Cessna 172 First Time Experience

visiting Gelcitkale Airport (in a posh English accent) which is an old airport in North Cyprus, with the total isolation welcoming me upon arrival there. Nevertheless my hopes where high as i realize that i was finally going to get on Cessna 172 to have that long waiting dream come true for me, Having said that ''i don't have a fear of flying: i have a fear of crashing''. Before en backing on the aircraft the pilot and the instructors had started talking us through every necessary things about the aircraft itself and the weather also the whole technical aspect of it before we got up to the sky (1500 ft) not forgetting that all this information was all in Turkish language which left me lost in my own little world of English as my level of understanding Turkish language is poor.  

In cases like that here's what came to my mind ''A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to it's old dimension'', i kept that in mind as the joy of flying was overwhelming for me, now it wasn't my first time getting on airplane but first time getting on Cessna 172. wasn't long enough when we got on the aircraft, suddenly that amazing feeling flamed up as the sound of Cessna 172 turbo prob engine enchanted me with that glorious sounds looming around my ears, arguably as human we all have to make decision every day of our life, an there was i seating at the back as a passenger in the aircraft with my mind made up regardless of the risks involved to fly with this small aircraft at least it's bigger than bird if you take a wild guess. this wasn't like being on Boeing 747 business class or on private jet where you have the cabin crew coming to serve you what you need you name it, but it was more like getting on a taxi going from point A-B, i'd like to think i was going on city tour up in the sky. 

My love for airplane and flying started way back as a teenage boy, i have always marveled at how man invented a flying machine especially heavier than air flying machine in the being an now known as lighter than air flying machine. we moved from the apron an make our way to the runway waiting for clearance from Ercan ATC as my mind and little brain was taking picture of that moment to make it great memory to tale, the take off was great as we ascended into the sky an the weather was in it's best behavior with clear visibility an i gently gaze through my little window right at the corner where i was sitting an the view was breath taking so i couldn't resist myself from taking my phone out to take the picture as something to hold on to in life.  

As the say ''It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves-in finding themselves''. at that moment i wanted to become a pilot it was like a heyday. i'm sure some of you most have played a computer game or get on simulator before and trying all that tricks with the aircraft or perhaps you have been to an airshow before seeing the whole maneuvering and acrobatic moves the pilots display well i had a chance to experience some of it whilst flying with Cessna 172 it was nerve rocking and i felt what is like to be on airplane trying to escape from it's enemy firing at him i couldn't hide my fear cause i didn't expect that, we manage to fly from Gelcitkale, Lefkosia, Magosa an little Iskele.  
I could sum it up by saying flying Cessna 172 is like ''Que Sera, Sera (whatever will be, will be)'' having seen such a spectacular view of this beautiful cities from the sky i was simply wowed. As the future's not ours to see, but for me the love of flying is growing more an more.


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Is Paying For Flight Via Social Media The Future for Airlines?

Royal Dutch Airlines, also known as KLM, is lettingFacebook and Twitter users book flights, reserve seats and arrange for extra baggage, as well as pay for those services, without leaving the social networks.

“Picture the scene: you’re looking to travel somewhere nice for your vacation, and you’re using Twitter to search out good ideas from friends and contacts,” writes Frederiek Filippo, a KLM social media-focused customer service agent, in a blog post. “You find the perfect place, but you have to leave Twitter to actually book your flight, like some kind of savage.”

Here’s how the system works: a consumer posts a note—either on KLM’s Facebook timeline or on Twitter, including the airline’s @KLM Twitter handle in a tweet—that says he wants to book a flight. The airline says it has 130 social media-focused customer service agents; one then sends a link to the consumer in a private Facebook or Twitter message to pay for the airfare. A pop-up window then appears and the customer can choose his payment method and complete the transaction. A Facebook timeline is the virtual scrapbook on a brand’s page that features a graphical and chronological timeline of notable events and posts shared on the social network.

The airline developed the payment option in response to consumers https://www.facebook.com/KLM?fref=tsrequesting the feature, says a spokeswoman. “We want to find ways to make social media more useful for our customers,” she says. KLM has nearly 5.2 billion Facebook Likes and more than 804,000 Twitter followers, far more than many other airlines such as United Airlines Inc. and British Airways

Singapore Airshow: The fight for eyeballs in mid-air

Growing competition

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Free on-board internet connectivity in all classes of travel is the next level of in-flight entertainment”

Shashank NigamSimpliflying

Airlines, especially premium carriers, have realised this and are spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to offer better in-flight entertainment than their rivals.

