Flying With Fish The Blog for Those Who Fly & Those Who Want to Fly Smarter

I have the pleasure of spending this entire coming week in England bouncing between London and Farnborough while attending the Farnborough International Airshow.

The biennial Farnborough International Airshow, which alternates years with the Paris Air Show, is a major international air show where airlines, aircraft leasing companies, private operators and aircraft manufacturers often display their new aircraft, share their new concepts and announce purchasing orders. In 2008 US$88,700,000,000 worth of orders were announced, with a few hundred thousand visitors attending to buy planes, sell planes, watch the daily air shows, visit the aircraft parked aircraft displays and enjoy the fresh invigorating aroma of jet fuel in the air.

While I plan on enjoying my time at the Farnborough International Airshow I can look forward to a week of 6:00am meetings followed by a packed schedule of building a fluid social media strategy and developing content for Bombardier Aerospace…

…so much like Disney World, in order to take in everything the Farnborough International Airshow has to offer, you need to start your day early, stay late and keep your eyes open.

I hope to find the time to keep Flying With Fish flying along while I am here … I am sure they’ll be plenty to write about!

Below is the first of my social media projects for Bombardier, a video of Gary Scott, President of Bombardier’s Commercial Aircraft discussing the Farnborough International Airshow.

Happy Flying!

When boarding a flight, any commercial airline flight, from any airport in the world, you hear the same message … “Please place your carry on item under the seat in front of you. For those seated in the bulkhead, please place your bags in the overhead bin for take off and landing.”

There is a reason your bags must be stowed under the seat in front of you, especially in the bulk head, not jammed under the seat your sitting in. Well actually there are two reasons … 1) The bag must go under the seat in front of you for safety reasons. Should something happen during take off and landing your bag would become a flying projectile … 2) The bag must go under the seat in front of you, not under the seat you’re sitting in, because the space under your seat is for someone else’s bag and their feet.

I bring up this travel etiquette issue after encountering some very rude people seated in seats 7G & 7H, the bulkhead seats on my US Airways flight on an Airbus A330-243, this past Friday.  Upon settling into my seat, sticking a pillow against the wall of the aircraft from my seat in 8H to rest my head, and trying to nap for my overnight flight, a couple settled into seats 7G & 7H.   The woman in 7H kept pushing her bag as far as she could under her seat, pushing my bag out from under the seat, and taking up all my legroom.   When I asked her politely to place her bag in the overhead bin, since she was in a bulkhead, her husband turned to me and told me to “chill” and “we paid for our seats just like everyone else.”

I still have no idea what that meant, but when a flight attendant told them they needed to place their bags in the overhead bin the husband then turned to her, pointed to me, and said “Dude is OK with the bag being there.“  I assure you I was not OK with it and I was not OK with with the couple then making rude comments about the flight attendant as she placed their bags in the overhead while we taxied to the runway.

So … next time you’re in the bulkhead seats, please remember to place your bag overhead and not jam it under the seat you’re sitting in.  The person behind you is entitled to the space directly under your seat for their bag and their feet.

…oh and try not  to be rude to your fellow passengers.  No one likes sitting in a 17-inch wide seat, with a 31-inch seat pitch, for a seven hour flight.

Happy Flying!

I’ll be the first to admit that there is a dizzying array of iPhone camera apps available in the Apple iTunes App Store.  I often skim over the different camera apps because most are either copies of other apps, or just don’t offer features or an interface that I find appealing for my limited use of the iPhone as a camera.

This week’s iPhone App off the week joins only three other ‘regular use’ iPhone camera apps … including the pre-installed iPhone Camera that is part of the iPhone’s operating system. Given that there are more than 125 camera related apps available on the iTunes App Store and I only choose to have four (including the one that is a permanent part of the iPhone) it tends to take a lot for a camera app to catch my attention.

This week’s iPhone App of the Week is Camera+

Camera+ isn’t the hippest camera app on the market, nor does it have the most functions, but for me it is one of the quickest apps to shoot and process images. While I have never shot deadline images with an iPhone … nor do I intend to … the quick processing speed of Camera+ for cropping images, using the white balance functions and adding a bit of ‘spunk’ the photos makes the app very enjoyable to use.

For some fun with Camera+ users can choose from a variety of colour corrections, white balance setting, ‘retro looks’ and even add borders to the images. I know that many iPhone Apps are capable of doing this, but not all App features are equal.

