Rich heiress builds California house out of scrap 747

by Grant Martin on

Your house is definitely not the coolest on the block unless its made out of jumbo jet pieces. Francie Rehwald, daughter to a family owning multiple Mercedes Benz dealerships across California, just started construction on her new house made completely out of fragments of a scrapped Boeing 747. For forty thousand dollars, Rehwald purchased the pieces from an airplane junk yard in the Mojave Desert and after waiting over a year to get 17 permits pushed through the bureaucracy, finally just started taking delivery of wing segments.

The house and various surrounding structures will be built out of every single piece of the aircraft. In addition to the main 4000 foot square homestead, pieces like the nosecone will be used for a meditation pagoda while the tail will be used as a viewing platform for the surrounding area.

Rehwald, who says “I love to recycle, I love green houses and contemporary architecture, and I especially love nature and the natural environment,” apparently believes that this structure will be a sustainable, green alternative to conventional construction.

What’s interesting to me is that Rehwald still considers herself a staunch environmentalist in spite of the ruckus and cost involved. Sure, she’s recycling old materials to use for her home, but do the economic and environmental impact of moving the parts up to LA justify it? A helicopter costing $10,000/hour was required to move large sections of the wing, while several sections of the expressway had to be closed to move other parts up the coast. Would is just be better two melt down the aluminum and recycle it? It seems kind of selfish to me.

That tanker order might not be going to Northrop and EADS after all

by Grant Martin on

Remember that huge ruckus earlier this year when Northrop and EADS won a contract to supply the US Air Force with a multi-billion dollar tanker order?

Americans went livid when they found out that a partially European (not French) company was going to be supplying equipment for the US Armed forces and the entire affair turned into a political whining point. People claimed that the French (not Europeans) would be taking American jobs, although many would still be created with Northrop plan, and few seemed to take some time to look at the facts: Boeing’s aircraft was the weaker tanker.

On departing the competition, the Chicago based airframe manufacturer vowed to fight on, and lo and behold, their appeal to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found traction. Earlier this week the office determined that the competition was held unfairly and that the Air Force gave extra points to the opposing team where they shouldn’t have; you can read the gory details in this WSJ article, but I won’t bother you with them.

While these findings aren’t binding requirements to force the Air Force to rerun their competition, it’s a step in the right direction — an earlier recommendation by the GAO to rerun a helicopter manufacturing contract passed and is currently underway.

Now, if the entire competition goes back to the drafting table, Boeing will have a second chance to proffer the “correct” tanker and take another stab at America’s “overseas competition”. All at the cost of countless engineering, design, management, political and lobbying hours and even more tax dollars.

Fair is fair though, and as several commenters on the the above post and the GAO point out, you can’t award a contract on an uneven playing field.

May the best aircraft win.

Now where did my jumbo jet go? There it is!

by Grant Martin on

Anyone lose a Boeing 727 lately? I just checked my hangar and all of mine are in stock. Girlfriend check one out? Nope, she’s on the yacht.

Well someone is missing one. Vietnamese officials at Hanoi’s Noi Bai airport can’t seem to figure out who left the aircraft at their airport late last year; it’s currently sitting collecting dust at on the tarmac with an outdated order for “essential maintenance”. Nobody has bothered to claim it.

Looking at the aircraft, there is a Cambodian flag on the skin with the name “Air Dream”, but the Vietnamese don’t seem to have any information on the airline — whether that’s a testament to a defunct, outdated airline and aircraft or the failures of the communist bureaucracy, I’m not sure.

Meantime, I have half a nerve to send one of my Vietnamese cousins up with a briefcase full of parking fees and say that the 727 belongs to my family. I’ve been meaning to bedazzle one of my aircraft and park it out on my front lawn in The Hamptons. Maybe Gridskipper will pick up the story.

What strange things have been found on planes?


Click the image to read the bizarre story…

[Thanks to moody75 for the tip]

Russia to produce new Sukhoi jets

by Grant Martin on

Is airframe production the mark of a successful country? The US has Boeing, Europe has Airbus, Canada has Bombardier, Brazil has Embraer. Even China’s trying to get in on the business with the China Comercial Aircraft Company, even though that’s going to take a couple ten years to get rolling.

Russia’s flagship producer, Tupolev, not unlike their progress as a democratic nation, has been pretty lethargic. Much of their production has been in the commercial sector while very few new aircraft designs have surfaced.

Under a new commercial wing of The United Aircraft Building Corporation (UABC), however, things are starting to turn around. UABC, Russia’s new manufacturing congolmerate (which will soon run Tupolev as well) is now employing Sukhoi Corporation to start production of a new series of medium range jets.

The first, dubbed the Sukhoi Superjet 100’s, are already well underway. First test flights were just complete this week and the company has an aggressive production schedule that includes initial deliveries later this year.

Their plan is to directly compete with medium range aircraft — those like Bombardier’s CRJ’s or Embraer’s E-Jets — but mostly in the Russian market. Reducing dependence on foreign airframe manufacturers (not unlike China’s plans), will therefore make their economy stronger.

Don’t expect to be flying on any Superjets in the near future though. Most of the initial orders have gone to Russian carriers and even then it’s going to be a few years until all of those orders are fulfilled. Until that point, I’m still happy flying on Tupolev 154.

Get your super jumbo jet today! Airbus to raise price of A380 by $4m

by Grant Martin on

Good thing I’ve already got my order in. EADS and Airbus just announced that they’re increasing the price of the A380 because the dollar keeps tanking. While the European conglomerate still does most of their business in Euros, the problem is that their aircraft are priced in dollars. This means that when the dollar falls against the euro it cuts into their bottom line.

It also makes competition difficult because Chicago based Boeing, their primary rival, does most of their business in dollars and their costs have fallen with the dollar. Now, potential aircraft customers are going to find Boeing aircraft a better deal than Airbus.

In that respect, EADS is sort of between a rock and a hard place. EADS CEO Louis Gallois referred to the Euro as a “Sword of Damocles” for the struggling company(obviously). Why can’t American CEOs use obscure Ancient Greek references as metaphors for modern economics?