Ben Sandilands
Editor of Plane Talking @PlaneTalking
Ben Sandilands has reported and analysed the mechanical mobility of humanity since late 1960 - the end of the age of great scheduled ocean liners and coastal steamers and the start of the jet age. He’s worked in newspapers, radio and TV in a wide range of roles as a journalist at home and abroad for 56 years, the last 18 freelance.
Amateur videos captured visible rings of rippling shock waves from a rocket launch in Florida last week, when completely unexpected, the Solar Dynamics Observatory blasted past a ’sundog’ caused by suspended ice particles in the air.
Qantas' ambush introduction of underlying profit metrics, rather than traditional profit metrics, in its presentation and Q&A is likely to be a tougher sell to fund managers than it was to the media.
Although cynics said it would never work, British Airways has signed up for a revolutionary biomass-for-jet-fuel process which will power part of its fleet from 2014, reports Ben Sandilands.
Low cost air travel doesn't have to be just a squishy and boring affair. South African budget carrier Kulula Air paints their planes humorously, allows checked bows and arrows and flies golf bags for free, explains Ben Sandilands.
The failings of the Joint Strike Fighter program are obviously, although Australia is yet to raise the issues with the US. Will Australia lead, or continue to be led by the nose into a project that is beginning to stink badly?
Physicists in America have just made an alarming discovery about electrical storms and jet airliners. It seems that terrestrial gamma ray bursts originate in thunderstorms, but be weary of any tabloid linkage to air travel.
Jetstar has launched the first customer guarantee by an Australian airline today. Ben Sandilands filters through the spin to work out exactly what you'll get if they screw up.
Scarcely a month after entering a low cost carrier alliance with Air Asia, Jetstar's battered Vietnam ambitions now face competition from a joint venture in the form of Vietjet Air Asia.
The pre-Barack Obama-visit package of security measures yesterday announced by Kevin Rudd are purely window dressing, ultimately ineffective at doing anything but making the lives of travellers more miserable.
There is no remotely practicable combination of procedures and technology that can remove the risk of a terrorist attack on the population at large, writes Ben Sandilands -- and the government knows it.