For portraits and when you just can’t get as close as you’d like, the zoom feature available in Camera+ is sharper than most other iPhone camera apps I have tried. The 5x zoom is not a replacement for a DSLR and long glass, or the optical zoom of a high-end point & shoot camera, but it does its job pretty good in a pinch.

For shooting quickly I enjoy the grid pattern displayed on the screen when using Camera+. Unintentional uneven horizons are annoying, regardless of camera used to shoot the photo. The grid pattern is a great feature for all iPhone photographers.

…oh yea and if you’ve had too much coffee for breakfast … Camera+ incorporates an image stabilizer into the app. The image stabilizer won’t help you shoot from the open door of a helicopter after dark, but it will help you at dawn, dusk and indoors when there is enough ambient light for the iPhone to shoot in, but not enough to shoot at a high enough speed to eliminate the issue of camera shake

With more and more people uploading their iPhone photos direct from their phone to Twitter, Facebook or Flickr, as well as e-mailing the images, Camera+ is the only iPhone camera app I have used that has never crashed, even once, while uploading an images to Twitter.

If you like shooting photos with your iPhone … check out Camera+ … you’ll probably like it.

Below are 16 screen shots of Camera+ from my iPhone.

Happy Flying!

Sometimes I see Apps on the iTunes App Store that just make me chuckle, however this week’s iPad App of the Week both makes me chuckle and actually works.

With more than 2,500 variants of mosquitoes around the world (and the London Underground literally having essentially an entirely different species of mosquito than the rest of the planet), mosquitoes are a problem nearly anywhere you might travel around the Globe. With my backyard often being filled with mosquitoes flying around in the evening I downloaded this week’s iPad App of the Week out of desperation of being bitten while working outside … but I had no expectations of it actually working … much to my surprise … it worked!

This week’s iPad App of the Week is Mosquito Repeller.

Mosquito Repeller works in a rather ingenious way … it does not create a blinking blue light that zaps mosquitoes out of the skip, it does however generate an inaudible sound wave in the 16,000Hz to 21,000Hz range is irritating to mosquitoes.

The Mosquito Repeller App features three levels of audio, which can be adjusted by users by tapping the “Power Button” on the iPad screen.  I must admit I never tried Level I or Level II, I went right for Level III of anti-mosquito noise and it seemed to work quite well.  I know it sounds a bit odd to sit outside with your laptop for work and your iPad to keep the mosquitoes around, but in a pinch it worked and I am less bitten up due to this App!

Mosquito Repeller costs a mere US$0.99 and is worth every cent.

Below are four screen shots of Mosquito Repeller from my iPad.

Happy Flying … or Happy Non-Flying for those pesky mosquitoes.

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The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has battled many public relations gaffs as the young agency finds its feet overseeing transportation security in the United States. The agency promotes its career opportunities on its careers website as “From law enforcement to technology and from security operations to management, we are looking for dedicated people with the skills and desire to join us.”

Given the public perception issues the TSA faces, and its interest in recruiting a ‘better class of candidates’ you have to wonder why the TSA has chosen to place ads for its Transportation Security Officer (TOS) positions at Washington DC’s Reagan National Airport (DCA) and Dulles International Airport (IAD) on lids of take out pizza boxes with the headline of “A career where x-ray vision and Federal benefits come standard,” and the pitch of “See yourself in a vital role of Homeland Security. Be a part of a dynamic security team protecting airport and skies as you proudly secure your future.”

I know many corporations and federal agencies are seeking creative recruiting tactics, but an agency that spends more than 98% of its US$7,101,828,000 budget on aviation security should be able to access a better recruiting strategy.

Rather than recruit people sitting at home eating pizza, why not target those coming to their end of their military enlistment or those in college seeking a degree in law enforcement?  Is wide area recruiting the best tactic for a nation’s “Homeland Security” agency responsible for screening more than 2 million people per day?”

I know if I was looking at potential job applications and in the section where you write in how you heard of the position someone wrote in “saw ad on pizza box” they probably would be tossed in the reject pile immediately.

Presently the TSA is hiring part time screeners at New York’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA) with a pay range of US$15.74 to US$23.61 an hour. In this economy, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting that more than 14.6-million people in the United States are unemployed as of July 2 2010, the TSA should be able to find qualified candidates using a targeted approach rather than wasting tax paying money using a pizza delivery box as part of its recruiting campaign.

