Tag Archives: movies

718 Aircraft Towing

Advances in aircraft towing systems, personal flying vehicles, and a story about becoming an airplane geek.

Aircraft Towing Systems

Vince Howie,  CEO of Aircraft Towing Systems World Wide, LLC.
Vince Howie

Micah and Max interview Vince Howie, the CEO of Aircraft Towing Systems World Wide, LLC (or ATS). We learn how this company is working to lessen the considerable cost and environmental impact of aircraft movement on the ground.

ATS aircraft towing system.
ATS aircraft towing system.

Films With My Father

Our Main(e) Man Micah brings us a story he calls Films With My Father which explains why Micah is an airplane geek.

AIR EV

Hillel Glazer, our Aviation Entrepreneurship and Innovation Correspondent has another “Beyond the Press Release” interview from EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2022. This time he speaks with Rani Plaut, the CEO of AIR EV. The company seeks to create personal, intuitive flying vehicles at a production rate usually achieved with automobiles. They recently demonstrated flight and control at their facility in Israel. 

Video: AIR ONE eVTOL Full Scale Test Flight

Hosts this Episode

Max Flight, our Main(e) Man Micah, and Hillel Glazer.

714 Airline Contact Centers

We learn about airline contact centers with an expert in that field, and we talk with a Hollywood pilot and aerial coordinator who is widely known for his work on Top Gun Maverick and other major blockbusters. In the news, Boeing and Airbus are both having narrowbody delivery problems, a new US aircraft carrier reaches a milestone, a new avionics market report has some good news, and the French BEA investigates pilots who didn’t follow procedure.

Airline Contact Centers

Justin Robins from contact center company UJET.
Justin Robins

Justin Robins has had a long career in customer experience and contact centers, working at companies like Network Solutions, Intercontinental Hotels, Grizzly Industrial, and Hershey Entertainment and Resorts. His expertise is in contact center quality assurance, training and development, and workforce optimization.

Justin is Senior Director, Corporate Communications & Evangelism at UJET. The company provides a cloud-based call center application that integrates with CRM (customer relationship management) solutions.

Justin discusses airline customer contact centers broadly, including value to the airlines, contact center metrics, and utilizing the data that accumulates. He also explains reactive versus proactive service and how channels have changed over time – beginning with 800 phone numbers, then email and web-based chat, social media, and now smartphone apps.

He explains the UJET approach where the contact center system is purpose-built for the airline CRM system. Justin sees a contact center future with increased automation, self-service, and proactive outbound service.

Justin has significant experience as a keynote speaker and business consultant and is frequently recognized as one of the top experts to follow in contact center and customer experience.

Hollywood Aerial Coordinator

Kevin Larosa
Kevin Larosa

Kevin Larosa (“K2”) is a sought-after pilot and Hollywood aerial coordinator who has worked on over 100 different motion picture and commercial productions. He’s Known for his work on major blockbusters like Top Gun Maverick, The Avengers, Iron Man, Transformers, and The Last Knight.

Kevin is licensed to fly a variety of aircraft ranging from helicopters and airplanes to Learjets and more. He’s an ATP-rated pilot trained and certified in a number of aircraft, holding type ratings in several Learjet models in addition to the C-130/ L-382 Hercules and the Sikorsky S-70/ UH-60. Kevin also holds an FAA Part 107 UAS rating for flying unmanned aircraft. He’s a member of the Screen Actors Guild and the Motion Picture Pilots Association.

Aviation News

Boeing’s Problems Mount (GE and Raytheon Take Note)

Boeing Is Removing Engines From Built 737 MAX Inventory Amid Supply Chain Problems

Is recovery at risk from a broken supply chain?

Supply chain problems are affecting both Boeing and Airbus narrowbody deliveries. Boeing is delivering 31 737 MAX jets per month compared to a pre-pandemic rate of 52 per month. Airbus is building 40 A320 family aircraft per month against a target of 75 per month by 2025. Engine suppliers are behind and Boeing plans to take engines off previously built 737 MAX aircraft and install them on newly produced airplanes. 

The nation’s newest aircraft carrier, the Enterprise, reaches a milestone

Newport News Shipbuilding just laid the keel for the USS Enterprise, a Ford-class aircraft carrier. At over 1,100 feet long and weighing some 100,000 tons, the ship is powered by two nuclear reactors and features an electromagnetic catapult. Completion is expected by 2028.

AEA Unveils Second-Quarter 2022 Avionics Market Report

The Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA) second-quarter avionics market report shows worldwide business and general aviation avionics sales up 11.7% from the first quarter, the eighth consecutive quarter of increasing sales. This is a 15.8% increase in total sales compared to the first six months of 2021, driven by a 35.6% increase in forward-fit sales compared to the same time frame one year ago.

