Eideard

Do I really need to go to New York?
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Continental Airlines Wednesday apologized to former Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam for frisking him before a recent flight to New York.

The apology came a day after Indian civil aviation authorities lodged a police complaint against the U.S. carrier in New Delhi, accusing it of gross violation of Indian security protocols that forbid pre-embarkation body checks on a number of dignitaries, including former presidents…

“We have tendered a formal apology to Dr. Kalam and we sincerely hope he will fly with us again,” Continental said in a statement…

But it noted that the regulations of the TSA and its Indian equivalent, the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, were sometimes incompatible.

“We hope the respective government authorities resolve these differences at the earliest in order to avoid any recurrence of this situation in the future,” the airline said.

After all, the whole world must recognize they are required to live by the rules and standards of the United States. If that includes the codified paranoia of the idiots at Homeland Security and the TSA – learn to live with it, folks. Our clowns politicians are in charge.

Daylife/AP Photo by David J. Phillip

A US airline has completed the first test flight of a plane partly powered by biofuel derived from algae.

The 90-minute flight by a Continental Boeing 737-800 went better than expected, a spokesperson said. One of its engines was powered by a 50-50 blend of biofuel and normal aircraft fuel.

The flight was the first by a US carrier to use an alternative fuel source, and the first in the world to use a twin-engine commercial aircraft (rather than a four-engine plane) to test a biofuel blend.

The flight from Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport completed a circuit over the Gulf of Mexico, and pilots carried out a series of tests at 38,000ft, including a mid-flight engine shutdown.

“The airplane performed perfectly,” test pilot Rich Jankowski told the Houston Chronicle newspaper.

“There were no problems. It was textbook.” Continental Airlines chief executive Larry Kellner described the biofuel as a “drop-in fuel”, which meant that no modification to the aircraft or its engines was required.

The fuel was a blend of algae-derivative and jatropha – which regular readers will know is one of my personal favorites. I’m not certain how far along the production of raw fuelstock has come. Pilot operations and small scale production are still ramping up. But, the rate at which these alternatives are being developed – smack in the middle of a recession – is encouraging.