Author: Mark

With nearly 31 million airline flights worldwide every year, there is a high probability that you have loved ones or friends who take a flight within these days. It will certainly be reassuring to know where they are just now. Thanks to the Internet and the worldwide air traffic tracking infrastructure, now it is possible to track their flight in real time. If they are coming to a London airport, you can drive to it knowing about when they will arrive. Go to the Arrivals, leave your car with the “Meet & Greet” staff who will safely park your vehicle until you are reunited with the people you are expecting. Even before you see that their plane landed at the arrival board, you can know exactly where their position is in the sky.

Plane tracking can become a hobby

Even if you don’t know anybody riding the skies just now, it is interesting and fun to track flights – and it can easily become a passion. You might see an airplane out of your window, or flying over you, and wonder which airline it is belonging to, or where it is coming from. Maybe you like to know the various airplane types, or taking pictures of planes taking off or landing – you might be amazed by the beauty of your photographs. The above picture for instance is a composition of 75 photos taken by U.S. photographer Michael Kelley showing take-offs of planes at Los Angeles International Airport during  8 hours. The picture below was taken of a commercial airplane just before landing. The vortices created by air swirling at its wing tips from the lower side of the wing to the upper side  – which has a lower pressure, may be seen if the plane is crossing colder air. This event is part of the wake turbulence, the agitated air behind a fast-flying aircraft, and it can create amazing and almost surreal views.

Many websites let you share your images with people having similar interests, and you can find new friends among the “flight tracker” community.

How to track airplanes in real time

You can find numberless airport and airline websites letting you enter the number of a flight – or a date, departure and destination airports, and see if the flight has taken the air, is in mid-flight or has arrived. But it is much more exciting to search for a flight on one of the several websites giving you the opportunity of “live air tracking”.

One of these sites is flightaware.com.
Over a simplified but zoomable World map showing all airports, it shows you the planes flying in real time. Point at them with your mouse and you will see their flight number and details. The site also lets you search by carrier, airport, airplane type etc., and traces a plane’s route. Moreover, there is a large photo page where you can share your pictures with other flight enthusiasts.

Another nice site is planefinder.net/. This site shows a very nice map with physical properties and even roads and airport outlines. Pointing at an airplane shows you the airline logo, flight number, the call sign, altitude and flight speed.  It also lets you search for a flight, carrier, airport or location – and even integrates a “ship finder”, that lets you locate any major commercial and passenger ship. The site retrieves the ADS-B plane and ship data sent by commercial and private planes and ships to transmit their name, position, call sign, status and lots more and adds departure airport, destination and photos for presentation on planefinder.net.

A further live flight tracking site, flightradar24.com ,  is also a great site to track flights. You can just zoom into a location or region, or search by flight, plane type, carrier company – to see its whole fleet being in the air just now, see the picture and details of each plane and its route, and much more. It also offers the possibility to change the World map to satellite map. The information being “real time”, it shows the features specific to our time. For instance, zooming into the Middle East region you can observe that war regions are diligently avoided by commercial aircraft.  There is only minimal traffic to Iraq, none over Syria and over Yemen, and almost none over Libya. It also shows some politico-economic features: Greece and Egypt, which were major travel destinations, wrongly don’t show a great affluence of airplanes. Despite the news stir about Greece’s economic problems and Egypt’s low-level unrest, both countries are entirely safe for tourists – and prices are at their very lowest level just now. So travellers should benefit, both of the discounts and of the facts that the countries are not overcrowded with tourists. Turkey, on the other hand, seems to benefit from this situation – a lot of Turkish Airline planes are in the air…

Airplane tracking is really an enjoyable and amusing activity, even if you just do it as a hobby! And very soon you might well drive to a London airport, park your car in one of our safe parkings and take a ride on an aircraft yourself, knowing that other air tracking hobbyists are following your plane’s voyage just now!

Being a land – bound creature, the human being feels a natural apprehension when he has to leave the secure fixed ground under his or her feet. At least, that was the case before technology made air travel the safest means of transport.