Below is a photo of the current TSA recruiting ad  as displayed on the Federal New Radio website, shot by WTOP’s Michelle Basch.

Happy Flying!

(Federal New Radio Link : http://bit.ly/9jU7Vv)

For many aviation enthusiasts airplanes are like fine art. We all have our favorites airplanes and airplanes we find aesthetically pleasing … for me its the Lockheed L-1011.

For one aviation enthusiast … OK … let me try that again … for one significant aviation geek extraordinaire, the melding of airplanes and art has spawned an incredible collection of aircraft illustrations.

Dr. JP Santiago, MD, lives an unassuming life by day in a family practice … and by night his alter ego, an aviation geek and artist of epic proportions, creates incredibly detailed and realistic aircraft illustrations, many of which stretch the imaginations of hard-core airplane geeks … and one of which adorns the office walls of multi-billionaire, businessman and former Presidential Candidate H. Ross Perot.

On the surface the work JP Santiago creates, using the company name “The Chicken Works,” may seem a bit ordinary, but the majority of the work, created using Adobe Illustrator, is far from ordinary.

The subtle details of each aircraft, laid against the subtle blue background with opaque livery often give the full details of the aircraft depicted as well as some text regarding the airline’s use of the aircraft.

Beyond the exquisite details related to depicting of historical aircraft, Santiago’s Chicken Works illustrations also often take an unusual turn with his series of “What If” aircraft.  The “What If” series of illustrations depict aircraft and airline combinations that never were, or airline liveries that were never painted on to an airline’s aircraft.

The “What If” series of illustrations from The Chicken Works takes significant time to imagine an aircraft and livery combination that never was, and even more skill to carefully lay that livery onto an aircraft without any guide on how it should look. With no guide to work with, but having to stay within the parameters of real aircraft and a livery that did exist, on other aircraft, is a brilliant combination of skill and imagination.

…so what illustration by JP Santiago hangs in Ross Perot’s office? His first print, created in February 2007 of a Braniff Boeing 707-320C that was chartered by Ross Perot in December 1969 to bring gifts to POW’s held captive in Vietnam.

Below are five of my favorite illustrations created by JP Santiago … and I’ll tell you why in order that they are displayed below

- Cathay Pacific DC-10-30 with 1983 Cathay Pacific livery. I love this “What If” illustration because not only did the airline never fly the DC-10, but they were dedicated to the L-1011.

- Southwest Airlines Boeing 727-200 with current livery. While Southwest Airlines is famous for operating an all 737 fleet, the airline did briefly fly leased 727s in the late 1970s and again in the early 1980s. This “What If” illustration depicts the unique look of the current Southwest Airlines livery on an aircraft that never even flew with a proper Southwest livery all.

- PSA DC-10-10 with 1970s livery. Much like the Cathay Pacific DC-10-30, I enjoy this “What If” illustration due to the fact that PSA never flew the DC-10, this airline was dedicated to flying the Lockheed L-1011.

- Delta Air Lines Boeing 727-247 with current livery. Delta Air Lines flew the Boeing 727 from 1972 to 2003, having flown 184 727s in its fleet … but they had all been retired from service before Delta released its current livery. This “What If” livery depicts a Boeing 727-247, acquired from Western Airlines during the airlines merger, painted in the current “Angry Widget” livery.

- Western Airlines Boeing 707-347C “Indian Head” Livery. This illustration is a beautiful rendering of a classic airline livery with text that lends its self to the historical background of the aircraft.

Brings from JP Santiago’s The Chicken Works generally range from US$15 to US$40 depending on the size of the print.

Visit The Chicken Works online at www.thechickenworks.com, and follow JP Santiago on Twitter at @SentinelChicken

Happy Flying!

(Click Images Below To Enlarge Image)

Since I am flying off to London at the end of the week, albeit with US Airways, I have the Union Jack on my mind … and since British Airways just took delivery of its first Boeing 777-336ER, the first airline in the United Kingdom to operate the 777-300 series aircraft … I thought I’d share the time lapse video created by Boeing for British Airways of the aircraft’s construction.

British Airways becomes the third airline in Europe to operate the 777-300, behind Air France-KLM and Turkish Airlines, with all three airlines’ aircraft being powered by the General Electric GE-90 engines.

Click below to launch the video.

Happy Flying!