In July, Singapore Airlines announced a $400m (£243m) deal to equip its new planes with, what it calls, the "world's most advanced in-flight entertainment system to date".

Its new Boeing 777-300ER, Airbus A350 and Airbus A330-300 planes will have touchscreen handsets in all classes and larger screens.

The A350s will also offer broadband internet, mobile phone services, and live TV.

Singapore Airlines is not the only carrier improving its offerings.

Gulf-based Emirates offers Live TV on select Boeing 777 flights flying over the Middle East, Europe, Africa, parts of Asia and North America.

Australian carrier Qantas offers an iPad pre-loaded with 200 hours of entertainment content to passengers travelling on selected refurbished Boeing 767 aircraft.

In December 2012, British Airways became the first UK airline to allow customers on long-haul flights to enjoy in-flight entertainment from the moment they are seated, instead of having to wait until take-off.

"Offering the very best in-flight entertainment is a priority for us," a spokesman for BA told the BBC.

Enhancing its in-flight entertainment services is part of the airline's continuing five-year £5bn investment programme to strengthen the overall offering for customers.

Growth opportunities

With more than 11,000 planes expected to be sold over the next two decades in Asia-Pacific, demand for such systems is only likely to grow further.

Various companies, including Thales - the world's second-largest maker of such systems - are looking to woo customers at the Singapore Airshow, taking place this week.

"It is the most exciting time for firms making in-flight entertainment solutions," a Thales spokesman told the BBC.

"The demand for airplanes is growing and our industry will grow in tandem."

The firm - which also makes other aerospace products - generated overall revenues of $14.2bn (£8.6bn) in 2012, with in-flight entertainment systems being a key contributor.

According to Thales, the in-flight entertainment system is the second most costly component of a plane after the engine.

Firms are also vying to improve the quality of the systems.

"We are getting closer to offering a similar experience to what passengers would get in their living rooms," Thales said.

'The next level'

The race to attract customers is likely to heat up further as airlines look to offer wireless internet connectivity across the board.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Passengers can experience internet connections similar to what they would in a downtown Starbucks or McDonald's”

Carl EspositoHoneywell Aerospace

Many carriers do offer this service currently, but the take-up rate among customers has not been that high. In some cases it is too costly for passengers to sign up, while sometimes the connectivity has not been that great.

But with a recent surge in the number of people using devices such as smartphones and tablets, it is a service that airlines cannot afford to ignore.

"Free on-board internet connectivity in all classes of travel is the next level of in-flight entertainment," says Mr Nigam of Simpliflying.

"Airlines can't play the wait-and-watch game on this front anymore."

Mr Nigam explains that on-board connectivity will provide carriers with an opportunity to offer more value-added services and even open up new revenue streams.

"An airline can profile its customers very well and that data is invaluable to companies looking to target a particular segment of clientele," he says.

"You can sell advertising space depending on the routes you are flying, the class of travel and even partner with hotel firms to offer deals on-board."

Companies specialising in the field are sensing an opportunity.

Honeywell Aerospace is displaying its latest technology at the Singapore Airshow which, it claims, will make in-flight connectivity 30 to 40 times faster than current levels, and also bring down costs.

"Passengers can experience internet connections similar to what they would in a downtown Starbucks or McDonald's," says Carl Esposito from Honeywell.

The firm says it is already in talks with various airlines to install the technology and has forecast revenues of nearly $2.8bn over the next 20 years for the product.

Air Travel Grows At Steady

<a href="http://www.wholinks2me.com/" title="Click here to see who's linking to my site."><img src="http://www.wholinks2me.com/images/code.png" style="border:0px;" alt="Who links to my website?"></a> Emirates is one of the Middle Eastern airlines driving growth in the region. Jim McDougall / Flickr

Air travel demand has steadily increased about 5 percent a year for the past 30 years, including 2013.

In 2013, the growth of international markets, 5.4 percent, slightly outpaced growth of domestic market at 4.9 percent, according to the International Air Transport Association’s full-year report.