However, there is no other method of transportation being followed, regulated and scrutinized in such a systematic manner as is aviation; that’s why you are about fifty times safer travelling by airplane than you are travelling by car and twelve times safer than travelling by train.  If you feel anxious about flying, just bear in mind that you are exposed to much heavier dangers sitting on a motorcycle, driving in your town or even walking in the street. Even at work or at home the probability of being hurt or succumbing to death is higher than sitting in an airplane.

Safety first – the heaviest tests

During the development of a new airplane, advanced computer simulations are  already performed to test the design and used materials in normal and extreme flight situations, giving the developers a hint of the best configuration to use. A static airframe is than built and after it is tested digitally, by a so-called “iron bird”. After that, is submitted to extreme mechanical tests – not only simulating the real flight conditions, but also conditions that the airplane will never encounter in its future flights. Airbus for example subdued its A350 XWB Airbus to a test bending its wings up to nearly 90 degrees – a situation which will never occur, even if the plane enters a huge thunderstorm. Any commercial airplane has to resist at least 1.5 times the stress it would encounter in the most extreme flying conditions at full load.

In a wind channel further analysis is performed, simulating extreme flight and temperatures, take-off and landing conditions and examining the influence of heavy water and ice on the wings and engines.

And that’s not all – during tests, birds and fowl are shot at the airplane wings and cockpit as well as at the engines through a compressed – air cannon called “chicken gun” – to test the resistance of the plane and reliability of the engines in case the plane will encounter a flock of birds or wild geese in flight.

Although in average there is only one plane hit by a lightning every year, a test is also performed to make sure the plane will resist any lightning storm without major damage. In the U.K., such tests are performed at the Cardiff University’s “lightning lab” .

After all these thorough examinations, prototypes of the plane are actually flown in all most extreme situations possible – including landing and taking off from the hottest airports, the coldest airports in the World and the highest airports where air is thinner – and flying higher and faster than the actual cruise altitude and speed.

In addition, every single built airplane is examined with ultrasound tests to make sure the materials and joints are solid, and  it is also tested in flight, fitted with sensors retrieving its structural data, before and after entering into regular flight service.

If at any time you have doubts about flying, remember that every plane has withstood impossibly extreme conditions before you travel in it.

Airplane maintenance is extremely detailed

Even during its active use, every airplane is regularly checked for utmost safety. It has to undergo regular tests prescribed by the national and international air traffic administrations. Every 250 flight hours – or 200 – 300 take-offs and landings – it is submitted to an “A” check needing between 20 and 50 man-hours of work, depending on the type of aricraft. A more detailed maintenance is performed every six months. Every year a “C” check is performed, with in-depth inspection of many components of the plane. The most comprehensive examination of the plane occurs every 6 years. During the “heavy maintenance visit”, most of the airplane is taken apart for inspection and overhaul. This test grounds the airplane for up to 6 months, and needs up to 50’000 man-hours.

Can you imagine if your car had to be inspected every250 hours you drive? Or be taken apart every 6 years? No doubt road traffic would become much safer, but also much more expensive.

Statistics say: take a flight

Although statistics greatly vary depending on the time period or the method used, they all conclude that air travel is much safer than any other means of transport. Here are some statistics to give you a general idea:

• Per every billion kilometers traveled, trains have a fatality rate 12 times over air travel; by comparison, fatality rates for cars are 62 times greater than air travel.
• In 2010 there have been 30,566,513 commercial plane departures worldwide
• There is 1 in 3.4 million odds of being on a flight with at least 1 fatality in 78 major World airlines; only 1 in 4.7 mio odds of being killed
• 1 in 10 million or 1 in 19.8 mio in one of the 39 airliners with less accidents
• 1 in 1.5 mio and 1 in 2 mio in one of the 39 bottom-rated airlines
• There is a 53% survival chance if aircraft ditches in controlled flight

(planecrashinfo.com)

• A US government study found there were 568 plane crashes in the US between 1993 and 2000, involving a total of 53,487 passengers and crew. Of these, 51,207 – or over 90 per cent survived. Even on the 26 crashes deemed the worst, more than half the passengers and crew survived.
• Even on one of Europe’s smallest and scariest runways, there’s never been an accident
• Commercial aviation was the safest mode of travel in the US, with 0.07 fatalities per billion passenger miles – a person taking a 500-mile flight every day of the year would have a fatality risk of 1 in 85’000

(Telegraph.uk)

• Arnold Barnett, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, fund that between 1975 and 1994, the death risk per flight was one in seven million
• if you didfly every day of your life, probability indicates that it would take you 19’000 years before you would succumb to a fatal accident.
• Despite afifty percent increase in passengers during the ten years after deregulation, there was a forty percent decrease in the number of fatal air traffic accidents and a twenty-five percent decrease in the number of fatalities, compared to the ten years before deregulation.
• Whenever we fly, we have a one one-hundred-thousandth of one percent (.000014%) chance of dying!

