Rubénerd!

An AC on Slashdot, so take with a grain of salt:

Do you want to know why the government continues with it even though [security measures don't] work? It's because insurance rates for airports and airlines would go through the roof if we didn't have this in place. [..] Our lives are governed by actuarial tables.

I hadn't ever thought about this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. Certainly the airlines themselves have a business interest in not have these carcinogenic full body scanners and sexual harassment, because they discourage people from traveling.

For the record, security theater was a term coined by my hero Bruce Schneier to describe security measures that are entirely for show, without any benefit.

As Bruce Leibowitz says on his photo page on Airliners.net, a rare glimpse at part of an aeroplane we don't normally see!

The Boeing 767-200ER was first introduced in 1984, so we have some pretty retro computer hardware here. Funnily enough, I'd trust my life to such hardware before some of the newer stuff coming out now.

I really thought those retrojets were my favourite aircraft liveries, but this colour scheme on an Alaskan Airlines 737 takes the cake. The fish cake. A flying fish cake! Here fishy fishy fishy!

Taken by Frank Kovalchek in Anchroage, Alaska. Fishy.

An advertisement for Park Inn Hotels on a cute Germanwings A319. I reckon when the promotion is over, they should paint over the white letters but keep the livery as is!

Photo by Nikiforov Konstantin on Airliners.net.

If you'll be travelling through Malaysia, what can you be expecting over the coming months for security theatre and whatnot?

(Screenshot is from my FreeBSD MacBook Pro when I was using it with the airport's WiFi. It was January 2007 and I was obsessed with the Haruhi Suzumiya anime, as I'm sure many of us were!)

So here's the problem

We start our flight on SpringWise, the blog for entrepreneural ideas. As George W. Bush said, its a shame the French don't have a word for those types of people

Travelers around the world are familiar with the delays caused by airport immigration checks, and Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) is no exception, with wait times of over 45 minutes long during peak periods.

The understatement of the Millennium, so much so I think Robbie Williams even sang a song about it. The few times I flew ValueAir and AirAsia when we lived in KL and I'd visit folks in Singapore, I had to use the terminal. Aside from almost missing a flight because it's nigh impossible to find the transit bus you need to take from KLIA, I remember one time sitting in that massive departure hall for an hour and a half.

So here's the solution

Anyway, how will you be solving this? Let's proceed to The Star, the English rag I used to read over there that managed to have a picture of Pak Lah on the front page of every single issue.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Immigration department will introduce on-board checks in planes to ease the passenger load at the counters at the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) in Sepang, especially during peak travel seasons.

On-board cheques? Where can I get some of these? :D

The on-board biometric checks claimed by the department to be the first of its kind in the world is one of its long term measures to improve operations at the LCCT.

Uh oh, we've experienced a sudden loss of cabin pressure and have to make an emergency landing.

I assume my biometric data will be kept on an ultra secure medium that could never leak out, right? Because that's the problem with biometrics, I can't change the password on my finger. Funny how often people forget that.

Will be keeping an eye on this. I'd very much like to avoid the low cost terminal there at all costs, but one can assume once the government has declared the trial a raging success they'll introduce it across all flights arriving and leaving the country. Selamat Datang ke Creepyness!

Smiling Lockheed L1011 taken in August 1974 by Piergiuliano Chesi. Clearly one doesn't need to be an anime character without pants to be an anthropomorphic aircraft, just saying ;).

In related news, the only L1011 diecast model I have had its forward landing gear and parts of the tail damaged during the latest move. I don't suppose I can get tiny 1mm wheel replacements?

Not the sharpest Creative Commons licenced photo I could find, but the juxtaposition (I really hate that word) of those typically German buildings with the jet was too good to pass up!

If it's on the Internet, it has to be true

Straight from the Book of Knowledge, having seen it trend on Twitter an hour ago.

Airbus announced on November 10, 2011, that the A340 program was terminated.

With the stubbornly high cost of fuel of late, I'm surprised the A340 wasn't cancelled earlier. The more economical, sleek twin engined Boeing 777 (and to a far lesser extent the A330) has been eating the A340's lunch for a long time now.

It was a friggen long aeroplane

Despite having flown a lot, as far as I can remember I've only been on an A340 once, on a Lufthansa trip to Germany. Lufthansa to Germany, really? Who would have thunk it! It had four engines, but it didn't seem much noisier than other planes I'd flown on.