The overall growth was driven by emerging markets in the Middle East and Asia Pacific that made up for relatively slow growth in mature regions like Europe and North America.

“We saw healthy demand growth in 2013 despite the very difficult economic environment. There was a clear improvement trend over the course of the year which bodes well for 2014,” IATA’s CEO Tony Tyler said in a statement.

Growing Economies Drive Air Travel Demand

Middle East airlines reported a 12.1 percent increase in international and domestic air traffic last year.

Although this was the most growth of any region, it was a drop for the Middle East which had reported growth of 15.4 increase in 2012.

Latin America reported the second strongest performance with an 8.1 percent increase in demand. The strength and growth of economies in both regions led to the significant bump in air travel demand.

Mature markets of North America and Europe reported the least growth of any region at 3 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.

Although North American reported the slowest growth, it was an improvement over 2012 growth of 1.3 percent.

The opposite is true for European airlines which reported the second slowest growth of any region and a drop from 2012 growth of 5.3 percent.http://www.reddit.com/<a href="http://www.wholinks2me.com/" title="Click here to see who's linking to my site."><img src="http://www.wholinks2me.com/images/code.png" style="border:0px;" alt="Who links to my website?"></a> 

what's the future opportunity for Ryan air?

http://www.reddit.com/Now having read this post I was left with this question ''where is the future for Ryan air or is this the is for them'' but here's what O' Leary have to say


Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary doesn’t think there is an attractive opportunity for the low-cost airline to operate transatlantic flights in the short term largely because Gulf carriers are buying so many aircraft as they expand that it is driving up the price to buy planes from Boeing and Airbus.
Contrary to earlier reports, the loquacious O’Leary did not shy away from playing an out-front role at the airline’s third quarter earnings call today, and said any transatlantic opportunity in the future wouldn’t be carried out by Ryanair, but perhaps by “some kind of sister company or some related company, but would never ever be Ryanair.”
Still, he sees aircraft buying sprees by carriers such as Emirates and Etihad as inflating the price for new aircraft, and quashing any opportunities for now.
“But the more you look at the backlog of Boeing and Airbus deliveries in long-haul and the crazy scale of the order book they have primarily from the Middle Eastern carriers, I think for the moment, I don’t see there being an opportunity to pick up a fleet at a reasonable pricing,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary also offered up some contrarian thinking, suggesting that the rise of the Gulf carriers may be merely a temporary phenomenon.
“But then bubbles burst and bubbles explode, and there’s an opportunity cropped up because one or others of the Gulf carriers didn’t make it over the next number of years, then that might emerge,” O’Leary said, referring to the possibility of transatlantic flights.
Wi-Fi Would Require a Transformation in Roaming Charges
In other news, O’Leary said he’s been “very committed” over the last four or five years to installing Wi-Fi on Ryanair planes, but roaming charges across “24, 25, 26″ countries in Europe would make the service cost-prohibitive.
“I expect at some point in time in the next one, three, five years that somebody would invent some piece of case that transforms all those what are now high-roaming charges and will make Wi-Fi, onboard Wi-Fi at a relatively low cost — at relatively low — service that we can provide at very low cost to most of our passengers,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary added that low-cost Wi-Fi remains a “communication transformation away.”
Howard Millar, Ryanair’s CFO, said there is another obstacle to the implementation of Wi-Fi — the antenna.
“And in the kind of studies that we’ve done … is that there’s significant drag, potentially up to 2% additional drive for putting the antenna on,” Millar said.
Millar and O’Leary acknowledge that they would like to get Wi-Fi on their planes, but the expense remains an issue.
“And the way the antenna sits on top of the plane has to be made smaller so that you can reduce drag,” Millar said. “The 2% drag for us, just to put in perspective, will be potentially EUR 40 million ($54 million) a year of a hit and that’s not something we would be interested in doing.”

A storm is brewing in the cockpit of U.S. airlines: a pilot shortage.

Thousands of pilots are nearing the mandatory retirement age of 65, just as it is becoming harder to be a commercial airline pilot.

New federal pilot-rest rules and tougher qualification standards requiring new pilots to have 1,500 hours of flight experience — up from 250 — have come at the same time that throngs of senior pilots will be retiring.

The new mandates were implemented in the last six months, in response to the Colgan Air crash near Buffalo on Feb. 12, 2009, that killed all 49 aboard the plane and one man on the ground.