( U.S. Bureau of Safety Statistics)

It is safer to fly than to go to bed…

You are more likely to die from a bee sting – or accidental gunfire – than to be killed in an airplane accident. In fact, the simple act of going to bed is more perilous than flying. In Great Britain, 20 people perish each year on average falling from their mattress…

Flight accidents overstated in the media

Every day, there are hundreds of accidents – at home, at work, on the street, all adding to health incidents. However, when an airplane crash occurs, it is described and detailed in the media during several months. On the Internet there are also plenty of videos showing landings in difficult conditions. On the other hand, car and motorcycle accidents – which result in many deaths and heavy injuries daily – are rarely mentioned. As a result, the impression arises that flying is overly dangerous, although the opposite is true.

Of course, every accident death is deeply regrettable. But there is no means of transport in which the causes of every incident are examined as deeply as in air travel, and the international and national aviation federations spare no effort in order to prevent similar accidents in the future.

Turbulence? Less scary than a roller coaster ride

If you drive a car, you are obviously less scared of traffic than if you sit beside the driver, as you are busy and feel in control. In an airplane you can’t replace the pilot, you are forced to sit as a passenger. If you are of an anxious nature,  keep yourself busy. You may be scared when you see a slight bending of the wings; in this case,  remember the tests airplanes are undergoing. The wings are flexible to absorb turbulences and give you maximum comfort. Nevertheless, turbulences are inevitable – air is not an “empty” space (that’s why airplanes are flying), it is filled with movements of the air which can vary – and even oppose each other – according to temperature, speed, wind and weather conditions. So obviously you will feel some “bumps” when flying – light up and down movements or shivering of the plane. However they are natural occurrences and shouldn’t alarm you, as wouldn’t any bumps you can encounter on the road. Just imagine that a roller coaster ride is much, much scarier – and you still enjoy it.

Still scared of flying? Now you can download an app

If you want to be more at ease, now you can download the SOAR Fear of Flying smart phone application from https://engtechmag.wordpress.com/. It is available in versions for iPhone, iPad, and for Android devices. The application includes a G-force meter that you can use to chart the amount of turbulence that you are personally experiencing. Together with the above information, it should reassure you.

Did you ever wonder how air travel – the comfortable, fast and affordable luxury most of us take as granted today – would have looked like for our grandfathers and grand-grandfathers?

In the 1920’s, our grandparents witnessed a period of fast industrial and technological development, despite the after-war economical constraints. Like many of us are amazed by the progress of personal computing, the Internet and mobile phone technology, the generation of the 30’s marvelled at motor cars and the improvement of aviation.

The Beginnings of Commercial Flight

As for much of technological advances, World War I had generated the development of better, faster and more secure aircraft, although their primary purpose at the time was fighting. The war also saw the emergence of a series of small airfields around London– with earth or grass fields – whose primary mission was to protect the town from attacks by Zeppelin airships.

After the war there was a surplus of aircraft, and wealthy entrepreneurs founded small airlines to transport mainly businessman and statesmen. But demand for this way of transport was considered risky, and it wasn’t until four of these companies merged into Imperial Airways that civilian aviation really took off. With its stated aim of competing with French, Dutch, Belgian, German and later American companies and reaching locations throughout the British Empire, the company switched from the wood-based biplane airplanes of the 20’s to the faster aluminium-based monoplane that reached up to 200 mph and were easier to maintain.

