Haha, gotta love Qantas huh? With recent incidents, much of which has been exaggerated by the media, Qantas has been given a cold shoulder by many passengers and by the general public. Really, the only two major incidents of concern should be QFs 30 and 72, as they were mid-air events that do not happen, and could easily have resulted in their first ever loss of a jet liner. Although it’s kinda good to know that they haven’t yet, and when they do, it should be interesting as to whether their loss would be due to skimpy maintenance or just pilot error.
Anyway, with Qantas’s reputation going downhill, Geoff Dixon stepped down from being CEO of the airline on the 28th of November, with a 12.2 million dollar pay packet. Dixon had been CEO of Qantas since March 2001, and created JetStar as a low-cost carrier to rival Virgin Blue. The current CEO of JetStar, Alan Joyce, has been appointed the new position. Joyce worked for the now defunct Ansett Australia and the Irish air carrier Aer Lingus (which only uses Airbus aircraft. w00t! hehe) and so he has had quite a lot of experience in the airline industry. Should be rather interesting as to how he decides to run Qantas, most notably at how he will order the maintenance and if the airline will remain afloat…
Meanwhile, I talked to Thomas briefly yesterday about his trip to Hong Kong. He says that Hong Kong’s Chap Lap Kok Airport was very good, and better than Bangkok’s. Most importantly, and I could not have forgotten, I asked what he thought about Qantas. Haha, I was like “ROFL” when he replied “crap”. I thought that they may actualy half-enjoy Qantas’s service and all that, although from what he told me, it did seem rather crap and unproffesional. He said that they had screwed up the in-flight entertainment, and that they somehow ran out of food. As for the daitals, I haven’t asked yet, although I wonder what Hugh and Daniel’s thoughts were of Qantas. Although thankfully, their flights were actually on-time/not that late.
Haha! Another day where lots of people lose more money! It’s Cox Plate Day here in Australia, part of the Spring Horse Racing Carnival! Now, just like last time, the horses I chose were… well…. didn’t do as well as I thought they would have, but I guess that’s just what happens when you want that particular horse to win… So, today’s Cox Plate. I’m surprised to see Master O’Reilly and Maldivian racing again, considering they ran last week and may be running next week as well… Current favourites for the race are Samantha Miss, Zipping, and Princess Coup. Samantha Miss has been a rather interesting racehorse with it being the youngest among them, and from 9 starts, it has won 6 of them. She is also being ridden by a very light jockey, Glen Boss… Not going into too much detail, and so I want Zipping to win, although I would like to see Master O’Reilly or Maldivian to win… Heh, I bet you I’m totally wrong again!
So I was browsing around YouTube earlier today, looking at various landings at Kai Tak. (Hong Kong’s old airport which is now closed as it posed much danger to the buildings around it, as planes had to fly in almost skimming the tops of apartments and skyscrapers) Must be kinda freaky to fly those planes into the airport with the 47 degree banked angle almost at the foot of the runway in order to land on it’s only runway! Anyway, I ran into a few Qantas ads on there. Qantas now actually has it’s own channel from the looks of it! Haha! They have posted the new ads of the Qantas A380, some of the unveiling ceremony when their A380 was delivered to them, and various other little videos! Tehehe! *blocks user*
Watched United 93 last night. Twas rather interesting… I might write about it later, don’t feel like writing too much today, or reviewing it today… I don’t plan to be on the computer as much this weekend as I kinda have to study for my exam stuffs next week. 🙁 Well, at least I’ll get a large dump of anime from one of my sister’s friends tomorrow, which should be interesting…
Well, hopefully I don’t over procrastinate! (Heh, like that’s gonna happen…)
As I had posted yesterday, Qantas Flight 72 (QF72) issued a Mayday call on October the 7th, while en-route to Perth from Singapore, after the Airbus A330-300 aircraft plunged thousands of feet in a matter of seconds. 303 passengers were on board with 10 crew members, of which 74 were hurt, 15 seriously, and 30 needing hospital treatment. The cause of the drop is so far unknown, but the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau (ATSB) do not believe that it was severe turbulence caused by high altitude winds, and focusing on a possible computer/flight control problem.
According to the ATSB, “the pilots received electronic centralised aircraft monitoring messages in the cockpit relating to some irregularity with the aircraft’s elevator control system”, meaning that the computer believed that the aircraft’s ability to move up and down may have a problem. The aircraft then ascended 300 feet even though no command was given. The aircraft then pitched at a sharp nose down angle abruptly, catching passengers and crew off guard, sending passengers who had not fastened their seatbelts into the ceiling of the aircraft, resulting in the injuries. The pilots then issued a “Pan-pan” distress call to air traffic controllers, indicating that they had flight control problems and possible injured passengers. Later on, the aircraft declared a “Mayday” call and informed air traffic control that they had multiple injuries and that they needed to land at the closest airport for medical attention. The aircraft managed to land safely at Learmonth Airport.
