
Airline personnel, both on the ground and in the air, can be very rude and appear disillusioned, lacking in motivation having abandoned all pretence of enjoying their work whilst they are managed by people more interested in the bottom line of a spreadsheet than in creating and perpetuating a viable service industry with satisfied customers at the receiving end.
Increasing instances of operational delays and management foul-ups lead to rising levels of passenger frustration and fury before and during a flight.
Once in the air the environment for most passengers, trapped for many hours at a time in seats with minimum width and legroom, is not only extremely uncomfortable but downright unhealthy.
The latest we hear is that some airlines wish to sanction the use of mobile phones in flight. That, for many of us, will be the last straw.
Bigger aircraft, more flights, more passengers. The whole concept of air travel in its present form has finally spiralled to the bottom of the swamp and all the shiny new terminals and additional runways in the world will never resurrect it. The recent debacle at Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 is stark testament to that.
As passengers there is little we can do to help ourselves since there are few viable alternatives to air travel and the airlines and the airport operators know that and shamelessly exploit it.
Until now, that is. With a world financial crisis looming, a sharp reduction in the availability of credit and disposable income and the soaring cost of fuel, the airlines are going to be experiencing some very lean times and sooner than they might believe.
I believe that, just as the shipping companies had to rethink, redesign and repackage their product back in the late 60’s, the air transport industry as a whole needs a radical reappraisal – airlines, airport operators and aircraft designers alike. It needs people in all levels of management who have actually worked on the front line, facing fare–paying passengers who have every right to expect a better deal for their money.
Never will there be a better time for the industry to step back, regroup and re-organise ready to start again for the benefit of all when the financial climate has recovered.
It’s time, once again, for the passenger to be ‘always right’
About
Julian was born in Ilfracombe, UK in 1943. He has lived as an expatriate Englishman for most of his life first in Germany then Australia, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and now Thailand where he lives in retirement with his wife and daughter. He began his career as an officer with the Orient Line, serving in big passenger liners to Australia and around the world. With the demise of line voyaging he left the sea and after a spell working with the Playboy organisation in the UK he became the Operations Manager for a support services company in Saudi Arabia. In later years his career changed direction and he worked in the IT industry as a programmer, lecturer and finally as a project manager. He is occasionally called out of retirement to act as (he calls it) an itinerant corporate medicine man - attempting to cure the self inflicted ills of businesses that get their IT strategy wrong. His passion is flying - he holds a pilots licence and exercises the privileges whenever possible.
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