A380 lands in Sydney, Dreamliner still just words

Journalists have it tough. They must report factually (never easy when truth can be so dull). They must separate fact from opinion (which requires both insight and time-consuming research). They must meet their deadlines (don’t we all?). And they must write appealing prose that targets their readership or audience. In other words they are horribly compromised by eternal conflicts of interest and can never be trusted. If you’ve ever been involved with putting stories together with journalists you’ll know that your words are often accepted holus-bolus (which is great if you want to get your spiel out there) as that’s the easiest (ie laziest) approach for them. However if your story is too insipid, or if they want to prove a point of some kind then don’t expect much of your story to get ‘out there’. Instead it will vary from ‘enhanced’ to ‘total fabrication’. You can’t blame ‘em really. Anyway, today’s brave words are from news.com.au: MORE than 50 of the world’s airlines can’t be wrong in their choice of Boeing’s hi-tech Dreamliner ahead of the A380 “big bird” from Airbus. Wow, that many airlines can’t be wrong, eh? Airlines are never wrong, never make mistakes when choosing one aircraft over another, no. Never. Funny how this gushing story also coincides with the arrival of the first commercial flight of the A380 into Australia. The article continues to enthuse with:The moulded carbon-fibre “plastic fantastic” has yet to fly but is already the most successful new airliner in aviation history. Yes, the fastest selling commercial airliner yet to be seen… and indeed it hasn’t been seen in the air, either. But gee that A380 already has its wings… can’t let Airbus get any leverage out of that, can we? Anyone got the original Boeing press release handy?

East-West Airlines F27 VH-EWJ at Sydney, 1976 (runway 25)

An ANZ DC-10 at Sydney, 1977: ZK-NZG

Some interesting airliner links...

• The World Airline Historical Society... interesting meeting place for airliner anoraks/nerds/enthusiasts
• Craig's Aviation Collectibles... for the "wow" factor, if you collect airliner postcards (as I must admit I once did and probably still do, given the box of cards at my feet)
  
• Apparently Kaysellscards, in packs, too. Playing cards, one imagines... of airliners and trains??
• If you have the time, look behind the Green Door
• And check out Mike Charlton's Airline Postcard site, too
• Visit the Aviation Postcard Club (which looks a bit expensive and uses the dreaded .PDF file (aaaargh! why do people do this, why not use HTML and CSS unless you really, really need to preserve absolute, exact formatting online?)
• And last but not least, don't miss Bill Demarest's wonderful collection.