The Airbus A330 has only had 2 hull losses, and 3 other major incidents ever (before QF72), and has only ever had 7 fatalities (On a test flight, an A330 owned by Airbus crashed shortly after take off). Like most Airbus aircaft, the A330 is fly-by-wire, which means the aircraft is controlled by electrical circuits, rather than hydraulics, wires and pulleys etc. The ATSB have already obtained the aircraft’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders (a.k.a. Black Boxes) and are looking into the possibility that the flight controls/comnputer may have malfunctioned somewhere during the flight, or that there was a problem with the autopilot. Representatives from Airbus and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority are working with the ATSB.
Just days after Qantas received an Airbus A380, Qantas has once again had a mid-air emergency needing a Mayday call. This time it was Qantas Flight 72, an Airbus A330-300 en-route from Singapore to Perth, when the aircraft made a sudden descent, falling what some say 8000 feet in just a few seconds. The aircraft declared a Mayday and landed without further incident at Learmonth Airport, a remote Semi-Air Force Base in north-west Australia near the town of Exmouth.
At this point, it is believed to be severe turbulence, that the aircraft encountered. Many passengers were caught of guard when the turbulence hit, and those who were not wearing their seatbelts were thrown into the ceiling of the cabin. Recent mobile phone video shows the aircraft’s ceiling minorly damaged. The Aircraft was carrying over 300 passengers of which at least 74 are to have been injured during the incident, 14 serious. Injuries included lacerations and broken bones. Some passengers had to be flown to Perth for medical treatment via the Royal Flying Doctors. Meanwhile, Qantas arranged two other planes, Boeing 767 and 717, to pick up the remaining passengers from Learmonth. Learmonth is a small airport with only one runway, but has a length of over 3 km.
This incident comes just months after Qantas had other mid-air dramas unfold, primarily Qantas Flight 30 where peliminary reports say that an Oxygen tank had exploded, creating the massive hole in the 747’s fuselage, and an incident in early January when another Qantas 747 lost all electrical power just moments before landing in Bangkok. The cause of Qantas Flight 72 is currently being investigated by the Australian Transportation and Saftey Buereu.
Please click here for an update about this post.
 Well, I only assume that it was a while ago, but Qantas Airways has received the first of twenty, Airbus A380 Aircraft! In a rather shiny and colourful presentation ceremony in Toulouse, the Qantas A380 was on it’s way to Sydney, and should touchdown sometime in the early morning of tomorrow. Gah! Damn Geoff Dixon… He get’s to keep a limited-edition Airbus A380 pen! Well, at least he’s retiring soon. Then the current CEO of Jet Star Airways will become CEO of Qantas… Haha!
Qantas has been with the A380 ever since it was a concept plan. They were the first airline to officially order the A380 and that order asked for twelve of them. Later on, they ordered eight more A380’s and after seeing the success that Singapore Airlines has received, Qantas plans to purchase even more A380’s sometime in the near future, along with possibly a few orders of Airbus’s A350XWB aircraft. Qantas’s first A380 is to begin commercial service in October, flying from Melbourne to Los Angeles, and will use other A380’s to start flying from Sydney to Los Angeles and London later on.
The Airbus A380 is the newest of commercial jets to be released and flying today, and is the largest currently in passenger service with 50% more floor space than the Boeing 747-400, the second largest. The Airbus A380 is certified to transport over 800 people, and a recommended 525 seat configuration for the an aircraft having first, business and economy classes. Qantas has decided to use a 450 seat configuration with 14 First, 72 Business, 32 Premium Economy and 332 Economy class seats. The Qantas A380 has USB and Internet Ports available for use as well. Unlike Singapore and Emirates, the A380 does not have showers or private beds. =( Economically speaking, the A380 is one of the most fuel efficient aircraft per passenger mile, and produces a lot less noise than most commercial jets.
Visit Airbus’s Qantas A380 Delivery Website for highlights of the presentation ceremony, or Airbus’s A380 page for more information about the A380, or try Qantas’s A380 webpage to find out more about Qantas and the features on the A380.