Air France pilots suspended after brawling in cockpit

In June 2021, two pilots in the cockpit of an Airbus A320 became engaged in an altercation. The copilot would not comply with certain instructions and the captain grabbed him by the collar. There may have been a slap involved. A flight attendant broke up the fight. Air France has suspended the two pilots.

Crew of fuel-leak A330 did not shut down engine before suboptimal diversion

A French BEA investigation determined that the crew on a December 2020 Air France flight at cruise noticed the fuel level was 1.4 tons below what it should have been. The captain went on a rest break asking the first officer and relief pilot to monitor the fuel level. After about 20 minutes, the discrepancy on the A330-200 had increased to 2.1 tons. The captain was recalled and fuel leak procedures were implemented, with the exception of a required engine shutdown.  BEA says the captain’s decision to leave the engine running was not questioned.

Mentioned

Top 10 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Boeing

Video: 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Boeing

Hosts this Episode

Your hosts: Max Flight and Max Trescott.

427 How the Airplane Changed the World

We talk with the producer and director of a film about the ways aviation has transformed the world. Also, relationships between Middle Eastern and U.S. airlines, the outlook for business aircraft sales, Chinese radar advancements, a report of health problems with crew uniforms, and a compelling story by a Marine.

Twin Otter seaplane preparing to dock in the Maldives, from Living in the Age of Airplanes

Twin Otter seaplane preparing to dock in the Maldives, from Living in the Age of Airplanes

Guest

Brian J. Terwilliger is a licensed pilot captivated by flight since childhood. He is a filmmaker who produced and directed the National Geographic movie Living in the Age of Airplanes, narrated by Harrison Ford and featuring an original score by the late Academy Award® winning composer James Horner (Avatar, Titanic). The movie looks at the dramatic ways aviation has transformed the world, and was filmed in 18 countries, and across all 7 continents.

Following its premiere at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC, the film continued its successful run on giant screen, digital, IMAX® and museum cinemas worldwide in 2015/2016. It has now been released digitally and on DVD / Blu-ray, along with the release of the original soundtrack.

Brian’s first film, the 2005 feature One Six Right, focuses on the romance of flight as seen through a day in the life of the Van Nuys Airport, a local general aviation airport in a Los Angeles suburb.

News

Qatar Airways Hopes to Strengthen Relationship with American Airlines

The CAPA Centre for Aviation awarded Qatar Airways their Airline of the Year award. In a subsequent interview with Qatar CEO Akbar Al Baker, he talked about wanting to strengthen the airline’s strategic partnership with American Airlines.

Airline Coalition Urges Trump to Act

The Partnership for Open & Fair Skies issued a Statement from the Partnership for Open & Fair Skies on the Election of Donald Trump urging President-elect Donald Trump to stand up against state-owned Gulf airlines.

Cessna a bright spot in airplane delivery report

GAMA, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, released a report indicating that 3rd quarter business jet and airplane shipments worldwide were 534 units, compared to 542 a year ago. Billings were $4.1 billion, versus $5.3 billion in 2015.

Teal Group: Slow Aircraft Sales May Be The New Normal

Teal Group’s Richard Aboulafia is “cautiously confident” that the business aviation won’t get worse, but we may be seeing the new normal.

China Claims Its New Anti-Stealth Radars Can Detect the F-22

For some time, China has been working to develop a Very High Frequency (VHF) active-phased array radar. This kind of system has a greater ability to detect stealth aircraft. At the Zhuhai Air Show, China showed the JY-27A 3-D long-range surveillance/guidance radar and the broader bandwidth JY-26 Skywatcher-U.

1300 American Airlines employees complain about hives, headaches from new uniforms, union says

American Airlines has new uniforms, and some flight attendants are complaining that they cause health problems. The cause isn’t known with certainty at this time.

Listener Recording

Favorite Aircraft – by a Marine, submitted by a listener and read by our Main(e) Man, Micah.

Mentioned

#PaxEx podcast 40 with Mary Kirby and Chris Kjelgaard.

666 The Devil’s Number – the Amazing Service of Col. Hank Snow [PDF] This story by John Mollison is available for free in honor of Veteran’s Day. It’s about one of the greatest combat pilots you may have never heard of, who flew 666 combat missions in three wars. John was a previous Airplane Geeks guest and produces Old Guys and Their Airplanes.

Fabulous Farnborough Airshow Photographs by Mary B. Lyons has been updated and is available in the U.S. at a special price.

Australian police probe fake air traffic calls forcing pilots to abort landings

Credit

Outtro by Bruno Misonne from The Sound of Flaps.