F_I_2015_02_17_23_

STRAIGHT&LEVEL

48 | Flight International | 17-23 February 2015 flightglobal.com

From yuckspeak to tales of yore, send your offcuts to [email protected]

100-YEAR ARCHIVE
Every issue of Flight
from 1909 onwards
can be viewed online at
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Weaving a lasting impression

warrugs.com

Know your enemy

The public are advised to

familiarise themselves with the

appearance of

British and

German Airships

and Aeroplanes.

Should hostile aircraft be seen,

take shelter immediately in the

nearest available house and

remain there until the aircraft

have left the vicinity.

Weather eye open

The private citizen often jeers at

our weather forecasts because

they do not tell him

if it will be safe for

him to leave his

umbrella at home

today. But that is a matter of

local forecasting, which is very

different from the weather

plotting which has to be studied

before large-scale military

operations can be undertaken.

Joining forces

The Minister of Aviation

announced on Tuesday,

February 9, that

Britain and the

USA were planning

to develop jointly

an advanced lift engine for

V/STOL aircraft, and to co-

operate in other research and

development projects.

German victory

Airbus Industrie has agreed in

principle to assemble the A321

in West Germany.

After a protracted

political and

industrial wrangle

over West German efforts to

break the French monopoly on

Airbus assembly, the four-nation

consortium has asked for a

management report on the

financial implications of the

proposed assembly of the

A321 in Hamburg.

Rex Features

Last year it departed from service. Now it’s being de-parted

Biman DC-10...

rest in pieces

So, a final farewell then to Biman
Bangladesh’s McDonnell Douglas
DC-10, which made its last flight
last year.
The 1979-built trijet, now in
storage in Dhaka and originally
operated by Singapore Airlines, is
being offered in bits, with tenders
being issued for its airframe and
separate landing gears. Responses
are due by 3 March.

Carpet bombs

Ever considered the idea of
brightening up your house or
office with an authentic hand-
woven Afghan rug depicting
unmanned air vehicles, F-16s
or Kalashnikovs?
It might seem the ultimate in
poor taste, but the floor-
coverings are considered
collectors’ items and important
historical artefacts, according to
WarRug.com, which says it
began selling the rugs in flea
markets in New York, and
nowadays offers them for sale
on its website.
Although rug weaving is a
tradition going back thousands
of years in central Asia, the
practice of creating war rugs
began in Afghanistan around
1980 – at the time of the Soviet
invasion of the country – when
the images depicted, such as
grenades, tank columns and
anti-aircraft batteries, were
becoming part of everyday life
for the village women who

Boeing south

Awkward moment at last week’s

Pacific Northwest Aerospace

Alliance conference in Seattle

when attendees had to endure

an infomercial about Charleston.

The city, of course, tempted

local hero Boeing to build its

new, non-union factory in South

Carolina, to the fury of

Washington State politicians,

labour organisations and

suppliers.

To an audience of Boeing-in-

the-blood northwesterners, that

must have been like serving

Coca-Cola at a convention of

Pepsi salesmen.

Nancy Cox

Nancy Cox, activist for aviation

safety and better crew working

conditions, and prolific

correspondent to Flight in the

1960s, has died aged 94. An ex-

stewardess and married to an

airline pilot, she was in 1964 a

founder of the Air Safety Group,

which campaigned for flight time

limitations, among other things.

In her nineties, she was still

writing to newspapers. One of her

missives supporting the British

Airline Pilots Association campaign

against bringing UK flight time

limitations into line with Europe

was published in The Sunday Times

in 2012. She called the proposal “a

truly backward step geared in favour

of operators rather than the safety of

airline passengers”.

created them.

Later, says WarRug.com, strict

Taliban rules about depicting

people or even animals in art

encouraged weavers to seek

other Sharia-compatible subjects.

Acro-nimble

Ever wondered why futuristic

engineering studies are always

known by rather cheesy

names, where the snappy

abbreviation appears to have

been thought of first, before the

full title was tortuously

worked out around it: Next-gen

Intelligent Civil aircraft Engine

• Optimising New
  Environmental thinking (Nice-
  One), or whatever?
  “If you don’t have a decent
  acronym you don’t get any
  grant money,” confides one
  boffin at an unnamed East
  Midlands engine maker.