I don’t know, I got myself a Creative ZEN Portable Multimedia Player back I think in October last year. Despite the fact that I had to replace my ZEN twice so far, I really like the ZEN, and it has a nice design to it as well. I don’t like my phone however. It placed rather deep scratches in my ZEN’s screen… =( I is not happy about that… As I don’t quite like iPods, I was taking a look at anythingbutipod.com, which reviews things fairly well, and reading various reviews about different media players. Bayden had talked to me about the Creative ZEN X-Fi a while ago and it sounded pretty awesome to me… As I was reading the review about it, it now doesn’t seem that awesome anymore… Sure, it can access various wireless points to stream music and videos, but the battery doesn’t last that long when doing this… Unlike the original ZEN, it has speakers, X-fi sound enhancements, and the same, handy layout as my ZEN. The player also has a chat network which is not MSN or anything like that, but it uses Creative’s own chat network. The chat function works like texting on a phone, although you have to use the navigation keys in order to get to the number, and press the centre button in order to get to the next letter which can be rather annoying and inconvenient. Unfortunately, there is no dictionary for it yet and it’s not quite useful right now, and not that practical, as not many people have the ZEN X-Fi… A huge advantage that I like about the X-Fi is that the reset button is a lot bigger than the original ZEN’s where the reset button is like microscopic… Disadvantages with the expandable memory with the X-fi are shared with the ZEN. The content on an SD Card cannot access the same media features as the content on the ZEN itself, such as organising playlists, sorting by artists or albums etc. Although video playback is relatively simple. I hope that Creative will upload some firmware that can do that later…
Anyway, that’s enough about the Creative ZEN X-Fi. Here’s a little late information from the ATSB’s preliminary report from the incident onboard Qantas Flight 30. The ATSB has confirmed that the cause of the hole in the aircraft was due to an oxygen bottle. The bottle exploded upwards, creating a hole in the floor and entering the cabin near the second main cabin door. The bottle hit the door handle before falling down into the hole caused by the original explosion.
Note that this was a post from my blog at an older location: Posted August 2 2008
Yes, another post about Qantas! I’m sure you’re all tired of my ramblings about Qantas but it’s not my fault Qantas has all these incidents! Okay, now I’m sure you’ve all heard about Qantas Flight 30 and how the aircraft had suffered a rapid decompression. Well, it is currently being investigated and the current theory is that an oxygen bottle exploded. I disagree with that theory right now. I (personally) think that that piece of fuselage may have a manufacturing defect (such as an impurity in the metal) although I may be completely wrong here.
Qantas has had 2 more incidents this week, all of them were Boeing aircraft (although note that at this moment, only 14 of it’s fleet of currently 139 operating aircraft, that’s excluding Jetstar Airways and QantasLink’s fleet, are Airbus). On Monday, 28th of July 2008, Qantas Flight 692, a Boeing 737-800, was en-route from Adelaide to Melbourne I believe when it was forced to turn back to Adelaide because it’s landing gear doors on the undercarriage failed to close. Today, Saturday August the 2nd, Qantas Flight 19, a Boeing 767-300ER, en-route from Sydney to Manila had to turn back to make a landing back in Sydney due to a mechanical fault. When the aircraft took off from Sydney, Air Traffic Controllers spotted what they believed to be “smoke” trailing from the left wing of the 767. The “smoke” was actually the hydraulic fluid from line 1 (there are 3 lines in total) leaking from the aircraft. Without line 1, the aircraft’s main landing gear would deploy slower than usual and some surfaces on the wing such as the flaps and spoilers would not function as they would normally. The cause of the leak is still unknown.
What’s worse is that I’ve recently discovered that Qantas is pretty much everywhere in Australia! They sponsored World Youth Day 2008, they sponsor a lot of sporting teams, they are running advertisements on television, and with the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing to be broadcast soon, I’ll be seeing Qantas ads even more with them sponsoring the broadcast! GAAAAHHHH!!! Qantas is everywhere to haunt me! Why can’t there be more Emirates ads? Or more Singapore Airlines ads? Heh, at least I get to laugh at some of my friends as they go on an excursion to Hong Kong flying QANTAS soon!
Note that this was a post from my blog at an older location: Posted July 26 2008
Yes, two blog entries about Qantas in a row! Guess what happened this time! (I’m sure most of you know now, but still) A Qantas flight from London to Melbourne with a stop-over in Hong Kong had to make an emergency landing in the Philippines at Manila’s Airport. Qantas Flight 30 took off from Hong Kong heading for Melbourne when at cruising altitude, passengers heard a loud bang and part of the ceiling and floor near the right wing collapsed. The pilots had to make an emergency decent from 30000 feet down to 10000 feet as a result of the cabin depressurising. The pilots managed to land the plane without problems at Manila.
