I had this one as a pre-teen.
1/121 scale, so nice and compact. A little finicky and small but I did OK with it.
I remember the red-and-white markings, so that’s why I thought it was Monogram. It definitely wasn’t 1/121 scale. I only built, 1/72, 1/48, and 1/32 airplanes. The smallest scale I built was a 1/100 P-3 Orion.
Would love to add this to our space and aircraft collection but too much money on a fixed pension.
Won’t be going back to North America.
Still wondering about this, more in general than this specific case.
Does the destination country usually expect or demand that all people or crew leave the airplane? What about staying in the transit area versus boarding another plane or passing border control?
Does the destination usually care or even know how many people / who specifically are on the plane?
Will a plane usually be searched after deboarding?
Good questions all.
The destination country will be given a complete passenger & crew list electronically after departure and before arrival. Do their immigration folks check that everyone passes through immigration? I don’t know, and I’m sure it varies by country, but they could.
It is normal that a complete security / smuggling screening of the jet inside and out takes place on the ground at non-US stations between every flight. They dig around in everything everywhere.
For the shorter flights I did, from the US to Central America, Caribbean, etc., it was common for the crew to fly in from the US, stay on the airplane, then fly it right back out to the US. Depending on the times / distances involved, sometimes we’d make 2 such round trips in a single workday.
The key thing was that while on the ground in the non-US city, we all had to stay on the plane or right underneath it. If even one crewmember headed up into the terminal (e.g. looking for food or duty free), then we all got to deplane with all our luggage, do immigration and inbound customs, then exit to the non-secure side of the airport, then turn around and do emigration & security screening to get back onto the secure side again. Where all the terminal amenities are. Finally, purchases made, we get back on the plane with all our luggage and re-stow all that stuff. So there was a lot of peer pressure against doing something that dumb unless we were planned to be sitting there for more than about 3 hours.
For a long flight such as the one we’re discussing here, part of the issue is that even if riding as a passenger, the crewmember is still technically at work. And subject to the government rules and the airline contract rules. It would be a contract violation to fly, say, US to Europe, then be ordered to immediately deadhead back without a legal rest in a hotel. That said, I could sure imagine the airline saying “Tough shit, son; sue us. Next time, don’t forget your damned passport.” for some weird situation like this.
I think I’ve posted this before, but see the first entry here.
Could you give some pesos to one of the ground crew to go inside & buy you a burger so you didn’t cross the magic threshold or I’m guessing that was verboten, too?
I just watched this video (below) from the YouTuber “Mentour Now!”
Is there a real problem with US ATC? Should I be worried flying today?
(24 minutes)
Maybe you can quiz the pilots on how to recognize a runway. Seems to be the mistake of the month.
Flightradar24 just popped up a featured flight for Concorde flying London to New York for the first time in 21 years. Is this an April Fools joke? Or has one been dragged out of mothballs?
Joke.
Five letters, starts with a T, red and white on the flag…
I wonder what maintenance issue would prevent the plane from going to Tokyo, but would allow it to fly over half the US (Seattle and Denver are mentioned) before landing in Dallas. If I was a passenger, I’d be a little annoyed. Diverting to Dallas was convenient for American Airlines, but I wouldn’t appreciate being crammed into an airline seat for four extra hours to divert all the way to Dallas, and probably four more before I eventually het to Tokyo. Not to mention that’s a lot of extra fuel to burn.
Something related to ETOPS would be my guess. Whatever it was, it was probably not legal for them to fly across the Pacific without it, but it was acceptable to fly across the US, where there are lots of airports to divert to if something goes wrong.
That’s probably correct. It would be interesting to know exactly what the problem was. Serious enough to not fly over the ocean, but not so serious they have to land right away.
And as I said, as a passenger I’d be miffed that they did what was most convenient for the airline, but maybe not for me.
As the article mentioned, going to Dallas may actually have been the best option for the passengers, even though it meant more time on the plane. Since DFW is AA’s biggest hub, it offered the most possible options for rebooking passengers on other flights, and more staff to assist them.
It offered the most possibilities for rebooking the passengers on other American Airlines flights, but they aren’t the only ones who fly to Tokyo.
I understand why they would divert the way they did. They probably wanted the plane in Dallas so their own mechanics could fix the problem. And it’s probably in their interest rebook me on another American flight to get me to Tokyo. They’re a business and I don’t begrudge them the opportunity to do what’s in their own interest. But I do get annoyed when companies do what’s good for them and say they’re doing it for me.
If it’s due to an engine failure I would prefer a closer airport than DFW. The redundancy factor diminishes greatly if the other engine fails.
Unlikely that they’d fly past good alternates with a failed engine. It doesn’t need to be a particularly serious issue to force a return to the USA, just something that would be impractical to repair in Tokyo and that would then lead to significant disruptions to subsequent flights. The airline would be working to minimise the total disruption to all passengers, not just those on the affected flight. It might be worse for the 300 people on the aircraft to divert to Dallas, but better for the 1000 or so others who are flying later.
Another common diversion tactic is to return to the departure airport because a good number of the passengers would have their home there and would probably prefer to be home if they can’t be at their destination.
The mystery TCAS spoof attacks at Reagan airport earlier this (last) month have been explained. Several aircraft got false TCAS alerts over a period of several hours.
Turns out the Secret Service and Navy were jointly testing a counter-drone technology near the airport, at the time of the incident. The technology uses the same spectrum as the TCAS system, and the FAA had advised them against the tests, due to the possibility of TCAS interference.
Incredibly they did this after the mid-air collision that occurred at the same airport, on the same approach. Another “what were they thinking” moment. 