Back in October of 2009 All Nippon Airways (ANA) began an interesting initiative to reduce the airline’s carbon footprint by asking passengers to empty their bladders before flying. All Nippon Airways stated that asking passengers to empty their bladders would lead to lighter passengers and reduced lavatory waste, which would translate into a lighter aircraft and reduced fuel consumption. I wrote about this in detail here : Will Empty Bladders Reduce An Airline’s Carbon Footprint? ANA Says “Yes”

Last week in a bit of an ironic twist on asking passengers to empty their bladders, All Nippon Airways has announced they will launch a draft beer keg service on board domestic flights.  Each flight will be limited to only twenty available cups of draft beer, with the exception of Tokyo-Okinawa flights, operated by Boeing 744D & 773 aircraft, where 40 cups of draft beef will be available.

An issue ANA will face in serving draft beer from a keg in flight is air pressure. Kegs are pressurized on the ground, and that pressure changes as the aircraft is pressurized in flight. To counteract this, ANA is installing specialized kegs for the aircraft. I am curious if these kegs are CO2 pressurized with a traditional tap, or since the kegs are very low quantity and sure to sell out quickly they employ the hand-pumped “party pump” tap that requires the user to pump air into the keg.

Additionally … ANA claims it is the first airline to offer in-flight keg beer … Brazil’s Varig airlines previously served keg draft beer in their first class cabin on long haul flights.

A cup of beer from the in-flight keg will cost ¥1,000 (US$11.30) and leaves me with this question … does anyone else see the irony is asking passengers to empty their bladders before a flight … the offering in-flight keg beer service?

Happy Flying!

Sometimes the best Apps are the simplest Apps … and this week’s iPad App of the Week is one that makes creating concepts and sharing ideas as easy possible.

This week’s iPad App of the Week is Adobe Ideas.

Adobe Ideas takes the simplicity of using the iPad and transforms it into a highly functional sketchpad for professionals (or kids or anyone really). I have found the App outstanding for not only getting my ideas down, but also sharing them with people around me and others around the world.

As a person with virtually no artistic skills when it comes to drawing, I still like to create basic drawings to help frame out ideas. I use sketches for myself and clients (who hopefully look past the fact that I can’t draw a straight line) and Adobe Ideas helps me easily put these ideas out there, instantly, with ease.

The ease in working with Adobe Ideas is that users simply tap to create a new project, then choose the colours they wish to work with and then sketch away with their fingertip. A stylus may be used on the iPad’s touch screen for more precise drawings. Users can draw away, and erase everything from the last finger movement or use the eraser tool to make corrections as they sketch on the iPad screen.

The ease of use in changing colours is fantastic to make different areas of a drawing stand out, this is something not easily done in a meeting with a yellow legal pad and a pen in your hand.

The virtual canvas created by Adobe Ideas is nearly limitless. If you come to close running out of space on the edges, simply use your fingertips to “pinch” the screen to shrink your drawing and add more content.  I have found this great for adding notes to myself with the sketches or simply adding additions to my awful drawings and self created charts.

Made a mistake in a sketch when fleshing out an idea? Adobe Ideas allows for a 50-level undo. This feature is great for making corrections without the need to use the eraser to get your idea back on track.

For more precise drawing, and avoiding the eraser and undo functions, users can select a variety of brush sizes, thus allowing users to maximize their potential putting their vision down on a virtual sketch pad.  Along with various brush sizes, user can adjust the opacity of the colours, allowing users to write or draw content over content in a very effective manner.

Adobe Ideas allows users to create multiple layers, but unfortunately my drawing skills are not conducive to having anything line up … but I do see the significant value in this feature if importing images from the iPad library or you can actually draw with skill

Once a sketch is ready to be shared users can e-mail their Adobe Ideas creations as a PDF via iPad Mail.

Earlier this week I used Adobe Ideas in a meeting where I sketched out an idea in front of my clients … and when I was done with my crude drawing (which they watched me create) I simply dropped it into an e-mail from my iPad and sent it to them.   I made a few screen shots of my use of the Adobe Ideas iPad App as I sketched out my idea on the screen.

Below are 10 screen shots of the Adobe Ideas iPad App from my iPad.

Happy Flying!

Each week I receive quite a few e-mails from App developers offering me promo codes to check out their Apps … and a good number of these Apps are for airline flight trackers, travel booking and other related travel and airline Apps. For the most part I tend to skip travel-tracking Apps because 99.9% of them are direct copies of other Apps on the market.  For a travel App to really stand out it needs to offer me something that is different, or give me a user experience that is superior to all others … and this week one such App did that.

