In Flight Use of Cell Phones???

You got it, our European friends have just passed a law that will allow for the in-flight use of cell phones. With that winning vote, travel has become 10x more annoying. It's bad enough having to listen to someone in the terminal, but on the plane, the last place of some solitude? May the lord be with you should you be sitting next to a loudtalker, I may have a hard time not pressing the end button.

For the Eurpoeans, the only saving grace is that it will not be cheap to phone home from 37,000 feet up. According to the BBC, the service will start appearing as early as next month, starting with Air France—which apparently is ready for deployment—and following with low cost airline Ryanair. I hope this never happens in the US and if it does, I hope it is $10/min to keep most yahoos off their phones.

See the simplified technical drawing below.

Happy 20th Birthday Airbus A320

It was March 28, 1988 that the first Airbus A320 was delivered to Air France for testing and training and it entered into service on April 18, 1988. So, really, this is an ongoing birthday celebration from March 28 - April 18, 2008 as there is not really a "born on date" like with humans or Bud Light beer bottles.

Please note that me posting a Happy Birthday message to the A320 does nothing to make me like Airbus any more than I did previously, I am simply reporting the interesting news of the day to our faithful readers. Airbus lovers (unlike myself, did I make that clear) laud the A320 as the one that got Airbus in the commercial aircraft manufacturing game.

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