Virgin Blue and Etihad Tie-Up

The Difference Between a Bullet and a Feather

Retro-future girl adorning a space helmut: theV.S.S Enterprise livery represents a youthful version of Richard Branson’s mum, a former flight attendant, bending rather sexily in space.

Have just been reading about Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo.. I love news stories like this! Have a compulsion to quote entire paragraphs from a bunch of sites and throw in an awesome picture to illustrate because indeed, I am two lazy to offer an original piece of writing about a topic that’s already been covered competently. Everything I’ve read thus far about Virgin Galactic has been very, very cool (that logo included). A personalized enterprise, with great names for everything.

Wired on Ruter, the SpaceShipTwo designer:

Rutan’s solution for the single most dangerous and technically challenging part of any spaceflight — reentry into the atmosphere — was equally creative. His so-called shuttlecock design pivots the wings of the spacecraft up for reentry. “The key is a low ballistic coefficient,” Rutan says, referring to the ratio between weight and drag. “Think of the difference between a bullet and a feather.” A streamlined bullet screams heavy and fast through the atmosphere — it has so little drag that it generates huge amounts of heat. A feather, on the other hand, has a lot of surface area, and it’s so light that it floats slowly, lazily through the air. By building the wings of the lightweight carbon-fiber capsule so that they pivot into a 65-degree angle of attack, Rutan has a very light craft with a lot of drag and low aerodynamic loads — just like a feather. His spaceship can reenter the atmosphere safely, routinely, without the pilot ever having to touch the stick. Once the ship gets closer to the ground, the wings flatten out again for a gentle glide to the runway.

It’s easy to be skeptical of the idea of commercializing space travel, being a bit of of a niche market and all. But hello, it’s space travel! The novelty of it is so delightful, and major human developments are notoriously difficult to predict anyway, who knows what the future holds? 🙂 They are saying the technology may even revolutinize normal air transport – and able to fly from Sydney to London in 90 minutes, for example, going into near-earth orbit using hypersonic engines. Maybe no hot beverage service then? 😀

[Branson] said he hopes the technology will lead to a new form of Earth travel, jetting people across oceans and continents faster through suborbital routes. “We would love at some stage, obviously subject to government approval, to take the engineers and start looking at shrinking the world”.

Articles: Times Online, Wired, CNN

V Australia

V Australia commenced service in February this year, and just two days ago launched direct non-stop flights from Brisbane to Los Angeles – their second transpacific route thus far (following SYD to LAX). I read an article about the airline in the Air Crew magazine we get free copies of from the briefing room. It sounds promising, especially as the US and Australia now have an open skies agreement. I’ve always loved the look of Virgin Atlantic. The airline seems vibrant and young and I do like their cheeky marketing campaigns. V Australia looks to be just as good, or better! I had considered Virgin Blue before, but they do primarily domestic routes (so weren’t really appealing).

From LA Times:

Australia and the United States have reached a bilateral “open skies” aviation agreement, the countries announced Friday, clearing the way for increased competition on one of the world’s most lucrative and protected long-haul routes.

The bilateral agreement abolishes all restrictions on U.S. and Australian air services for carriers of both countries, ending a virtual duopoly on the route held by Qantas and UAL Corp.’s United Airlines. Qantas controls 75 percent of the market share on the Australia-U.S. route, from which it derives around 15 percent of its net profit.

SMH says:

Since February there has been a big discounting war on both the kangaroo route and the US route – the latter is the result of fresh competition from V Australia and the plans by the US airline, Delta, to begin a service.

Plus, I love the B777-300ER, which make up the V Australia fleet exclusively. Etihad currently have five (the rest are Airbus), and I think we have one more on order for later in the year. From the website it seems they currently fly to Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle! And launch Melbourne to LAX in September. On Wikipedia it mentions further possible destinations, such as Japan, South East Asia, Jo’burg, and more North American cities. Maybe V Australia could be my post-Etihad plan? Apparently their second hub is LAX.. it’s certainly exciting to think about!

V Australia offers a high quality, innovative travel option introducing a fresh new choice and competition to the trans-Pacific route.

The three class boutique style airline offers 33 Business Class lie-flat beds, 40 Premium Economy club seats and 288 economy seats. The suite of in-flight products includes two in-flight bars, a “ladies only” toilet complete with piped music and Australian icons featured on subtle wallpaper murals.

All seats on the brand new 777-300ER aircraft offer personal state-of-the-art seat back entertainment with user friendly touch screen options and seat to seat ‘chat’ or competition connectivity.

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Open Skies Deal Frees US Routes from The Age.

Virgin flies to the City of Angels from The Australian.