This week’s iPhone App of the Week is eSkyGuide from American Express.

In many ways eSkyGuide is similar to many airline and travel tracking Apps I have used on the surface, but specific aspects incorporated into the eSkyGuide make stand out making it an excellent tool for travelers.

I’ll skip the basic features, such as live flight tracking, gate information and baggage carousel information … which are all extremely useful, but common … and jump the major features that I think make eSkyGuide unique and an excellent App.

Top of the list for me … for travel to unknown locations eSkyGuide offers a feature than I find absolutely fantastic, as well as being the single feature that really attracted me to the eSkyGuide App … the Airport Finder option. The Airport Finder option allows users to type in an address, or major point of interest, and be presented with the information for the closest airports.  Along with the listing of the closest airports, the eSkyGuide App also provides distance to the airport as well as a basic map showing the two location points.   The Airport Finder feature is something that I have sought after for a long time, especially when traveling to smaller destinations I am unfamiliar with.

If the Airport Finder function of the eSkyGuide had been sold as a stand-alone App … I would have bought it!

For checking flight schedules, the eSkyGuide allows users to search for flights on either a 1 day or 7 day schedule. Being able to look at flights on a 7-day schedule is fantastic when plans quickly change. This is a little feature that may be easily over looked, since most travelers tend to look at a one-day flight schedule when using their iPhone. The seven-day spread, including the display of flights that are sold out, is a great tool when schedules change quickly and you need quick access to multiple options.

Unlike many airline travel Apps, the eSkyGuide App provides a wide selection of flight connection options and alternate routings, rather than just the non-stop and “popular” routings. Having easy access to a wide variety of flight options is essential when making quick schedule changes, or when trying to find a new flight option when encountering a flight cancellation.   This feature does not replace the ‘create your own routing’ option many seasoned road warriors have devised for themselves, but even seasoned road warriors will appreciate this capability when needing to quickly create a new travel itinerary in a hurry.

As a little bonus, the eSkyGuide also offer one-touch tap-to-call access to phone numbers for staggering number of airlines, rental cars and hotels. This feature is great for calling-while-walking when you don’t want to waste your time looking up the number.

On the whole, the total sum of options offered by eSkyGuide, including the expected features and the unexpected features, makes this App a fantastic tool for travelers.

Below are 18 screen shots of the eSkyGuide App from my iPhone.

Happy Flying!

Traveling while injured is never fun and I’ve been doing it since the end of March when I significantly injured my ankle, then broke my ankle, injured it again and in the process managed to tear a few ligaments along the way.

Yesterday my traveling schedule included hobbling through four flights, three airports and two trips through immigrations and customs, which was less than comfortable for my ankle. In a significant amount of pain I made my way to the US Airways Club, between Terminal B & C, at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) between my third and fourth flight of the day to find some ice for my foot.  Upon entering the Club I walked up the bar and asked for a small bag of ice…which lead to some very odd looks from the bar tender. Once the bar tender at the US Airways Club understood why I wanted the ice he told me to go sit down and he’d bring me a bag of ice…

…and bring me a bag of ice he did!

I looked up to find the bar tender bringing me a large take out food sized plastic bag filled with ice for my foot. I looked at him a bit puzzled and questioned how I’d get that bag to stay on my ankle, and with that he told me he brought me a bag of ice big enough for me to place my entire foot in to bring the swelling down.

Honestly, this has to be one of the best experiences I have had in an airline lounge anywhere in the world. I have received outstanding service from various airline lounges, but this assistance from the US Airways Club bar tender went well above what I ever expected.

I wish I had taken the bar tender’s name, but even without his name, I’d like to publicly thank the Bar Tender at the US Airways Club, between the B & C Concourse at Philadelphia International Airport, who was on duty around 5:30pm yesterday, the 6th of July.

You Sir are an absolute credit to both US Airways and PHL and you really helped me out when I was in a lot of pain.  I sincerely hope someone at US Airways can get this message to you so you know how much I appreciated your help.

Normally I’d never suggest people take their shoes off in the airport, or airline lounges, for a wide variety of etiquette rules, but in this case I am glad someone told me to throw etiquette out the window and stick my foot in the bag of ice.

Below is a photo of my foot in the bag of ice … not that anyone wanted to see my foot in a bag of ice.

THANK YOU AGAIN!

Happy Flying!