Airmail – a precursor for many new itineraries

Airplanes started carrying mail since 1911; but it was only after the end of World War I that regular airmail flights were accomplished. In 1930, the Belgian Prosper Cocquyt was the first pilot to bring mail to London in a night flight. Similarly, airplanes carrying mail and newspapers were often the pioneers seeking out new flight routes and trying new plane types.

London’s International Air Travel

London’s airports also evolved during this period; beside Hounslow Heath close to today’s Heathrow Airport, and Penshurst Airfield that provided an alternative in case of dense fog, Croydon Airport became the main airport for international destinations. In 1925 Imperial Airlines offered regular flights to Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Basel and Zurich.

In the early 30’s long-distance flights  to various regions of the British Empire were added, flying passengers to Cairo, the Arabian Gulf, South Africa, India, and Singapore.  In fact, they were really “long-haul”. In 1937, advertisements prised Imperial Airways flights from London to Singapore in “only” 8 days, with 22 scheduled landings – half a World Tour! From Singapore, in 1935 Quantas Empire Airways and Tasmanian Airways relayed travellers to the British Empire’s remotest locations – Australia and New Zealand. To India and South Africa our grandparents could have flown in less than a week, cutting travel time much shorter than the more traditional voyage by railway and ship.

Bumpy, but luxury!

Despite the technical advances in airplane design, the flights were quite bumpy. The cabins were not pressurized until the early 1950’s, so the planes couldn’t fly at high altitudes and were subjected to harsh weather conditions and turbulence.  But the airlines tried to compensate by providing luxury, comfortable seats and even beds. While the flying style brought up a new fashion, it remained expensive and a privilege of the wealthier sections of society. A flight ticket from London to Singapore could be bought for £180 – about 17’600 of today’s dollars if adjusted for inflation. The fare for the longest route available in 1938, from London to Brisbane / Australia -spanning 12’00 miles, corresponded to today’s $20’000. The price covered everything except for alcoholic drinks. Today you would pay 10 times less for a round-trip ticket.  Nevertheless, from 1930 to 1939 close to 50’000 people flew with Imperial Airways.

THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF FLIGHT

As air travel became widespread, smaller private companies also started their own flight routes – competing with Imperial Airways mainly on European routes. In 1935 they merged into British Airways Corporation, which operated out of the new London Gatwick airport. Both companies were nationalized in 1939 to form British Overseas Airways Corporation – BOAC. Although during the interwar period airborne flight was mainly reserved to a very small section of society, it was the period in which commercial flight witnessed the most astounding technical advances. It greatly reduced the time people needed to reach any part of the World, improved trade and allowed written communication and news to spread, linking all continents of the Globe. Obviously, the start of World War II brought a drastic reduction in passenger flights – and the end of the Golden Age of Flight.

The love for flight matched by the love for cars

In the 1930’s it wasn’t only the huge improvements of flight that captured the Londoner’s interest; improvements in motor techniques also benefited road vehicles, making them faster and more resistant. Your Grandfather may very well have been fascinated by cars. The new motorised vehicles invaded London’s streets, superseding horse carriages.  In fact, in 1934 nearly 2½ million motor vehicles were registered in Great Britain, roughly half of them being private cars.  Although a speed limit of 30 mph was introduced in built neighbourhoods, it was rarely respected, and 1934 became the year with the most traffic deaths.  7,343 people, mostly pedestrians, died being hit by cars. Compare that to 1,713 traffic deaths in Great Britain in 2011, and the 25 persons only who died from airplane crashes in 1932, although air travel was still considered dangerous.

The cost of a new car in the 30’s was nearly half the price of a flight ticket to Singapore – private vehicles were available for between £100 and £135. But the increase of the number of cars also generated the need for new traffic regulations, and new parking space. In 1934, a driving test was introduced, and traffic lights were installed in London slightly before. The first parking meter was installed in the USA in 1934.

Now you can easily imagine how it would have been like for your grandparents to experience flight in the 30’s, if they had the chance to own a car, park it at the airport, and board an airplane for a far-away location….

Since the end of the 19th century, huge migration movements changed the face of the World. Young people who didn’t find work at home – or just hoped for adventure and a better future in a New World – embarked to cross the oceans to the Americas, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and other regions. New migrations waves followed during the World Wars, and many more people hoped to escape periods of economic depression.

