Friday plane porn

I don't know whay I have been so lethargic about this blog lately. I have started and stopped many different pieces recently but I cant seem to get them going. My muse will return soon, and when it does this space will be flooded.

In the meantime enjoy this picture of a Canadian North 737-200 taken on Baffin Island. Look at the snow, all the pretty, cold snow. Christ I hate summer!

Friday plane porn

I'm sorry, I missed plane porn last week. It was just to damn hot, too hot to do anything productive including writing. It was the kind of week that had you thinking about

Anyway this week I want to show you a plane, of sorts. This guy in Belfast built a replica of an Iberia A340-600 out of Lego, and I think you'll agree it's pretty cool.


This guy managed to beat the one thing that always pissed me off about Lego, the fact that when you were finished building something it looked nothing like what the object would look like in real life. Absurd looking planes, one seater cars, and all those smiles. Seriously what is it with Lego people and the smiling, didn't anything bad ever happen to them? No Lego chick ever slept with her Lego husband's Lego half brother and had Lego children of their own? Then he would go to the Lego pawn shop, get a Lego gun, shoot the Lego bitch and the Lego half brother, go to Lego court where his Lego public defender would sleep through the Lego trial after which the guy would go to Lego jail where he would get Lego fucked in the ass by his Lego cellmate Ingemar (Lego is from Denmark after all, just keeping it real.) Would he be smiling after that, I don't think so!

Anyway the guy did a good job, here is the real thing for comparison.

Friday plane porn

Given the place that the most secretive country has taken in the news this week, Friday plane porn takes a look at the most secretive airline in the world...The national airline of North Korea, Air Koryo.

Yes North Korea does have an airline...of sorts. Air Koryo flies from Pyongyang airport to destinations like Beijing, Shenyang, Macao, Vladivostok, and Bangkok. However instead of multiple flights daily the frequencies are more on the order of a few times a week. The airline uses a mix of classic Soviet aircraft like this IL-62 pictured here


The IL-62 has mostly disappeared mostly from the aviation scene, even Russian airliners don't fly it anymore. But given Air Koryo's light schedule these planes have barely any wear on them at all! Air Koryo pulls into Beijing with the aviation equivalent of a '65 Mustang in mint condition, and less than 30K on the odometer. All politics aside, that's pretty bangin'!

So if your travel plans include the Stalinist Disneyland that is North Korea, think Air Koryo. And check out this video of an Air Koryo flight to Beijing. Nothing shocking, just a good look inside one of these old beauties.

http://www.flightlevel350.com/Aircraft_Ilyushin_Il-62-Airline_Air_Koryo_Aviation_Video-2320.html

Five stages

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The five stages of grief, and the life of a Braves fan. In the past month I have gone through all of those stages as I have contemplated the utterly spectacular collapse of the warriors of the Chatthoochee, turning the Ted into a highbrow shit farm. For a long time I simply did not look at the sports page. Why should I? There was nothing in there but bad news, depressing news, stick a revolver into your mouth kind of news.

The denial was easy, simply stop paying attention until they started winning again, while periodically sticking my fingers in my ears and singing lalala lalala can't hear you lalala lalala. Next came the anger, this is where my Chris Reitsma voodoo doll came from. The more saves he blew the closer the needles got to his crotch. (I really had some issues) The bargaining was just that, believing that Shurholtz would trade our way out of this pit. (Is Fred McGriff still available?) Eventually it got to the point of searching the Atlanta yellow pages for a fung shui expert to go over Turner Field with a fine toothed comb.

Then the depression hit hard. I started making bets with myself as to how many runs the new Richmond flavor of the week would give up, and weather or not he would curl up into the fetal position on the mound before Bobby would have to waddle out onto the field yet again. Finally acceptance arrived and I owned up to the fact that I was the fan of a bad baseball team. In a strange way it was liberating. No more constant trips to ESPN.com, no more rushing home to catch Baseball Tonight, my October would belong to me and me alone...I was free.

Then the Bravos won 5 of their last 7, taking 2 out of 3 against the Cardinals no less. Chipper is batting over .300 again, Giles is riding a 9-game hit streak, and somehow the bullpen isn't blowing it the way they used to. Could this be the rebound from rock bottom? Perhaps the season isn't over after all. Or perhaps I have simply regressed back to the denial stage.

Friday plane porn

Yes I am aware it's Sunday, however Friday was a drinking day. I had Tickets to see Pearl Jam and Tom Petty at Summerfest, so I spent Friday afternoon looking for the bottom of a bottle. Saturday wasn't much better as I needed time to recover from the aforementioned bottle search and screaming "American Girl" at the top of my lungs.

Anyway on to the reason why you're here. US Airways is really an amalgam of several carriers swallowed up by a larger parent company and smushed together into one airline. Recently US is paying homage to its heritage by painting several of its planes in the classic colors of its predecessors. One such example is this A-319 painted in the old Piedmont livery.


I remember Piedmont very well (it only died out in the late 80's) Based in North Carolina they had a route network that stretched from California to Europe. Then they got bought out by USAir and ceased to exist. Since most of my family is based in the Tar Heel state, I flew them often. I remember that they used to serve a full meal on a 55 minute flight, and had something that they gave to kids called "Piedmont Punch" (really Hi-C in a different can) To this day in one of the closets in my grandmothers house is a collection of Piedmont wings, gliders and tons of other shawag that they would give to snot nosed brats to shut them up. Not that I know any.