The Antonov An225 roars to life during a takeoff from Schipol
The biggest plane your average Joe off the street knows about is likely the Airbus A380 or some flavor of the Boeing 747. Relatively few people have every heard of or seen the Antonov An225 but what a sight it is. Mriya (Мрія in Ukranian) is perhaps the most impressive relic of the Soviet space program. Originally designed to give piggyback lifts to Soviet space shuttles, in its post-perestroika life it has provided great utility as a freight hauler popping up in airports the world over and swallowing up gargantuan loads of cargo. Once loaded up its Ivchenko Progress D-18T turbofans do the rest. Just how big is big you ask?
Antonov An225 size comparison chart
There is only one An225 in operation (UR-82060) – compared to almost 60 An124s – ensuring that it is always in demand. Hardly surprising considering it hold the world record for the heaviest ever air lift. So the next time you’re seated with your seatbelt securely fastened taxiing to the runway, keep your eyes open as you pass the cargo facilities, it may be the only chance you ever get to see this marvel of Soviet engineering.
Air France A320-100 bound for Nürnberg by Kevin Chan
This week saw the end of an aviation era with the retirement of the last A320-100 in service – F-GFKA operated by Air France. Airbus only produced 21 total -100 variants for three carriers Air Inter (7), British Caledonian (5) and Air France (8).
The arrival of the -200 with its greater range and efficiency killed off interest in the -100 right away. In fact the -100 was much maligned for its performance and there are even stories of BA operating payload restricted flights between Heathrow and Newcastle (< 218nm) due to Maximum Zero-Fuel Weight issues. [Unconfirmed]. Aesthetically the -100 and -200 only differ in that the -200 has wingtip fences. There is currently a Facebook petition in place to preserve an A320-100. To add you name to it please click here.
Below is a clip of an Air France -100 taking of from Paris (CDG), enjoy!
In recent years Air Canada’s Project XM drove the adoption of seat-back in-flight entertainment consoles across the fleet. They even aired this advertisement (relentlessly I might add) last year to publicize the project.
This AC commercial was in high rotation in 2009.
The content Air Canada makes available is great but the IFE interface itself needs work. Having wrestled with it countless times I thought reviewing it might be beneficial to anyone involved with it and potentially even therapeutic to me. As a software engineer I can confidently say that all of the suggestions and fixes I propose below can definitely be made.
Needed Fixes
The latency needs to be addressed. The current response time is just not good enough. My heart really goes out to Air Canada flight attendants that have to sheepishly ask passengers to be patient as “the system takes several moments to respond” before every single flight. Do what it takes.
The user interface is not user friendly. At all. If a screen becomes slightly mis-calibrated some of the buttons (and the content behind them) become inaccessible. This has happened to me on more than one occasion – usually with the buttons on the bottom left. When this happens to me I find the stir stick from my last Cuba Libre to be a great stylus replacement.
The very first decision the viewer must make is a choice between languages: English or French. Those that select French can still navigate to content that is only available in English. For example the currently showing and hilarious Modern Family. Was this based on the assumption that there are bilingual people out there that would prefer the UI in one language and the content in another? Or was this just an oversight?
Shouldn’t that button say Anglais? ;)
Non-functioning features should not feature on the UI I can’t count how many times I’ve wrestled with the sluggish UI only to be met with this screen:
Feature not available.
I understand that it’s common practice to increase the volume during commercials but for the love of god please take it down a notch. I almost burst my eardrums last time.
Nice to haves
Selective interruptions. As you know when crew make announcements IFE content is paused. Ordinarily that’s not a big deal but it can be. On my way down to Buenos Aires last year everything was announced in English, French and Spanish which made watching anything positively infuriating.
User interfaces in languages other than English and French would be nice. It would involve a bit of effort and cost but would really make a world of difference to those that don’t speak either.
It’s important to note that despite the shortcomings I have mentioned the IFE is still pretty good and certainly leaps and bounds ahead of most other North American carriers.
What has your experience with Air Canada’s IFE been?
There are a lot of aviation videos floating around on the internet. Most of them shaky and of poor quality. The videos by Rüesch Productions on the other hand are truly amazing. I have never seen anything quite as polished. If you visit Rüesch Productions’ Vimeo page be sure to check out ZRH – zero nine and SWISS: Training-Day in Chateauroux. Full screen and sound are a must. Great work Andy!