Many families were torn apart at a time when the means of communication were still sparse, and the parents lost contact with their emigrated children, and brothers and sisters with their siblings. This situation changed with the spread of the World Wide Web. On the Web, it is easier than ever to search for lost relatives, for your first love, for formers study colleagues, for a friend you didn’t hear from for a long time…

If you know the name and possibly the last location of your lost relatives and friends, a good place to start searching for them is by entering their name and supposed location on the respective country directory on http://www.infobel.com/en/world/. There you will find the phone directories, white and yellow pages and other directories of any country on the Planet. If you know their phone number, you may also do a “reverse search”. But these directories are mainly based on land phones, so it may be difficult to obtain a result. You could also search the widely used Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn directories, or just type their name and location into a web search engine with the hope they are registered with social media or a company, but if their name is common it will be difficult to find the right person.

The easiest place to find people may be the United States of America. There you can easily find a person, his or her phone number and her address. Beside the White Pages, you can access http://www.instantcheckmate.com/ where you will find the age and possible relatives of the searched person. If you continue the search, you will access even more information about the searched for person – including a wider range of relatives and public offence reports. If you agree to use the information only for personal purposes, you will have to pay a 1 month subscription for of US$22.86 (to retrieve your report). You could also try http://free.discoverancestry.com/ , which also accesses U.S. archive sites.

However, your lost relatives or friends may live in another part of the World. That makes the search somehow more difficult, but not impossible.
A site including search in the US, Canada and Australia is called http://people-search-free.com/international/ . There are also paying national sites. A site giving more options and countries is . There is an organization called http://www.lostfriends.org/ ; there you can enter several data, like when you had the last contact with the searched for person. The enetered data will appear publicly on their website, with the hope the desired person will find it. On http://www.ehonissa.com/ , you can also access a face search, but you have to sign up first. If all these attempts brought no results, you may try a site matching the dna data, for a fee of US$ 99; http://familylinks.icrc.org/en/Pages/online-tracing.aspx .

The ICRC established a free website allowing you to locate a loved one in a crisis location, be it in a region hit by a natural disaster or war. This website allowed numberless families to reunite or at least obtain information about their endangered relatives.

Now, if you found the lost relatives or friends, try to contact them through social media, e-mail or by SMS or phone, identifying yourself and reminding them of your family relationship or place you shared as friends.

After the first contacts you may decide to meet in person. You might opt for a stop at their place while you are traveling. Or possibly the searched person is traveling often; this will be the easiest way to meet. Just let him or her stop or meet you at a UK airport while they are on their way to another destination. You can drive to the airport before their expected arrival, let a professional driver from Meet & Greet collect your car and park it in safety, and enjoy meeting the lost family member or friend – or their descendants – with all the emotion and excitement such a meeting involves.

Why should you wait six months – or even one full year – until your next vacations? In fact, our busy and stressful daily life is grinding on our health and our mood. If you have to wait many months to get a refreshing change, you might well have lost hope and lapsed into gloominess.

Of course, you will tell me that traveling is expensive, and the days you can allocate to vacations are limited. That’s true. But there is an ideal solution, which allows you to travel for a reasonable price –and just use some extra days off beside the weekend and official holidays. It will allow you to get a deep mental and physical revitalization.

So, what’s the magic? It’s called City Break, deals including flight and a hotel stay in the chosen city from one to five nights, according to the package and the distance of the city of destination.

How about discovering enchanting Istanbul starting from only £179 for a 2-nights stay in a 5 stars hotel?  Or spend 4 days in Marrakesh starting from £159 to escape fog and rejoice in the sun? In spring and autumn, you may chose 3 days trips with 2 hotel nights to admire the calm beauty of Prague, the amazing history of Rome, have a romantic escape to Paris, enjoy fabulous Venice, or select one of more than 30 other destinations for £199 and less – starting even at £99.

One of your escapes could even lead you to amazing Dubai, where you will pay £379 for a 3-nights stay in a 5 stars hotel, or let you discover the Northern Lights in Iceland complete with a 6-hour ‘Game of Thrones’ tour  for £249.

Imagine the thrill of exploring several different towns, countries, cultures and traditions, taking amazing pictures, experiencing different types of climate, and all that within the same year.