National Transportation Safety Board hearings focused on whether the plane’s two pilots were properly trained and whether factors such as fatigue may have affected their performance.

The reason: the cost of training and low entry-level pay — $20,000 to $25,000 a year.Although job prospects for commercial pilots are bright, and regional airlines are scooping up newly minted aviators with signing bonuses, fewer young people are choosing aviation careers.

New Jersey native Christopher Machado, 20, a junior at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., has wanted to be a pilot since he was a boy, watching the planes overhead at Newark airport, not far from his home.

At 17, he had a private pilot’s license — before he drove a car alone. Machado said the cost of his education and flight training will be about $250,000 before he can sit in the first officer’s seat of a regional airline, where commercial pilots usually start to build experience.

Machado said he’s lucky that his parents in Colonia, Woodbridge Township, support his dream, and are paying for it. “I know a lot of people who would be pilots, but for the money.”

Peter Doroba, 35, a captain for Spirit Airlines, grew up in Manayunk and after high school worked as an automobile technician while attending Montgomery County Community College at night. Along the way, he earned a private pilot’s certificate at Wings Field.

He transferred to Embry-Riddle in Florida in his senior year, graduated and stayed on as a fight instructor and then a flight team manager, before being hired by Spirit in 2008.

Doroba said he finished college with $105,000 in loan debt — more than the mortgage on his house. “For years, people have talked about pilot shortages. I hope this one is real,” he said. “They are not going to have any pilots, if they keep the wages down at poverty levels.”

In 2012, Boeing projected that 498,000 new commercial pilots would be needed over the next two decades.

“There is a pilot shortage. We’re just starting to see the effects,” said Capt. James Ray, spokesman for the US Airline Pilots Association, which represents US Airways pilots.

US Airways and American Airlines, which merged in December, combined have 14,000 to 15,000 pilots. “We’re going to lose almost half to attrition in the next 10 years — about 7,000 retirements,” Ray said.

What A Plane Crash Feels Like

Are you afraid of flying? Are you the type of person who grabs the hand of the passenger next to you, terrified that within ten seconds of flight the aircraft will explode and plummet to earth in a blazing fireball? Your fears makes sense, even though it's largely irrational. In the past decade, the death risk for passengers in the US has been one in 45 million flights, which means you could fly everyday for an average of 123,000 years before being in a fatal crash. 
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America has a deeply complex relationship with commercial aviation. We invented the airplane in this country, and we've made countless heroes of various pilots and aviators. But we're never really sure what goes on in the cockpit, are we? Are pilots up there on red alert, saving our lives while we complain about the beef strogan off? or are the playing candy crush the whole time? considering the amount of deadly train crashes caused by engineers texting and playing cell phone games, it makes sense to at least ask the question: what's going on in the cockpit during a deadly crash? 

I THINK I'D PROBABLY FREAK OUT IF I WAS IN THE COCKPIT- 
yeah, if you were actually sitting in the cockpit, you wouldn't be doing what they're doing, because you're not a trained professional dealing with a problem. All of us get in emergencies, I've been in a few car accidents, for example if you are lucky you deal with it well. 

The Classical period of Airline Disasters? 
That's right, it's sort of a flip way to think about it, but you know what, in a commercial sense, this is a business, they're here to make money and yet for aviation, safety is good business in a way it's not in other industries. It's impossible to cut corners to make few extra bucks that's something that doesn't surprise me necessarily, but it hadn't occurred to me in that way.  
When i think of corporate culture, i think of something different than that. It's very heartening to realize that. other industries are following that example, and more and more, this will come to the fore as our species develops.  
It's surprising to me that giant corporations think in that way, but it's in their interest to operate live. 

Are you still afraid of flying? 
Well, don't feel afraid-feel safer, now that i've been working on this, every time i board a plane i'm always checking how how many rows ahead or behind the exists are or making sure there isn't any garbage on the floor. The thing to remember is that when you're on a plane, you aren't a passenger you're crew. The world of commercial aviation doesn't think of you as impassive cargo. the think of you a member of the crew, flight attendants aren't there to serve you drinks and set you pillows. They're there to take care of you if something happens and part of that is teaching you how to be an active participant, that makes me feel safer.