Rubénerd!

I preface this by saying I cannot possibly begin relate to nor understand the stress new parents are under, and I also relay my understanding that children may need specialised medical care in different places.

With those points out of the way, having spent the better part of my day in an enclosed space for six hours with four constanty screaming infants I pose the question: who would take their infants on a long haul flight? Perhaps I'm missing something, but to me it seems a bit selfish. The cold hard truth is infants do not belong on aeroplanes, just as I don't belong in the play room outside Ikea furniture stores.

There are people like me who are tying to get work done on laptops; there are nervous, highly strung flyers like my sister and there are those trying to sleep on planes. I think I can confidently speak for the jetsetting public that we're all perfectly fine having children sharing the plane with us as long as they are old enough (or quiet enough) not to be disruptive.

As with other social issues I don't think the answer here is to legislate bans on parents taking children of a certain age (or average decible output!) onto long flights, as much as I'm temped to lobby for it! I think instead parents should be responsible and determine for themselves when their children are ready to fly, instead of just assuming a cabin full of people will be accomodating.

I emphasise again my intention here is not to be mean spirited, but people, I fly a lot, and if this uninterrupted streak of flights where I have to tolerate the shrieks, wails, tantrums and screams of infants doesn't end, I might start screaming in the cabin too!

Sincerely,
- Ruben

Another great photo from Airliners.net, one of the first websites I discovered when we got internet in the 90s. It does look as though it's wearing mascara, or some very swish shades! I will let you draw your own conclusions.

Aircraft

Dassault Falcon 900DX, OE-IDX (cn 604)

Taken at

Innsbruck - Kranebitten (INN / LOWI), Austria, October 31, 2008

Photographer

Florian Larcher

Despite WordPress assigning this post as p1186, this is in fact the 767th post! Yes, it's time for another one of our really hated loved Useless Rubenerd Blog milestones!

Given the fact I'm in the 700+ range of posts, there are some posts which have the same number as famous Boeing airliners. Being a huge fan of commercial aviation, I figured I'd create some small posts about these planes. I missed the boat on the 707/720 and 727 (no, I'm sorry the 717 was the MD-95!) but I did do posts on the 737, 747 and 757

This is clearly the wrong picture

The Boeing 767 airliner was first introduced by Boeing (no joke) in 1978 and began flying with airlines in 1982. It was designed for short to medium range travel with a twin jet configuration and a range of 9,400 to 12,200 km's and the ability to carry 181 to 375 passengers. The capacity could be increased for a nominal fee by bolting deck chairs on the wings; surprisingly no airline took up Boeing on the offer. Unlike most competing airframes for that market segment from the time period, the 767 was designed with a widebody, dual isle configuration.

A defining feature of the 767 was its common cockpit and avionics design with the 757, meaning a pilot trained to fly one could learn and be certified to fly the other in a very short amount of time.

Demand for the 767 peaked in 1997, when the 767-400ER was introduced and implemented by a number of American airlines to replace their aging Lockheed L-1011s and Douglass DC-10 trijets, not to be confused with AMD tricore desktop processors or Star Trek tricorders. Demand has especially fallen recently as plans for the direct replacement 787 Dreamliner have been made. Today most customers are purchasing airframes for use as cargo freighters; the 767 derived KC-767 aerial refueling platforms have also been purchased in large numbers by the Italian, Japanese and American governments.

ANA 767-381ER at Singapore Changi Airport, by Andrew Hunt

Lebanon-Israel Conflict (horrible situation, emergency contact details for Australian Citizens), sorry state of Australian banking (stingy ANZ internet banking, ridiculous ATM fees, bank fees compared to DBS, POSB in Singapore), Tokyo Institute of Tech students create AA battery powered aeroplane (news sources from Mainichi Japan and The Age Australia), winning a writing competition, and why Ruben hates the word "Eclectic".

Download MP3 ↓ 10:00 minutes, 4.6MB

You can also stream it and view its Internet Archive page.