Virgin Galactic unveils White Knight Two

by Grant Martin on

Virgin Galactic unveiled the White Knight Two, their delivery vehicle for SpaceShipTwo at their Mojave construction facility today, to glorious fanfare and celebration.
White Knight Two is the second version of the mothership that will deliver the suborbital commercial space vehicle, SpaceShipTwo up to 40,000 feet before the daughtership cruises up into low orbit.

Virgin’s rollout of the ship is the first step in testing the new second phase of their commercial space flight system — a variety of static and flight tests still need to be done before the second duo are ready for real test flights. Indeed, SpaceShipTwo is still under construction and was hidden under a black sheet during the ceremonies today.

Check out the exclusive gallery of Gadling’s visit to the White Knight Two including visits from Sir Richard Branson, Buzz Aldrin and Richard Branson and stay tuned for a Gadling report on the entire event later this week!

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Virgin Atlantic’s “big” announcement

by Jeremy Kressmann on

As Grant mentioned last week, Virgin Atlantic has been up to something. When they started sending all kinds of cryptic emails to their frequent fliers last week, our minds started to run wild. What could it be? In flight jacuzzis for upper class fliers?! New solid gold airplanes?! Personal in-seat LASERS?!

Last night, Gadling headed over to the Frank Gehry-designed IAC Building in Manhattan to find out. After all the suspense, it turns it was for the launch of a new Virgin credit card. Meh. If you’re looking to throw down enough money to wrack up one million miles you can redeem them for a trip on Virgin’s new space flights, Virgin Galactic. Think you can spend enough? Yeah, me neither.

While the announcement wasn’t as momentous as we had hoped, Virgin did manage to throw down a pretty swanky launch party, complete with free massages courtesy of Virgin’s spa partner Cowshed. You wouldn’t have to twist my arm to fly Virgin, the service is awesome. But only if somebody else was paying for my ticket – they are downright expensive. Hey Virgin, how about a ticket giveaway so we can let Gadling readers try for themselves?

Virgin Atlantic and their crafty marketing schemes

by Grant Martin on

Fine, Virgin Atlantic. We’ll bite. But we’re not happy about it. We’ve been digesting small buzzletts about your shenanigans coming up next week on June 12, but we’ve been holding off because it always gives us the willys when we propagate shameless marketing tactics.

It all started with some emails you sent to your loyal flying club members, saying “Have we got something for you, Juliana! It’s brand new. It’s coming soon. And it’s extraordinarily unordinary“, but only promising to reveal the goods on June 12. We also hear that you put up fliers in the office and spread the buzz around your flight crew as well — and now we’re all equally mystified.

While we all stare at each other stupidly, I think it’s time for some rampant speculation.

  • Branson is shutting down Virgin Atlantic and is using the airplanes as personal skis in his new world record: skiing down Mt. Everest on airplanes. He’ll have one 747 strapped to each leg and one to his ego.
  • Half of coach will be torn out and converted to a hot tub and day spa lounge for “elite” first class members. Economy tickets will thus cost twice as much.
  • Due to the rising price of oil, all passengers are required to bring their own 55 gallon drum of unsweetened crude oil. And you have to pay baggage fees to check it.
  • For every 100lbs of overweight luggage (or passengers) onboard, the crew get to toss one passenger out over the Pacific Ocean.
  • To save costs, London bound flights land on an airstrip in the English Channel and they have to find their way to land.

Regardless of the outcome, VA is hosting a press conference in the City to announce the tomfoolery on June 12. Our own blogger Yaromee Kressmann will be there to get the scoop. Stay tuned for the details.

[via Jaunted]

New Virgin V Australia flights to fly between Sydney and Los Angeles

by Grant Martin on

Is Richard Branson singing you to sleep and feeding you oatmeal in the morning yet? No? Well then he hasn’t yet nuzzled his way completely into your life. Not to fear, you’ll be wearing Virgin loafers and listening to Virgin Radio on your Virgin phone some day soon.

Branson’s newest airline venture, an off-shoot of Virgin-Blue, the new Australian Low Cost Carrier, is called simply V Australia. He plans to fly routes between Sydney and Los Angeles on Boeing 777’s in direct competition to Australia’s national carrier Qantas, who currently has a stranglehold on the market.

Because of tight supply, Qantas has historically been able to charge around 1500$ for a round trip flight between the two cities. Branson hopes to kick off some serious competition on the route and this past Monday announced the first 1,000 tickets would be sold for 777$ — those sold out almost immediately.

For what its worth however, the Chipmunk-eque British billionaire did promise fares in the 375$ range sometime in the future. We’ll see if that ever comes to fruition.

Service is slated to start in December of this year, with tickets already on sale for journeys afterwards. Rest assured — Gadling will be on hand to test drive the new service too. Word on the street is that they’ll also be partnering with Northwest Airlines, so look forward to the potentials of mileage and booking alliances.

Check out V Australia’s website for more info and to book tickets.

Experts question biofuel use while Virgin fuels flight with coconut-oil

by Abha Malpani on

I’ve always had an intellectual crush on Richard Branson. He is one of the most fearless high-achievers I can think of today and never fails to surprise. So, when I read that his new idea that involved operating one of Virgin’s Boeing 747’s on jet-fuel (80%) and the oil from 150,000 coconuts was a preliminary success, I was, yet again, bamboozled.

The 40-minute flight from London to Amsterdam demonstrated the successful use of biofuels for the first time on a commercial flight and could possibly lead to a revolution in environmentally friendly aviation.

Many airline companies in association with the CAAFI have been working on using alternative fuels for their planes: synthetic jet-fuel, fuel derived from coal, gas-to-liquid (GTL) fuel. Earlier this month a 3-hour test flight by Airbus 380 was successful using GTL, the plane didn’t realize the difference and it was marked as the first step towards developing biofuel (biomass-to-liquid).

Although this would not be used (yet) for commercial flights, Branson’s bold attempt to jump the boat and get straight to experimenting with biofuel has, of course, caused an uproar among environmental groups: using coconut-oil on a large scale has many detrimental effects in the countries it comes from, encourages deforestation, etc.Branson’s next step is to nurture algae — a sustainable next-generation oil — to perhaps achieve the same on a larger scale. This idea, of course, has also been attacked along with mounting evidence that biofuels in fact do not reduce carbon emissions, and that algae may produce more carbon dioxide rather than not.

Initially, alternative fuels that will eventually lead to use of sustainable biofuels was the answer to responsible air and road travel; now, thanks to new evidence, another study on the environmental and economic impact of biofuels has been demanded for.

What’s admirable about Branson is that he doesn’t waste time or banter, he just comes up with a valid solution that no one has thought of, or thought of but not had the guts to give it a try. Everyone else just seems to keep coming up with studies and theories, and studies and theories. And after all these studies and theories(!), why are we going around in pointless circles?