Are you convinced? So start planning the dates for your city escapes, preferably avoiding the touristic high seasons. Look out for “sale” options on several travel websites, or get surprised by “last minute” offers.

Now you are done – ready to drive to the departure airport, to leave your car on its secure car parking, and to board your plane for a new adventure, forgetting your daily routine. You will be stunned how radical the invigorating effects of even a short trip can be – and feel energized to take up your daily tasks again, with your next city break in mind.

While you go on vacation, to a conference or on a business trip, you certainly want to leave your car in secure hands. The airports in London, like in other European towns, are well aware of this need and provide various solutions. And even better, now there are interesting discounts on the parking fee.

If you want to leave for a week, for instance, London Heathrow airport offers you several options. You can leave your car in a secure “long stay” parking, with a shuttle bus transferring you to Terminals 1, 2 and 3. While the normal fee is £149, in May 2015 it is offered for only £75.80. At the Business parking, which is located closer to the airport and has more frequent shuttles, the fee is £210.50, discounted to £92.70. If you fly from Terminal 2 and are very busy, the “Valet” option lets you hand over your car at the terminal forecourt – an employee will park it for you and hand it over at the same place at your arrival. This “top” option costs usually £195.60, but now you can benefit fr0m it at £124.50. For shorter stays, or if you are waiting for arriving

passengers, you can use the “Short Stay” and “Meet & Greet” parking options. To get more specific information and choose the parking alternative most convenient for you, check the website http://longstayparking.heathrowairport.com/ for a quote, entering your arrival and departure date and time.

London Gatwick airport offers a one-week parking fee of only £51 (with a 5-10 minutes transfer time) or £57 (5 minutes bus transfer) to its Northern Terminal. To the South Terminal it’s even cheaper, only £20 and £35 respectively.

Let’s have a look how this compares to parking facilities in other international airports. At Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, you will pay €120 (£89.20) to park your car for one week. In Rome you would pay only €69 (£51.25) for 7 days. One week’s parking at Switzerland’s Zurich airport costs up to €151 (£112.20), in Tokyo €120 (£89.20), in Berlin €100 (£74.30). Munich Airport is expensive with up to €250 (£185.75) and in Madrid takes a fee of only €62.40 (£46.35). While you better avoid parking your car at Vienna Airport – you would pay a maximum fee of €588 (£436.95) per week, in New York, you can park your car at JFK airport for only €96 (£71.35). Of course, these prices are indicative and you can find special offers. However, the peace of mind of having your car parked in a secure location while you are away is certainly worth a price…

At iPARK AIRPORT PARKING we strive to provide the highest level of service to all our customers. Ipark Airport Parking is very competitively priced for short and long stay. Our meet and greet parking service gives you the convenience to drive directly to the airport and be met by one of our chauffeurs.

No buses, no waiting, just the ability to leave your car and check in within minutes of arrival at Heathrow.
Whether you’re flying from terminal 1,3,4 or 5, you will be met by a professional, friendly and insured chauffeur who will take your vehicle directly to our secure compound (within 1 mile from the airport) where it will be kept until you are met in the terminal on your return to Heathrow.

Taking the stress out of Ipark Airport Parking
We make the start and end of your journey as smooth and stress free as possible. Our customers find it especially beneficial when;

Travelling on a tight time schedule particularly business travellers
Travelling with a large or bulky luggage e.g golf / windsurfing equipment
Travelling with young children or people in need of assistance
You don’t have to wait for a bus in Ipark Airport’s car park, call an expensive taxi or ask friends for a lift.

If your flight departs or returns at an unsociable hour, with our Heathrow Parking service you won’t have to wait around at the airport in the dark. For departures simply call us 30 minutes before your arrival at the airport, using the number on the prepaid booking confirmation.

You must call us again to confirm that you have returned and wish to be picked up, when our driver will bring your car directly to the passenger terminal ready for you to drive away.

All our staff are fully trained, insured and will have held a full UK driving licence. Also the operative will help you with all your luggage, do a full vehicle inspection and provide you all the information you require for your return journey.

For an instant online quote for your parking insert your dates and click the “get quote” button – it couldn’t be simplier.