The thing that struck me when I used to observe planes at the public Changi observation area (I was an exciting teenager!) was just how long the A340 was; photos don't do it justice. Until recently, the later generation A340s were the longest civilian aircraft in the world, longer even than the venerable Boeing 747 that even non-aviation nuts can recognise.

Obviously Airbus is banking (sorry, bad pun) on the new double-decker A380 for its high capacity routes. What I'll be interested in is how they'll compete with Boeing on the long distance routes. As far as I can tell, the proposed A350 is more to compete with the Boeing 787 for ultra efficient medium-capacity travel. Will the A330 be getting an overhaul?

The reasons behind the grounding of all Qantas aircraft aren't nearly as interesting or precedent than the flaw in our transport infrastructure this whole farce has exposed.

I've been writing essays and reports all day, so in lieu of a more detailed post I'll merely say: I can haz high speed rail now?! Australia has several of the most crowded air lanes in the world; high speed rail wouldn't replace air travel, but it'd sure relieve some of the strain. Not that it'll ever happen.

In the meantime, Singapore Airlines is infinitely better anyway, as I've always said. Not that I'm biased or anything. Photo by Phillip Capper.

I'd never be caught making a misteak like that.

As a formerly obsessed aviation nut and a logo nerd, I felt compelled to comment on Virgin Australia's new brand design. Yes, I lifted that entire first sentence from my JAL blog post back in February, its called recycling.

Ruben just had coffee

Virgin Australia is the rebrand of Virgin Blue, the budget airline started by a consortium of Richard Branson and Australian investors shortly after the demise of Ansett in the early 2000s. Ansett was originally supposed to be sold to Singapore Airlines (imagine how awesome THAT would have been!) but instead was taken over by Air New Zealand and subsequently run into the ground. Well, I am aware planes land on ground and from the perspective of those watching in the airport it could be seen as running, though I believe that's a bit of a stretch. Now the DC-8-30, that was a stretch. But I digress.

Virgin Blue's rebranding entailed (hah, that's a bit of a pun) the adoption of the same slender typeface of their American and British operations, and a stark white livery in place of the awfully ugly yet colourful ironic red livery from Virgin Blue. Unfortunately owing to the parent company's part ownership by Singapore Airlines (those guys again!) for some reason this means Pacific Blue and the like can't also be called Virgin Pacific or something cool like that. Which makes no sense, oh well.

Virgin Australia pulled a Japan Airlines

As with Japan Airline's new livery in February, I have mixed feelings about this one. Like JAL, Virgin Australia has adopted a clean, minimalistic new livery which appeals to someone like me who likes clean minimalism. Well that sentence was redundant. So was this one. And this one. Brown sugar... how come you taste so good?

Where was I? Oh yeah, firetrucks. Did you know in airports they're often coloured yellow for visibility? So "Fire Engine Red" in this case would be... yellow. Funny story.

Anyway, yes, so while I do like the new livery from a minimalism perspective, and while I think the stretched lettering over the vertical stabiliser and down the rear of the fuselage looks rather fetching and unconventional, the lettering towards the front is in the same boring spot almost every airline puts it.

Virgin Blue, sorry Virgin Australia, prides itself on being unconventional in a non-threatening, conventional way, but this new lettering at the front is a missed opportunity. Which is a shame, because repainting planes costs a lot of money that could be spent on more of those little crackers and cheese they sometimes give you. Oh yeah, and A320s instead of 737s, they have far more room per seat.

What I'd really like

Despite those No Agenda folks who agree with more often than not, I do prefer trains to planes, and would rather travel on a high speed train between urban centres in Australia, though I know that will never happen because we live in a democracy where the people we elect are only interested in projects that generate short term political capital. The political capital of Australia in Canberra. I mean, what's the point of having long term plans if someone (or some party) other than you can take the credit for it later? Not that I'm cynical or anything. Planes are cylindrical, kinda.

Because really, Virgin Australia implies Australia had never had planes before. And she has. By comparison, she's never had true, regular, electric high speed rail before, so Virgin Australia would make far more sense for such a mode of transportation instead, right? I think I may have pushed that metaphor too far.