 Once the passengers and crew were able to disembark the Boeing 747-400 (named “City of Newcastle”), they saw exactly what had happened to their aircraft. A hole approximately 2 metres wide and 4 metres in length located near the right wing (at the fairing) is believed to be the cause of the collapse of the floors and the rapid decompression. The cause of the hole is so far unknown. Qantas has promised to investigate the cause, along with the Australian and US Transportation Safety Bureaus, the Federal Aviation Authority and representatives from Boeing. Investigators have discovered what they believe to be corrosion damage, thus it is assumed that the cause was not a bomb, and not metal fatigue as the fairing is not normally prone to metal fatigue.
Well, that’s another incident from Qantas, and I am still yet amazed as to how Qantas hasn’t lost a jet yet! They have had only one other “major” incident though, and that was Qantas Flight 1, another Boeing 747-400 which was en-route from Sydney to London with a stop over in Bangkok, Thailand. When the plane touched down on the Runway in Bangkok, weather conditions were terrible with heavy rain and low visibility. The plane overshot the runway, and crash landed in a nearby golf course. The aircraft was repaired and returned to service. That event occurred in September 1999.
In each of the incidents, both aircraft were repairable and all the crew and passengers survived. Although some people believe that the aircraft involved in the 1999 incident should have been written off and not returned to service. There are also a growing number of problems found with Qantas’ aircraft and more incidents with them as well. Qantas has been skimping down on maintenance and, as in my previous post, have been/are sacking maintenance engineers to “save operating costs due to rising fuel prices”. It should be interesting as to when Qantas has another major incident.
Note that this was a post from my blog at an older location: Posted July 18 2008
Yeah, I’m going to complain about Qantas. As some of you should know, I don’t like Qantas, and I laugh at everytime I hear someone say Qantas, or when Qantas is mentioned/written somewhere. Qantas was charged by something earlier this year for price-fixing along with British Airways and some other major airlines. I dislike Qantas even though I have almost no relation to Qantas what-so-ever and neither have I actually flown on them… The only “good” thing I can say about Qantas, is that they’re ordering the Airbus A380 and they should receive it in July or August! Although, today, as most of you probably know Qantas is cutting jobs, cutting flights, retiring aircraft, and closing down call centres… The exact-ish details are written below:
> 1,500 workers worldwide will be sacked.
> Canceling plans to hire 1,200 people.
> Retire 22 older aircraft from its fleet of 228.
> Close call centers in Tucson, Arizona and London.
All this why? Because of “Rising oil prices” that cut short their profits. They have also increased fares this year due to “rising oil prices” despite huge profits reported last financial year! Why sack the workers? Many of them are a part of the maintenance crews that service the aircraft and fix/check if there are any problems with the aircraft! The call centres however, I’m inclined to let that slide because I don’t think that they are absolutely necessary, and that they get many customers from it… As for the 22 older aircraft, I am unsure which ones they are, but Qantas was planning on replacing a lot of aircraft as their fleet is aging. As of today, Qantas has at least 200 aircraft on order, so I guess retiring the 22 is alright.
Well, I’d expect a few more fare increases on their already overpriced fares sometime this year no matter how much oil costs in the future, and the CEO, Geoff Dixon, to step down sometime either this year, or mid/early next year. Although I can’t wait till Qantas receives it’s A380 and it starts flying to cities all over the world. Heh, Qantas… Should be interesting to see when they lose their first jet!
Note that this was a post from my blog at an older location: Posted June 28 2008
Ahahahaha! Qantas! XDLOL! Anyway, well one of my fellow plane fans Bayden, along with most of my other friends, know that I don’t really like Qantas, even though I’ve never flown on Qantas before, and they’ve never lost a major jet liner. Anyway, Bayden found this chain mail somewhere and I find it very hilarious! Anyway, the chain mail goes as follows:
——————-Below is actual chain mail thing, word for word——————-
What makes these even funnier is that they are real!!
In case you need a laugh: Remember, it takes a college degree to fly a plane but only a high school diploma to fix one.
After every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a ‘Gripe Sheet’ which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft.
The mechanics correct the problems; document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the Gripe Sheets before the next flight.
Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humour.
Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas’ pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.
By the way, Qantas is the only major airline that has never, ever, had an accident.
P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.
P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.
P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.
P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.
P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute Descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.
P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.
P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.
P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That’s what friction locks are for.
P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.
P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you’re right.
P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.
P: Aircraft handles funny……….. (I love this one!)
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.
P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.
P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.
And the best one for last………………
P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget
——————-End of actual chain mail thing——————-
Hehe, even if you don’t like Qantas, or even if these have been made up, I find them very hilarious! Heh, typical of Qantas! And in case you don’t know some of the terms, here’s a little more information about some terms:
DME – Distance Measuring Equipment (Wikipedia Link)
IFF – Identification friend or foe (Wikipedia Link)
Number 3 Engine on most 4 engined aircraft is located on the right wing.
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